Dancing has magical moments - that is why so many people love it, this week's class definitely contained at least of one very magical moment. For the first time we danced The Ring of Brodgar, a lovely square set, with 4 sets - 32 people dancing. That was practically everyone in the room on the floor and everyone enjoyed the dance and completed it well; people not familiar with the class may not appreciate the significance. This week we had 2 absolute beginners and plenty others who consider themselves beginners or didn't know the dance well - without such a great atmosphere of encouragement from the more experienced dancers it is hard for beginners to join in like this, even though that is the only way anyone can learn and improve. So I'd like to say very very well done to all the newcomers who are getting up to dance and even more to all the rest of the class who are helping and encouraging them - I even got to dance myself. Wonderful - I can't wait till next week.

It was a very strange night in one way - to try and avoid the most slippery areas of an over polished floor we rearranged the room - instead of sitting in front of the bar we danced in front instead - which felt strange but did seem a bit more roomy so we may try it again. We had 35 people in the room - most of them dancers, a very gratifying number especially with nearly 10 of our regular dancers away. Welcome and well done to the new dancers who joined the Tuesday class for the first time, it is a steep learning curve but great fun to join in at this stage - I can't wait till next week!

It was destined to be a memorable night - as we drew up at the LPH we were greeted by a piper in full flow - a gentleman completely unknown to us - but very good - and then he disappeared!. It was great to see some old friends back at class last night & despite having quite a few regulars away the numbers were still above 30; it was very easy to fill up sets, several times managing three, even for our guest teacher's 'challenge' we managed 2 sets .. (& well done to everyone who managed to get through La Moulin Rouge - twice - with the minimal of hiccups ). One potentially disastrous problem  was the condition of the floor - it looked unusually beautiful but it was the closest we have yet come to dancing on ice! Despite half a bottle of (very expensive) slip stop being sprinkled abundantly around people slid rather than danced to ensure they stayed on their feet. Hopefully next week things will be back to normal and thank God that we had no accidents. One thing it did highlight was how much people wanted to dance and also how they could work together to keep things safer - well done to everyone, including myself since I actually managed to get three dances in for a change!

At the risk of becoming monotonous, and predictable - we had another great night of dancing - taking repeats into account we actually danced 12 dances; virtually all of them with 2 sets up and several with 3 sets. The level of background noise is definitely increasing too - reflecting the welcome return of more and more of our 'swallows' including our Chairman and his lady, back to these shores. Numbers are now over the 30 mark and I expect them to stay at least at that level until the Ball. Hard work trying to control all these enthusiastic dancers but very rewarding and the standard of dancing is improving all the time. A hilarious attempt at Black Mountain Reel disguised the fact that many of the set had never really tried anything that complicated before - or perhaps not for a very long time - and it was really very well done of all of them to give it a go. We will be doing it again next week and I hope everyone will get up to try it again - there are 7 weeks before the ball, well before the night we will have plenty of people capable of dancing it.
I lost this post for a day or two but - it's back - and 'chatting' to the nice man at the Weebly help desk made it worth the stress of thinking I'd have to type it all again :-)   

It's been a frantically busy week and it's difficult to believe that it's almost Tuesday again so fast.  The Advanced dance class on Sunday was excellent - we managed to get exactly 4 couples despite many people having to unavoidably miss it, and we worked on Le Moulin Rouge, the new dance Stuart is planning to teach us - so at least some of us have an idea about it before he comes; we also practiced 1/2 diamond poussettes for Neidpath Castle, learnt 'Barbara's Strathspey' with it's 3 couple Bourrell and finished with Irish Rover. A few of us then went on to G&T's in it's new lovely location in Kallepia for their excellent value Sunday Lunch, though we may ring the changes for the next few classes, it was good to give it another try. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's class - there has been a few inquiries about the dancing so I hope we'll have some new faces tomorrow, though I'm always delighted to see the old faces too!!