Monday 06 Feb 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, Helen said she would be in class on Wednesday, and wasn’t. I knew she wouldn’t be around for the Friday class. So I had nobody to dance with. (Except Mavis, who has a cold, and a lot of other people to sort out.) And hell, we only did the Foxtrot and the Pasodoble anyway. So all in all, a pretty boring class. I tried to talk to Nicole afterwards, and just got a facefull of abuse about how I’m “not trying” to improve my dancing because I don’t have the time or the space to do any dance practise outside of class.

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Thursday 02 Feb 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

Debbie says: “I hear Laura made you work really hard last week? Really? Well you’re gonna work even harder tonight! ”

Yep, that’s about right for Debbie.

Actually it wasn’t too bad. But we spent quite a while practising pump basics, and Nicole seems adamant that we’re going to use that all through our (still non-existent) competition routine. Personally, I want to learn to do flick basics properly first, but Nicole isn’t interested. We shall see…

We tried to speak to Debbie at the end of class to set up a private lesson, but it didn’t happen in the end. Hopefully I can set something up by text today.

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Tuesday 31 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

So on Friday we spent forever doing the Foxtrot. Yawn. Oh, and then the Pasodoble. Yawn. Still, I did get to dance with the lovely Helen all night.

Saturday there was a school dance. This didn’t seem to be very well publicised. And yet, it was fairly packed out, so maybe I’m just inattentive. Helen brought cookies. (She also complained that she baked 70 of them by mistake, and she’s already eaten 10 and people need to eat them so she doesn’t eat any more…) Nicole arrived looking nice, in a top she apparently bought half an hour earlier. And a great time was had by all. (Although I have to say, despite Helen’s comments to the contrary, my R&R performance was pitiful. And Nicole made sure I knew it.)

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Friday 27 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

No Debbie on Wednesday. She’s in Spain. So I guess that’ll be why she hasn’t answered my text yet. Instead we had Laura. And she worked us hard. In particular, we started the class with some pump basics. The good news is I think I’ve finally got the necessary coordination to do this well. The bad news is, after 20 seconds or so, my thighs were burning. And the next day I was having trouble walking. And today I’m crippled!

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Thursday 19 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so last night, we danced. I arrived a little late, and by the time I got in everybody was already dancing — to a surprisingly fast stroll. Clearly Debbie is in one of those moods again. Warming up with the Panic Routine with flick basics went surprisingly well; it felt more in control, and I wasn’t destroyed by the end of it. There’s hope yet! Then of course Debbie told the men to move around, 3 places, and general chaos ensued.

We danced many things. Tiger Feet slowed down. A combination involving the Umbrella and some Swivels. I got to do Double Trouble with Nicole and Helen. (Helen seemed mildly flattered. She also complained that she’s losing her dancing talent. I didn’t notice any such loss.) We finished with Baby Workout.

The big news, of course, is the exam results. It seems almost everyone I spoke to scored 92%. That includes me and Nicole. Honours, baby! I also love how the examiner wrote the exact same comments for both of us: “A very enthusiastic dancer. Strong lead.” He then crossed out the latter statement on Nicole’s report, since she’s not supposed to be leading (and wasn’t, in fact). But she does lead sometimes, and she is very good at it.

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Monday 16 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, *I* was talking my first gold bar; Nicole was just doing silver.

Unusually, the exam was scheduled for 6pm. I arrived at 5, Nicole a little while later. Lots of kids around, at least initially. We did eventually get to do some practise though. I was quite surprised to see Nicole looking uncharacteristically agitated. She said she was so nervous she felt sick. Damn, and I thought she was so fearless…

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Monday 16 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so in Friday night we all went to see Si Cranston at Cogenhoe. When me and Nicole arrived, that made ten of us — so a goodly amount. Nicole seemed far more interested in chatting to everybody else than actually talking to me, sadly. As I had expected, the place was pretty crowded. The DJ didn’t play particularly good music, but we managed to get some dancing done. Of course, with an exam tomorrow, we really wanted to practise our routine. But it’s not very easy to practise big space-hogging moves like the Windmill when the floor is crowded. Nicole did a great job of smiling so hard it looked like she was about to bust our laughing.

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Friday 13 Jan 2012 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, Wednesday night. An hour of dance practise in class, followed by a break, and then half an hour of dancing for Laura. The net conclusion? I am really unfit. I also can’t do our routine very well. (We do at least have a routine now.) Nicole is fine, but I keep getting everything wrong. And running out of energy. All that practise, and I don’t think I actually got it right even once. Fail!

Oh yeah, Si Cranston tonight. I totally forgot about that! If Nicole hadn’t mentioned it, I would have totally forgotten to actually go! Well, should give us some opportunity to practise anyway.

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