shanmonster | Dance Me to the End of Time

I have at least six people registered in my introductory dance class. That's a relief. I hope more will join us next week. I'd like to have about ten students in the class. My Mom didn't show up, of course. She says she'll come next week, but I'll believe it when I see it. She's been claiming she'll come to my dance classes for about two years now, and it hasn't happened. She used to come, about two and a half years ago, and she liked it, but she got out of the habit, I guess. None of the guys who said they'd like to take classes showed up. Again, I'm not surprised. From my experience, most guys who say they're going to take classes don't bother doing so. And even when they do show up, they flake out. Of course, this is typical of most of my female students and would-be students, as well.

Dedicated students are rare treasures. I'm lucky to have some.

snowy_kathryn and random_echoes, my two most advanced students, had performances today while I taught class. I hear the event was disorganized, and the sound man screwed up their music, but they improvised and dealt with the problems, garnering lots of positive feedback. They're sparkle-covered billboards, because, by way of their dancing, they might be bringing more students my way. And the more students I get, the more experience snowy_kathryn and random_echoes get in teaching. At this rate, they'll be ready to teach their own classes within a year or so.

Today, with the help of Advil Cold and Flu tablets, I was able to teach an upbeat introductory class. All but one of the students are novices, and the one with experience has only taken three or four classes. I have a Mom and daughter team (the girl is in grade three, and is very hyper). I introduced them to correct posture, muscle isolations for hip slides and hip circles, rib isolations on the horizontal plane, head circles, camel undulations, shoulder shimmies, and hamstring-driven shimmies. We did some very simple combinations (a proto-choreography) with the moves they'd just learned to a remix of U2's "Mysterious Ways," finishing with a video of a Suhaila Salimpour performance, a half hour of strength- and balance-building exercises, stretching, and a little bit of improvised dancing. Not everyone could keep up with the strength-building exercises, but everyone worked well at their own rates. Next week, I want to review everything, introduce snake arms, and also hip raises, drops, and sits.