Happy birthday Swingkatz!

Nick and I have been taking regular swing dance lessons for about nine months now, by mutual agreement and enjoyment.  This weekend was a big dance event for the Timaru swing dance club, "Swingkatz", who are celebrating their fifth birthday - to celebrate, tutors were brought in from Wellington to teach 11 different classes from 'stealing' to 'musicality and performance' and everything between.  The Friday night social dance featured two live bands and a vintage theme - super exciting for Liz and me who love the dress-up aspect of the swing scene; Nick and Graham displayed some rare performance qualities in allowing themselves to be outfitted (we actually hired the vest and cap for Nick!), and they did look great.  So, after some running around to accommodate our busy schedules (youth group for Caleb, orchestra for me, and then dropping the boys off at the Rawlins for a sleep-over), we met up with Liz and Graham, Andreas, Chrissy and Jeremiah and Diana who had all enjoyed a dinner at Speights, to enjoy some quiet time together before the dance at 8.30. 

From 8.30 on we were on our feet with just a few short breaks to rest our feet, until midnight.  It was fabulous!  We practiced the latest moves we acquired in last week's final tandem-charleston class as well as polishing and enjoying the steps we've learned over the past months, and picked up a few new bruises on our feet and shins too.  Today's first class was at 10 am which was nearly too early, as we ran late getting ourselves ready for the day and collecting the boys, who had had a super night out and were just busy enjoying quad bikes with Peter and William.  We were quite keen to see what the aerials foundations were all about, and weren't disappointed.  Over the two hours we started with some torturous warm-ups (see pic below) before learning about body core and stacking by being suspended upside down over our partners...that was just to get us ready for attempting some jumps though, and once we had gotten the basics down individually we were reunited with our partners where our single jumps got a huge boost.  It was really great and we could achieve some simple but impressive aerials just in that short time. 

Nick and I had only intended to do that one class, but I got organized into the next class after lunch with was a solo charleston class - full-on workout, with no time to stop and rest.  It was essentially an hour-long aerobics class, but so much more enjoyable!  We came away feeling very satisfied with what we had learned.  And then...if we weren't tired enough after the late night before, and not sleeping well, and my alarm going off at 6 am, and two classes...we signed up for the next class, on swing-outs and sharpening the moves.  I don't think it was quite what we had expected, but I'm sure it will have a good impact if we utilize all the fine tuning on the individual steps and stages.  That class finished around 3.15, just in time for us to dash home, collect the boys' togs, fetch one of Aaron's friends, and take the two of them to the swimming pool.  During the lunch break we had dropped Caleb off with friends to help them with a car-washing fundraiser.  He said the first five cars were fun; the next 25 got a bit tedious!  He was going to meet up with us at the pool but their plans changed and we fetched him around 5.30.  Hired two DVDs and bought fish and chips for tea - I was so tired though I couldn't even stay awake during the first movie!  We were so glad we hadn't registered for tonight's social dance, and were glad to be in pyjamas and sleep mode by 8.30 :)