Journal 102 - Chopped Liver?

Journal 102

Monday - 12-6-10

Class

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I was supposed to have two lessons tonight, with Roma; but Vitaly was running late again, so we only had a lesson and a half. At least that's better than just one lesson…!

*****

As far as things are going with Vitaly, I really don't even know what kind of relationship to say that I have with him anymore. Before our lesson, I was sitting next to Roma, *right* next to him; when Vitaly came up, he said hi to Roma -- handshake/hug, etc. -- and didn't say a word to me. Then, he walked off in another direction, leaving Roma to just look at me and laugh, as I looked at him and said (in English), "What am I? Chopped liver?!?" Switching back to Russian, I just laughed it off, saying, "I *told* you he likes you better…" [That same "joke" of ours is the reason Roma looked at me and laughed in the first place. It didn't escape his notice either, that Vitaly had not greeted me.]

Now, I don't know if this is "karma," or what -- and I really hope it's not, because as much as some of you following this may say, "Good!" to what I am about to relate -- it's really not...

Vitaly broke his hand over the weekend, at the competition he went to. Not only broke his hand, but broke his *lead* hand, *in the final* during the *second to last dance.* I don't even have words for how much that sucks. Apparently, during their Paso Doble, his partner's heel hit his hand (from what I understand), and she broke the 5th metatarsal (the long bone in your hand, in line with your pinky).

The hand that is broken is his left hand -- which, as I said earlier, is the hand he needs to lead with!!!!!!! This means that he cannot dance with me, really, as the lead, until his hand heals. Bad news. It means I'm going to loose out on working on my connection for the next some-odd weeks.

*****

The lesson... Well, I suppose it went alright. I'm still hearing more of I'm not doing stuff right -- which is true. Still, I'm frustrated to the point of, "I wish I could get it right, just once!!!" I am trying...

I need to be faster in Rumba - though I'm still trying to master just how to make the speed Vitaly wants happen in my body. Then there's a part where I'm supposed to spin (without moving far), then travel an insane amount, with one spin -- and I was in trouble because I wasn't moving far enough away. I guess I was worried about not having clean feet -- but it doesn't matter what I was worried about -- it only matters that I didn't do it correctly.

Got my butt smacked again -- and got mocked again when I jumped from it. :| This only gave me the thought -- 'So... You can't say hi, but smacking my ass is no problem... Uh-*huh.*'

Samba drew the verdict that Roma needs to give me a better frame to move in, and that we need to have more accents (we also need the same in Rumba).

It seems our Cha Cha is the best out of everything we have so far -- after we danced it for Vitaly, he said, "Not bad."

Jive proved to be an exercise in frustration, when we began to work on the side-by-side section. It wasn't that I didn't know the steps -- the count wound up being the issue.

You see, Roma and I had agreed, previously, on how we wanted the count to be. I still have no idea why, but he decided to change it again -- so then I looked like I had no idea what I was doing, and when I asked him, "I thought we agreed on this already," he said something to the effect of making it sound like, "Are you sure that's not just what you wanted to do?" I was actually hurt by the statement. What can you do though?

I kid you not, we went through about 4 different possible counts in the next 5 minutes or so -- and I am the one who kept getting in trouble when I didn't do it right, because they'd just have changed it again!! I was definitely frustrated.

Finally, we got it worked out, and we have a proper end for it now -- so that's all good, I suppose.

Roma left once our lesson was over -- I stayed to practice... Essentially, I was in the studio working from 5:30 until 10:30. (Larissa had a lesson that started late, so there was more time to work. I took it.) I rested for maybe a total of a half an hour during all that time, so I wasn't dancing *quite* for 5 hours... Still, after not dancing for 3 days, I was so frustrated with myself, I was basically in a, "You have to work." mood.

Let me tell you, it HURT when I got home!! Oh, man, I'd have killed to have had someone to rub a ton of tiger balm into my back and hips. Ouch.

*****

Vitaly said he'd write me later about lessons tomorrow and Wednesday... So far, that hasn't happened... *sigh*