Dance! - The Road to Heavies lesson 49, January 9, 2015. The Antwerp Feis?

The Light Jig not taken into account, the dances on my soft-shoes go pretty well. And yeah... that Light Jig. I have so much trouble mastering those steps. Even though I took so much practice in the vacation, I still have a lot of work to do.
The teacher is clear in her instructions I should forget about the third 'hop' in the lead-around, but I keep doing it wrong.

I also practiced my hard-shoe dance, but than at work. One of those days I also cycled from my work back home, which was bit much. Evenso, I do the same two days later so it won't be all that bad energywise.

It's unclear so far if I will be competing in the Antwerp Feis. Especially transport is a problem as there's no train-service to Antwerp early enough in the morning to make it in time.
Someone from our school probably goes and if she goes I can hitch. I have no idea who it is, but I accept the offer to ride along with gratitude.

Not a lot of students, not a lot of rest

There aren't that many students today, which also makes up for little time to rest in between dances. There's only one Primary in our group and she's our only possibility to rest in between.
Because of our possible attendance to the upcoming Feis we dance with 3 people together, as the only Primary will attend a few dances at Beginner level.

After we both finished our soft-shoe dances, we take on the heavy-shoes. It is here that we have to leave the Primary on her own, as we both are not able to cope with the tempo. It will be our turn at lower speed after her. While we dance another beginner is practicing her heavy-shoe steps in dance sneakers. I find that admirable, as I found it incredibly tough. For an Intermediate dancer it's probably no problem at all, but I found it quite disastrous. The floor in the hall in The Hague had a linoleum toplayer. I already had trouble there let alone in this hall, where there's a protective rubber layer, I find it nothing but difficult.

When we practice outside, she also says she finds the steps difficult to perform. I can only say that I find it difficult to perform soft-shoe steps on dance-sneakers, as the friction you experience on almost every type of floor make the shoes dig into it, where the tips of a heavy shoe are superslippery. I recommend her to buy a pair of heavies if she keeps struggling, but she will wait as her daughter needs new ones soon and they share the same size.

Back in the classroom, the teacher spots another thing: she puts too much energy in hitting the floor with the tip. It's a problem I'm still facing as well, just like the Primary. It's hard to grasp when you get told to kick your foot out, while shortly hitting the floor with your toes, after which you let your foot drop to the floor with the tip only. This produces two clear clicks, but try to imagine that you have to keep your leg completely loose when kicking out.

It's a form of practice we all three have to keep doing.