Long Camel

Lesson today and we focused on my upcoming Dance tests. But first: 

I was working on spins before my lesson and they were feeling pretty good. In fact, I did one camel that had some speed and was right on that sweet spot! I think I counted 5-6 revs on just the camel alone and then the scratch coming out of it had about 8-10 revs! I think this may have been the best spin I've ever done! Like...EVER! Of course, Christopher wasn't there to see it and I didn't get it on video so it's almost like it doesn't count. But it was there! That means it's evolving and I'm getting better at this whole camel thing! Yes!

Before our lesson began, Christopher and I had a discussion about whether or not I'll register to test as Standard or Adult. We are thankfully both on the same page with this. I will register as Adult. Although he said I could pass at the Standard level, there is going to come a time when I'll need to switch over to Adult anyway and he thinks I'll have a better shot at passing with honors if I register as Adult. Okay, we're doing this! Aghghg!

Swing - I've been able to improve this quite a bit. His main criticism is expression. This is such an awkward dance for me because it's the first one where we are in waltz hold face to face. I either keep looking down or turning my head away from his when I look up. He told me to just look past his ears...and SMILE. We ran it again to try it out and although I didn't smile, looking past his ears was really helpful. I even skated better! Who knew? 

Cha Cha - This still has a couple of spots that need some polish. I need more emphasis on stepping on the inside edge on step 3 and again right after the slalom. Speaking of the slalom, I'm still picking up my right foot at the end of it. It doesn't feel like I am but he took video and there it is. I have to really concentrate on not doing that or else it's just going to happen naturally. 

Fiesta Tango - This is getting better but I'm still messing up that last step. We made some progress on it during our lesson, though. Turns out that I'm not holding the XF-LBI for the proper length of time so I step forward before Christopher is ready to (because he's holding his correctly). As a result, I push him away. Now that I know this, I can fix this. 

So yeah, I'm getting close to these dances feeling pretty good. Test day is Thursday November 18!