Practice #5

Yeah, yeah, I know. At this point, it might make more sense to wait until after Monday and do another double entry. But I'm not big on the "sense" thing, so I'm going to update NOW (also, apparently I'm not very big on the "sleep" thing either).

At Monday's class, we finally had our permanent teacher back--Ann Richens. She'd been away traveling the world for the last three weeks or so, so we hadn't seen her since the first class in September (we'd had step-in teachers from the Richens/Timm Academy, who were cool too). It was fun getting to show Ann all we'd learned over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I was just getting over a week-long virus and hadn't regained all my strength or energy yet, so I ended up having to sit out some bits so I didn't kill myself. Seemed like a good idea to me.

We started the class with a review of everything we've learned up until now. After doing all of that (and working on sevens/threes until I'm pretty sure we all felt like we were going to die), we learned another new jig step (heel and toe). We then ran through both "Walls of Limerick" and "Seige of Venice". This was particularly strange for us, because this was the first time the beginners had danced these two alone. There were so few people! Usually we're all running into each other. After this, the advanced dancers arrived. Ann tried to get the beginners to practice sevens/threes again in the back while the advanced dancers did some skip laps, but we somehow managed to confuse ourselves...and kind of almost run into the back wall. Ann then had the beginners do a skip lap while the advanced dancers watched, and then everyone did a couple laps together...wow that was a big circle!

We then got down to work on "Trip to the Cottage"...working on making sure everything looked good. We didn't really end up getting much further than we have over the last few weeks, but it was good practice of the first half. It's going to be interesting when we move on to the second half and the pretzels...I know a few of the beginners (Becky and Abra, mostly, because I talk to them the most) have be interested in learning that part.

After class, while the advanced dancers kept practicing, it was finally time to order shoes!!! My brand new ghillies should be arriving in a couple weeks, and I can't wait to finally get to dance in them.