Week 19 - I missed the dance party to go to Les Misérables - but it was well worth it - what a fantastic show. Lack of practice compounded with a very sore back from painting the ceiling in the kitchen caused me to adopt a dance technique that was more like an old washing machine shuffling around the laundry floor with an off balanced load. Damn that washing machine - it is still finding bits of Week 18 and attaching them to my fleecy sweatshirts. 

This week we did the more Bossa Nova only with a twist on the end of the side to side. The leader does a dois pra la (shuffle left) but rather than transferring the weight to the right on the dois pra ca (shuffle right), the right foot hooks behind. The leader then does a bit of a step on the left foot and the right foot goes between the follower's feet (to stop her heading off in the wrong direction I presume). Finishing with a dois pra la (shuffle left). I never felt completely comfortable with the manoeuvre and hope we get to practice this more next week. 

The fun part was this week's class was when Carolyn broke us up into four groups. Each group was handed an envelope - I thought it was a bit like Big Brother and some of the class members were going to get evicted. It turned out that the envelope contained a series of Samba Steps. Each group had a different set of steps to practice and then perform as a group in front of the other groups. Chaos descended on the room for about ten minutes and then Carolyn picked groups at random to perform. Somehow we all managed to get it together and in the end it looked pretty good. 

Towards the end of the class we learnt a new Salsa turn. The leaders pushes the follower back on the left and then lifts the left hand to turn the follower in a clockwise direction while stepping around. Both the leader and the follower come back together and start the Salsa again. I had a chance to practice some of the new steps at the dance party on Saturday night and really enjoyed showing off some of the new turns.

Steve