Week 20 - with Rory.

We started with a bit of Afro fitness step, I am about half way there to perfecting it, being reasonably fit but still no Afro. The step starts with the weight in a bent leg followed by a cross step then beside then shift the weight into a bend leg heading in the other direction. This I found pretty easy to cope with until we had to add our arm movements. Now I am sure that when I stuck my fingers in a power socket at about age 3 I frazzled the part of the brain that deals with coordination of upper body and lower body movement. Everyone else seemed to get it but I felt like a stranded castaway waving to get the attention of a passing ship.

The new step for this week was the Choo-Choo (as in train) step. It does have some latin name but Rory called it the Choo-Choo and step and that is how I shall remember it. It is a bit like a merengue but with smaller steps. You move with a shuffling motion instead of a stepping motion. A bit like a "choo-choo train but without the arms (fortunately for me). I think I actually practiced this one this morning while watching Humphrey B Bear. We started slow and then got progressively faster. The idea is that you bum wiggles really fast to free up you your hips. It is a good idea to stand at the back of the class when doing this exercise.

We also did a thing called the "Front Accent". Now being a kiwi living in Australia my accent is terrible. I still get picked up when I pronounce word such as "school" or ask for "fish and chips". I have learnt to adapt by referring to "learning institutions" and eating a lot of Chinese take-out. Fortunately my front accent is not as bad as my Kiwi accent and I got the hang of it - or at least I thought I had until Rory sped things up. It is a step forwards onto a straight leg slide the other leg in bending as you go. From there we take the front leg and step back again bending landing on a bent leg - repeat on the other side.

I think Rory must have read my page as we did get to practice the Bossa Nova with the turn. This time around it made much more sense. Things really gel when we practice them two weeks running.

Steve