Beginners Class – 1 February 2021

What a great turnout, with 3 eight couple sets made up of 7 new dancers and club members. There were plenty of laughs and smiles as the new dancers took up the challenge and did really well on their first night. Our club tutor has provided the following notes to recap what we did.

Tutor’s Recap
Great to see all our new people on Monday and thanks to our club members for coming along in good numbers to help out. It certainly makes it much easier to have a mix of experience. I was really impressed with the “newbies” for being so enthusiastic and giving everything a “go”.

As I mentioned dances are made up of formations and we will introduce you to new formations each week and also revise what we have done in the week(s) before. You will have seen from what we did on the first night that the same formations can be used but in a different order to create a different dance. I am not sure if you took too much notice of the music as there is a lot to be thinking of – your feet, where you are going etc – but you will get to enjoy different instrument combinations and different styles.

We looked at: slip step (for circles) and skip change (hop, right, close right, hop left, close, left). We always dance on the balls of our feet so no heels on the floor.!

Formations we looked at were:
Circle or hands round and back
Turn partner right hand, turn partner left hand
Casting off behind own lines and back
Right hands across and left hands across (2 couples)

All the dances we did were 2 couple dances, so dancing couple dances as lead couple for three rotations. This will become clearer as we go on.

The dances we danced were:
The Loch Ness Monster (Circle dance) – hands round and back, turn right hand, turn left hand and promenade around the circle

Philippa’s Fancy – cast off behind own lines and back for the ones and twos, first couple lead down the middle and back to second place, ones and twos turn partner with the right hand and partner with the left hand

January Welcome – ones turn partner right hand and left hand, twos repeat, one dance down the middle and back up to second place, twos and ones dance right hands across and left hands back

The Glen – one and twos right hands across and left hands back, ones and twos turn partner right hand and left hand, ones lead down the middle and back to second place, twos and ones circle round and back.

You all seemed to have fun (which is what it is all about) and did amazingly well. A most promising start.