Today I was an idiot. Actually, no, it was 4 of us and a misunderstanding. I left work with plenty of time to get to my tap class, then saw my friend R from Wednesday evening tap class was waiting to go in. We hadn’t seen each other since July, so we were chatting away catching up on things. It turns out she did get to go to the Rambert workshop in July, but she went to day 2 of 2 (I went to day 1). I think she must have danced with most of the people I danced with on the Monday as most of them were doing both days. She enjoyed it as much as I did and also felt, as I did, that the yoga at the end of the day was a bit too advanced! Anyway, after a while I tuned into the fact music had been playing for a little while, looked in and realised the class had started! Two other girls from the class had been chatting as well, so we all scurried in together and realised we had missed 10 minutes!!!
Anyway, our teacher explained that everyone who was in level 1 had stayed on for level 2, so I guess the four of us outside the studio were waiting for people to exit, alerting us to the fact we could go in, but no-one did! So we missed the warmup š¬ She also said it felt like a strange atmosphere. I think because of that weirdness at the beginning. I think we soon shook that off.
We did a couple of exercises and got straight into the Cornflake Girl routine, which I have been practicing and studying all week. I have come to the conclusion that I work better under pressure in dance. I actually felt like I was ON IT today! No lazy hesitant left foot. Did some quick alternating side shuffles which feature in our routine and I think it was the first time I’ve actually done them evenly! But my teacher did pull me up on my cat claw toes, which is my trademark. I think it helped doing the shuffles with the two newer girls who tapped as kids. They knew what they were doing so I just went with their speed. Fun!
Learnt a rhythm turn which seemed complicated, but it’s really not. Not until you try to do it on the left… It just takes practice.
The routine is brilliant, probably my favourite so far after the heel drop heavy I’m only Human After All routine. Challenging, complex, creative!
This weekend I’m going to start reading my new book about the Jazz Tap of theĀ Nicholas Brothers!