a. Saturday
i. Sleep
in—wake up and breakfast on granola while reading one of my 33x peers’ math
papers. It’s on quantum computing and is pretty tricky to understand—I don’t
really like the way it’s written, but then I’m annoyed with the style of a lot
of math papers that sacrifice clear layout and explanation, for precision and
brevity.
ii. Lessons
start! First lesson is a good deal of conceptual stuff, about the neutral arm
position, about matching the move with the energy level, etc. illustrated by a
new sequence and a new connected stance. Pretty neat!
iii. Lunch
break! I wander over to a table where I know one person, get into conversation;
soon three of us are off to the parking lot to find a lunch place. End up just
walking to a nearby burger joint called Frugals—really cheap and delicious.
16oz Milkshake, mushroom swiss burger and fries for $7.
iv. Second
lesson we learn several different types of pass-bys, along with a complicated
double prep for maximum rotation into a barrel roll turn.
v. After
the lessons, we end up with a couple hours to burn before the main dance. I
meet up with the UW crew—Peter, Kayla, Ryan, Nicholas and Indigo. Hang out
awkwardly in their hotel room a bit then we hit the streets of downtown
Kalispell. Hang out in a music store, get drenched in a sudden rainstorm, hang
out in a touristy cowboy store…
vi. Then
we hear the revelation—some dudes from the Tri-Cities are hosting a taco party
in their AirBNB. Eleonore joins us, exhausted from a day of work and dance; she
chows down on a baguette and nutella and we trek over to taco-town while
singing along with some tunes.
vii. The
AirBnB is packed. It’s a beautiful house with about 60 people in it eating tacos in every
conceivable niche. The food is good, and I manage to find the donation box and
contribute $5. (I doubt the organizers recouped their huge taco outlay.) I hang
out with the UW crew for a while, then run into George from Eastside. I had
heard from Alex earlier that he had tried to date her in a somewhat awkward
fashion after myself and Alex broke up. Now, I get some more details and we
wind up commiserating. Again, a bit in that skeptical, reserved state—George is
a lot like Devin in many ways—but I was gratified to hear that someone else
also had struggles evicting the specter of Alex from their System 1 worldmaps,
and riotous camaraderie soon ensued.
viii.
Cook one more casadilla for the road and head
back for the pre-class lesson, which focuses on 20s Charleston, a neat and
relaxed style of stepping and turning.
ix. Main
dance is very fun. Shades into exhaustion, since the music remains up-tempo
throughout the night.
x. The
late-night dance concludes with an “Endurance Contest”. Basically, the DJ plays
faster and faster music until people can no longer dance well to the music and
get eliminated. Eleonore and I compete, and we pull off some neat sugarpushes
to the fast music, but we’re knocked off pretty fast.
xi. Near
the end, the crowd is going wild as the best dancers at the weekend execute
endless blistering-fast swing-outs. The poor follows, whipped around at close
to 60 rpms (400 beats / minute / (8 beats / swing-out)) essentially sprint
around their leads, who lean at absurd angles to redirect the follows.
xii. A
few more dances, then Daniel and I head back to the hotel and crash.
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