Back dancing ... and reading ... and ...

I'm dancing again!  I completed (most of) a six week Lindy Hop improvers class with Keith McGee from Feets of Amazement, and I've just started the next six week class.  It's been the same group of about six of us, plus Keith, and we've continued learning the routine we started seven weeks ago.  Unfortunately there is an imbalance in the number of leads (two plus Keith) and follows (four of us), so if there are any other leads out there who fancy joining in please let Keith know!

It feels good to be dancing and most definitely learning again.  I've discovered I can remember (most) steps I've learnt before, that I can still learn new ones, and that there are also still some (old and new) which I find a challenge.  But the sense of satisfaction and glee when I master a new step (or an old one!) is wonderful.  And we're each finding that we find some things easier or more difficult than others, and can help each other.  We have fun.  We laugh when things to wrong.  We exchange sidelong looks when Keith demonstrates the next bit ... really?!  There is definitely a sense of trepidation about next week - we're "threatened" with a lift.  Hmmmm.

See a little bit of the routine we're learning (not us!) on YouTube (see from about 00:32-00:49 mins).

And I've also been reading.  In the summer, in preparation for my holiday, I invested in a tablet and have been reading eBooks.  But I do also have real books.  I've just finished a book I picked up whilst wandering through Foyles at Waterloo Station - God's Dog (2012/2014) by Diego Marani (tr Judith Landry).

Not an author I've come across before (although it seems perhaps I should have done), I will probably look out for other books by this author; indeed the book I've just read is apparently the first in a trilogy - and I do like to "have the complete set".

The 'blurb on the back' describes the book as being "full of moral issues".  And it certainly is.  It's also very topical in that it explores issues of euthanasia and assisted dying, as well as creationism vs Darwinism, and poses some challenging questions.

It's set about twenty years from now - although I found I had to keep reminding myself of that; in places it felt like it was many centuries ago, in others it seemed very futuristic.  Some people may feel that the principles described in the book are fairly reasonable; personally I found the world described - not too far from now - a frightening prospect.  The action is set in Rome, but a Rome in which "Italy is now a theocratic state ruled by the Vatican" and embodies what, for me, are the most restrictive and repressive aspects of  religious (in this case, Roman Catholic) belief.  The Guardian review (2014) refers to a "dystopia" and calls it, "a frighteningly plausible state as repressive as anything I have seen from any dictatorship".  Whilst I respect the beliefs of others, in the same way as I would hope others respect my beliefs, the thought of living in such a world is indeed an alarming prospect.  I can imagine this book providing great food for thought and animated discussion in my reading group.  However, the book - which the 'blurb' also says "will delight aficionados of thrillers and detective fiction as well" - was indeed very readable (I'm a bit of a fan of thrillers/detective stories).  I will look out for other books by Marani.

Where has all the dancing gone?

Today - on Facebook - I read a comment from a friend about a blog which will be no more from the end of May.  That, of course, prompted me to look at the blog in question, and curiosity took me to the events calendar.  It included three regular (weekly) dance classes, Lindy/jive which once upon a time had become my big thing - although ballroom and Latin will forever have a place in my heart (or perhaps that should be my feet).  I decided to save the page so that I had it as a reference for the dance classes, two of which I knew about already.  I use Print Friendly and usually download a PDF of the page.  I started to save the PDF, looking for the 'Dance' folder ... I always have a dance folder on my computer.  But - horrors - no dance folder!

It has been probably about six months since I attended my last dance class, and that had been an enjoyable but brief six week Balboa class offered by Feets of Amazement.  Before and after I have been telling myself I need to get dancing again.  There was a time when I was dancing three or four times a week, and at weekends if there was an event.  Manchester Lindy demonstrated at Manchester WI a year or so ago ... and I thought, yes, now I've met some of the members I could go along on my own.  But "life" has got in the way.

So now I've once again come across details of classes, I must make an effort to start dancing again.  Watch this space ...