Flamenco class 31 Jan 2012

Tuesdays are always good days because I have my weekly flamenco class.

This week was particularly good, even though for a moment everyone in the class got majorly worried. Our brilliant teacher was ill so another teacher was to take over for the hour and a half we had. The worry was for three reasons:

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- we love our usual teacher. She is good, explains things well, and we just know her very well. It's comfortable! It's nice! We don't want to change it!
- the replacement teacher is known for being a bit harsh, for focusing on the details in footwork and sometimes even asking people to do the steps on their own, one by one. Which is usually horrific because no one manages to do the steps properly and you get home feeling like a cheat and a loser.
- the replacement teacher is a man. A pretty cute one at that, so everyone gets nervous performing in front of him. We want to impress! We fail! Embarrassing!

In the end, it turned out to be a brilliant class, because our replacement teacher actually didn't know the choreography we were working on, so it created this great dynamic that allowed us to get a lot out of him in a super positive way.

First, we performed our choreography (we now have 9 minutes done) and he went over footwork that was not 'clean' enough. But first, we had to show him what the steps were. A couple of people demonstrated on their own, others corrected them ('this should start on the contra beat', 'this sequence is longer' etc). Because we all know the sound we are expected to make and some people know the steps well, we managed to clarify what we had to do exactly, and how to get there. I think everyone enjoyed that.

He also taught us what to do with our bodies and arms in certain sections. Even though it may not have been what we were told originally, I found it useful to try something else and see how it felt in my body. If things went a bit pear-shaped, he reminded us that our feet and rhythm had to be right before adding the arms, and everything flowed from there.

I think we all looked very sharp by the end, and even though he really picked up the speed, we managed it.

Result: amazing feeling of confidence and happiness. Por mi, nothing beats a good flamenco class! Can't wait for next week to show our usual teacher how we progressed today. If we don't forget it all by then, of course (that happens a lot...).