Clogging Weekend

Saturday a clogging workshop at Radford University (just a few miles from the big Virginia Tech v. Miami game, also on Saturday). Since that's in southern Virginia, about four hours from me, plans were made among the group to travel down and stay 1-2 nights.

One of the ladies, MaryLou, offered to share her room with me. She also gave me a ride there and back. We left early Friday afternoon to meet up with another woman in the group, Missy. Missy is a teacher of some special needs children. MaryLou had helped them with a class project by sending them postcards from her recent car trip across the country. So, we arrived at the school before the kids left, so that the kids could meet MaryLou and show her their completed project. The kids were high-energy, but very sweet and friendly. I even got to dance Rocky Top with Missy and one of the girls.

We checked into our hotel around 8:30, made a trip to Walmart, and just relaxed a bit before heading to bed. We were already in bed by the time some of the later groups were checking into their rooms.

Morning came early enough! After a continental breakfast, we made it over to the university to register/check-in and prepare to dance. The first teach started at 8:30 and they continued--one every hour until 4:30.

The first teach was memorable for it's jazz moves. I liked some of the moves, but others I just couldn't get into or never felt comfortable. One of them was leaning way back and "rolling" back up. I've never been terribly flexible, but that move just seemed to highlight it.

I enjoyed getting to learn Mary's dance to "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." I'm not a Veggie Tales fan and that song is pure ridiculous (like a lot of their songs), but the steps are fun and I like how they play with the music.

I stayed in the intermediate room all day. I found all of the dances to be pretty easy to pick up. There was a step or two that I never did quite get, but I blamed that on being tired at the end of the day. I should get adventurous at one of these workshops and take a stab at an advanced dance. I doubt I'd actually learn the dance, but it would be good to challenge myself a little bit more.