Home from Lindy 500

And, as expected, Baltimore delivered on the dance front.

Lots of new friends, lots of old friends, Gordon Webster, some brutal but useful classes, and some kickass waffles.  Overall a first class exchange.  Especially for the price range.

The highlights:

• Kevin and Jo's ILHC routine.  Yeah, we saw it a week early, and wow.  That's really all I have.  Wow.  I don't think I can begin to describe how much ass this routine kicked, but I will say that I will be very very shocked if they are not placed in the top three.  All you folks who are actually going to ILHC are in for a treat.
•  Gordon Webster delivers, as always.  I mean just writing this feels redundant.  It was an especially special treat to see him with this set of vocalists, who, besides being absolutely phenomenal, allowed him to revisit some old favorites, like "Bei Mi Mis Dur Shein," "Long John," and "Twenty-Four Robbers."  A good time was obviously had by all.
• Congrats to Dan Repsch for winning a crazy awesome jack and jill.  I mean, the results were kind of a forgone conclusion, because it was an audience judged competition in his hometown, and Baltimore is famously loud, but that doesn't take away from Dan, who pretty much out-danced everyone there anyway.
• Michael Seguin is the best MC, largely because of his tendency to MC whilst drunk.
• The Koreans were incredible dancers.  The whole lot of them.  I need to visit Korea.

And now onto the classes.

Kevin is really a great teacher.  I'd seen Jo present this same material on her own before, and it was practically indecipherable.  I was getting it right off the bat with Kevin's explanations.  The material was incredibly interesting: basically a mega in depth look at leading and following the very basics of lindy hop - triple steps, rock steps, single steps, etc.  I was able to manage it fairly well in class, but as soon as it came to the social floor, or putting it all together to music, it fell apart.  I will need to work on this.  A lot.

New goal: insert one very closed led chorus into every song I dance from here forward.  Keep it small and close to make it manageable.  Don't go too crazy till totally comfortable with it.  And insert that rise before the start of every single triple step.

When I get home, I will post pictures of epic waffles.

We are less than seven days from new ILHC videos hitting the net.  My interest in dance has been a bit stymied lately, but I imagine it won't be this time next week.  I'm such a dork, I'm actually counting the days till these competitions hit youtube.