Dance Your Cares Away!

Dance your cares away
worry's for another day
Let the music play
Down in Fraggle Rock!



So the Fraggles, who the kids are supposed to like and therefore emulate, are basically cracked out (just look at their eyes) hippies who live in a commune and steal from others for survival...

The other classes, the Doozers and the Gorgs, are the workers and farmers of this society and they're constantly belittled and made fun of. Fraggles don't just destroy the buildings that the Doozers erect, but they consume them. Literally consuming the resources of another culture and thinking little of it. The people that are working hard to build an infrastructure are trivialized and their work is consumed by hippies... there has to be some kind of rhetorical statement being made there. Then, we look at the Gorgs, the rich and agrarian group. They are portrayed as greedy and stupid; always being outsmarted by the agile hippie fraggles who steal their radishes.

No wonder my generation has little respect for the honorable professions of construction and agriculture... we were indoctrinated to believe that those workers are insignificant and ignorant!

PS - This is just based on my memory of the show and is a pretty shallow analysis. I was really just in a sort of bad mood when the theme song played on my Zune. It made me happy so I wanted to share the song... as I was watching the video is when I started thinking about all this other stuff...

I'm Intimidating

I must be. I've had two women at the studio tell me now that my first impression to them was one of intimidation. One of which absolutely loves me now and the other... well she sort of intimidates me. But what am I supposed to do?

It's a fine line to walk. I don't wanna (and can't) come across as the stereotypical flamboyant homo dance instructor that all the women find endearing and all the men are afraid of. I also don't want to be perceived as some jerk who thinks he's better than you. Now to be honest, she didn't know that I was an instructor at the time, and I was in an 'I'm new and I need to demonstrate my qualifications' mode; so she really thought I was just some jerk telling her to change something. But then I was told just how different I am from the, very popular, bubbly/happy female instructor... all from someone who's never even taken a class form me. In actual group classes I'm crackin jokes left and right and make things really relaxed. Maybe I need to act a little more fruit-salad to put the ladies at ease... but that might hurt my private lesson business...

AHH!!!

My bota fogos are wrong! Ugh... at least half of it is wrong, and the fact that the first half is wrong is now throwing off my second half. Basically I've been doing the first part just like the second part, well now I know to do the first eighth or quater very much like the first eighth or quater of a rumba walk (without the compression/settle). Straightening that forward leg before the heel leaves the ground; leg rise then foot rise (I was rising with the foot, then the leg before). Although I shouldn't really use the term rise since that would imply fall... but I can't think of better terminology right now. Then the second part is the same as I've been doing it, but with a smaller step so that I can get more hip action, and I need to put more/faster rotation on the 'a'.

Plus I really noticed how bad I am about not going diagonal enough with those... it makes a huge difference for travelling down the floor.

This revelation of leg rise first has thrown my mind into a craze considering the implications to crisado's walks...

It's Friday... and it's kinda nice that I don't have anything planned to do today other than teach my class, and today is a speech day so all I have to do is watch and grade. I like chill days.

I'm looking for a beach companion for the weekend. You don't have to look in a bikini, but it would be an added bonus (... you probably shouldn't have clicked that link...).

So yesterday was pretty good. I went on campus and watched speeches, which are about as good as I can expect for a summer session. I had lunch with my Mom, we went to a decent little pizza/italian place (although her sandwich looked a heck of a lot better than my slice of pizza. I hadn't seen my Mom in a while. Even though she's cane free now she still walks with a bit of a limp.

Last night I went in the dance studio and had my two hours with Carol. She has complete faith in me and leaves everything in my hands. I keep trying to remind her that she's the boss, but... anyway, I'm really happy with her progress. I'm throwing some really difficult concepts at her, and I'm being just as critical with her as I've ever been, but some how its all fun. She's amazed when I can sense that her knee is bent (even though its clear to me that its bent from how she's standing on it) and I'm like some guru to her. It really makes me wonder just how much of a crappy dancer you can be and get away with teaching dance at a studio like this...

After the lesson Janet asked me to hang around so she wouldn't be the only one to answer the phones if they started ringing wildly (they never did). So I went in and helped out with Adrianne's class. She is probably one of, if not the, best dancers at the studio. She's got a background in general dance, and she teaches class just like its a tap/jazz/hip hop class. She starts the music and loudly yells out '5..6... 5678 with a country girl twang. I always forget about the differences between ballroom dancers and dancers... Her students seem to love her, so I guess that speaks the most about her. She's a somewhat attractive, petite little girl, and I don't think I've got her figured out yet. It seems like everything is just a little too interesting to her, like she really doesn't care but feigns interest like a good southern girl should... but like I said, her students lover.

Most of the class went out to this fancy bar on 6-forks... can't remember the name, its in peachtree plaza, and they invited us along. I'm not sure this was the case, but I got the impression Adrianne wanted me to go so she wouldn't be the only young person there. It was fun, apparently this is one of this later-middle aged groups who must have partied a lot in their youth. They go for a drink after every class, this place is the best spot for mojitos (that one you can click). Anyway, they had a couple of drinks, someone bought me a club soda (I was surprised, as I thought it was water when I gulped it... water with gas).

All in all, Thursday was good, let's see what Friday holds :)

Cuban Break-through!

Well I just had a group class with Inga... (damn, I forgot how hot she can be). So, I've been going a little too crazy with this lifting of the heel thing. The heel will still lift to allow rotation of the foot, but it's not so much lifted on its own as it's drawn up by... wait for it... the hip settle of the same leg. Now wait, you say, how can you lift a heel if you're settling on that foot? Because the action is fluid and it only begins to ever so slightly rise up as the hip pulls the free leg over. Then, when you pop the free foot in front and transfer partial weight to it, the now back heal is off the floor fully with tons of toe pressure (rather than the ball of the foot on the floor, this might be wrong but I'll wait to be corrected).

She pointed out that I am collapsing my top when I compress. In my desire to get a full compression I've been pulling my shoulder down with it, and it's breaking my side and creating a bad line. It seems like there's almost two separate points of compression, the hip and the lat. Before I've been thinking of it as a point between those two that crunches, but I think its two 'crunches' at once. I don't mean crunch, but flexing of muscles. However I think about it, the important part is keeping my top very up and tall, giving me a bigger look, and then achieving the 'champ' look by rotating that top over my compressed lower half. I'm still a little fuzzy on how to describe it. I'm at the 1st level of understanding right now with this. So, I may not be describing it quite right yet.

Good lesson. I learned a lot and got really sweaty. Def worth the $10.