Practice #1

So the first practice is over and...I survived! There are a LOT of people in the beginning class with me--way more than they usually have, we were told. To start the class, we learned how to skip both forward and backward. One of the hardest things we did was we skipped (to music) in a circle for many, many laps. By the time we stopped, we were all completely out of breath. After we had gotten comfortable with skipping (again, both forward and backward), we learned a step called sevens. We practiced this step until the experienced dancers had arrived.

The way the class is structured is the beginners learn together for half an hour. After half an hour, the experienced dancers arrive and as a huge group we practice actual dances. At the end of half an hour of mixed class, the beginners can leave and the experienced dancers continue on with more difficult dances.

During the mixed class, the beginners all got paired up with an experienced dancer and we learned a progressive dance that incorporated the few steps we had learned at the beginning of our class. After we danced a few rounds of this and got the feel of dancing an actual dance, we were given a break. During this break, the experienced dancers showed off for us a bit--kind of like "this is what you'll be able to do in a while." At the end of the class, the officers were introduced, we had some announcements, and the beginners were dismissed.

All in all, I had a lot of fun and got a great workout. I'm very much looking forward to next week!