penk and I got to NEFFA fairly early last night, so we were able to park nearby, which was a boon! I think it's great that they provide shuttle service from a larger parking lot in the area, but it's a huge pain in the ass, not to mention time-sink, to deal with it. I'm wondering if we manage to leave early enough this morning if we shoudln't try to get the nearby parking today, too. We'll see.I started with a session on Balkan Village Dances, which was really interesting but completely nonintuitive for my body. My brain got it, and went, "Oh, sure, that's easy," but my body just didn't relax into it at all. The rhythms didn't make sense to it, and even though the steps were easy, I kept getting off. That was a somewhat frustrating way to start the evening, but...
The next session was Blazing Contras and Squares. I started out with
wolfkitn and had a really fabulous contra -- it wasn't too difficult, so things were coming back to me. And then there was a square, which always confuses me. It's weird, 'cause for the most part, squares are all the same moves as contras, but I find the layout of working in a square more challenging. I think this means I need to do more squares, but last night wasn't the night for it. So, I muddles through that, and then muddled through another contra where my partner and I ended up in a big cluster of people who didn't understand what was happening for the walk-through, but... by the end of the song, we got it, mostly. This pattern continued, of doing OK, but not really relaxing into and getting the groove until fairly late in the evening.Fortunately, by the end, I did feel like it was starting to come back to me, so I'm hoping to get there this morning in time to do some warm-ups before the medleys, and, with any luck, I'll feel my gears are greased enough to do a medley!
