The Marathon 2016

The Line Dance Marathon 2016

THURSDAY

Manjaro is a Robbie Mc-H dance - not a frantic-paced one but a smooth cha cha. Probably my favorite of the day - yet not danced during open dance at all. Hmmm...

Shouldn't Be That Hard is a Neville & Julie dance and was the "bonus" teach at the Xperience. I didn't take it then - so figured I'd better take it now!

Twist Twist Twist has apparently been out awhile - lots seemed to know it. Fun but not a favorite of mine.

Bad Decisions is choreographed by John Robinson and Derek Steele (their bonus teach of the session was Uma Thurman - thought of Connie).  Bad Decisions would be a Thursday dance. If I do anything with it at all. Questionable. (THURSDAY???)

1,000 Kisses was a kind of bluesy-jazzy dance. Not in love with it but Nancy was and I took it with her.

We went to previews at 8:00 last night - hmmmm. There wasn't anything that grabbed me. For an entire day! (Probably because I already knew some.) Today will be an interesting day - I'll take some teaches - but I'm not holding out a lot of hope for anything great to come out of today.

Biggest news of the weekend is the absence of Ria Vos (medical - nothing serious) and Leslie Thompson (who was scheduled to teach a dance yesterday that I was really looking forward to!) - also medical - could've been more serious than it ended up being. Scott was a basket case yesterday when he was finding all this out. He had some forewarning about Ria so he found replacement instructors for all her teaches - but not Leslie's.

I was on the dance floor until 12:30 last night - and then slept until after 7 this morning. Momentarily we'll head downstairs... I've got my eyes on a pair of shoes.... Boots seem to be the purchase choice this year. I just can't see myself wearing them... If I could just find a good, comfortable pair of shoes....

FRIDAY

Started the day with Junior Willis teaching Scott Schrank's "One Love / One Life". 32-count 2 wall dance with 2 easy restarts and 1 easy tag to a track by the same name. Very nice way to start the morning.

Took a break at 11:00 and moved on to Scott Blevin's teach of "Make You Move".  This 144-count (yes, you read that right!) dance is really fun and not too terribly difficult. It will take a bit if refreshing, however, before it can be danced again!

Moved on to Joey Warren's "Get Out The Kitchen" at 1:00. I did make it through the A-B-C teach but then my head exploded and I had to walk iff the floor. There was nothing else that was going to happen. All communication between head and feet had been severed.

At 2:00, John Robinson taught Ria Vos' "Sound Of Your Heart." 64-count, 2 easy restart, 2 wall dance with a constant count of 1-2&3-4, 5-6&7-8 which made walking onto the floor for just the 2nd half of the dance all that much easier to learn the first half on the fly.

After that, couldn't do another step. Couldn't listen to another count. Slunk out of the dance area with my tail tucked!

Demos are at 5... Then we'll eat and head back to the floor.

Bought a pair of dance shoes - converse style with a dance sole. Great shoe!  😎

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

Started the day with Linda McCormack teaching "Aww Honey" - not an easy-peasy little dance! Very Meghan Trainor-ish - don't know if I'll put the time and effort into it to try and nail it or not.

Break at 11 (went to the open dance room and tried a few - we couldn't do No Man's Land; we couldn't do Love Me Like You Do. Failed!)

Next two classes were Scott's and Betsy Currant teaching Ria's dance.  Scott did "Red Room" which was a 32-count, 2? Restart dance - nothing difficult... Might keep it... It was "OK" for me.

Betsy taught Ria Vos' "Nobody's Perfect" (choreographed with Kate Sala) - I thought it was OK. No one else did.

I was going to take break for an hour at 2... I ended up going to my room and sleeping through my 3:00 class (Rhoda Lai's "What's The Pressure") but I did get up for my 4:00.

Final teach of the day by Gary O'Reilly with "Just Have Faith". A little different music - the dance was cute - definitely a keeper.

Sunday's two teaches will be Hana Ries doing "If You Are" by Julia Wetzel and then someone will be teaching Ria's "Never Go Away".

"If You Are" by Julia Wetzel, as it turns out, has been on my "I think I might want to teach it" list since it came out. What a FABULOUS dance! It may be the very first one I teach!

"Never Go Away" by Ria Vos was taught by Rona. 32-count "skip the line-type" dance. I don't think there were any tags or restarts... If there were, they were easy. This will be a great Thursday dance.

Bonus! Since our flight was delayed (first by 2 hours and then they added yet another hour), we were able to take another class - Will Craig's "High On Loving You" which we learned at Floridance.  I think I'll end up teaching this to the Thursday class. And, got to eat some lunch AND get some more open dancing in. Yay!

Shuttle to the airport at noon... (Well, how 'bout 3)... Flight at 3... (How 'bout 6)... Arrive in Lauderdale at 5... (How 'bout 8)... Home by 7 (yeah, right. More like 10 or later... We're gonna want to eat somewhere!). Whew!