West Coast Swing tonight was actually pretty fun, though Richard says we aren't allowed to make any judgments on whether we like it or not until at least the end of the next class. And it is a bit weird, compared to everything else I'm used to. But I liked how he eased us into it at the start of the class. He had us all do a bit of basic, no-triples, six-count swing, which we all knew. Then he evolved that one piece at a time from step-step-rock-step into the step-step-tap-step-coaster-step of the sugar push. It was pretty cool how that worked, though I don't remember all the intermediate stages.
So I got ahold of the sugar push pretty well, but then we went on to the whip, which is just a little too similar to a Lindy Hop swingout to keep it very clear in my mind. It seemed to me that the main difference was that the follows walked forward instead of sugar-footing, and the leads stayed pretty much in one place. Also, it was more slotted. If there are more differences (it seems like there should be) then I haven't figured them out yet. It was all I could do just to keep from slipping into outright Lindy. But it was a good start to the class. I think this could be a fun dance to learn.
I was also glad to be back in one of Richard's classes again. The last time was probably Waltz Week in June, and the last Thursday night series I took was a year ago, I think. There was a very happy familiarity to being there. There's also a very pleasing number of people I enjoy dancing with in that class -- enough that it will be hard to manage to dance with them all. Too bad we don't have time for more partner changes.
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