Swing lesson 19 | Yarraville

Don’t forget the Music update!

(Thursday nights at Acquae Vino, Yarraville)

After a brilliant night at Werribee last night, Yarraville was always going to be a bit of a downer. It was still fun enough, and some of the follows nailed our phrases well, but over all it was a much slower night than the five or so phrases we did Wednesday.

Tonight we quickly went over Charleston basics, then spent the better part of the lesson teaching the through-the-middle kicks that us guys lead by placing right hands on girls’ left hips etc. It took a while for everyone to at least start getting it right, so that’s about all we covered. It’s a much slower class at Yarraville, the crowd has less confidence and takes longer to get the phrases in, it’s a relatively small space when we have so many couples – maybe 20 each night, and it’s really hot upstairs where we are now that we’re getting into summer. All of this conspires to make it a little less enjoyable, probably the least enjoyable Swing night of the week. I must say though that if it weren’t for those factors, Swinging with Loz teaching is absolutely fantastic – she’s a great teacher (when everyone listens to her), and Andy is a great lead, though as a casual teacher, tonight was his last lesson with us, and Loz’ brother Kieran will be taking up the role for our last week next week before summer break – we welcome Kieran heartily as he’s a brilliant dancer, but will miss Andy a whole lot.

That’s it until Monday where Level 2s are doing Balboa basics from scratch… I’m very tempted to join, so we’ll see just how much Level 1 I’ll need to take the class, though it’ll be so strange learning Bal before Lindy! When on earth are we going to learn Lindy Hop???