Photo via Eastside Stomp
Last Saturday was an exciting day as I got to participate in my first dance workshop! I got to spend four hours learning Slow Drag from Peter Flahiff and Lauren Smith and it was amazing. Like floating on a cloud of happiness afterwards amazing. It was so much fun and I learned a lot.
For those not familiar, slow drag is a type of dancing done to slower swing music and is similar to blues dancing. Here's a video of Peter and Lauren doing a demo at Treasure State Slow Drag earlier this year:
Being that I had no experience on how to do slower dances on the social floor, I was pretty excited when I heard about the workshop. And I was even more happy when I realized I already had the day off from work. Whoop whoop!
Since this was an complete beginner course, we started at the very beginning with close embrace. From there we went on to footwork, which is actually pretty simple as you move forward or backwards on either every beat or every other beat. From there we learned pivots, drags, and a couple different follow styling, one of which I can do pretty decently, the other I'm going to need to practice the footwork on before it becomes natural.
It was crazy how soon the four hours were over. Peter and Lauren's teaching is very easy to follow and to the point, plus they're quite the entertaining pair, so the time just flew by. I'm excited to put some of my new skills to the test on the social floor. Maybe I can look like I know what I'm doing on those slow songs now. That would be a plus. ;)
I have to say though, this workshop has me so incredibly excited to go to some dance events next year. Since I haven't been to one yet, days filled with classes, competitions, and dances sounds like a total blast. So far I'm planning on Camp Jitterbug and Jitterbug Weekend; we'll just have to see what else my dance future holds.
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