C2 Square Dance Weekend

[bjarvis]

cuyahogarvr and I are home once again from a weekend away square dancing, this time C2 with callers John Marshall and Bill Harrison in York, PA. And it was very good indeed!

Traffic on Friday was relatively light thanks to our noon-time departure from DC. York, PA, is nearly 80 miles door-to-door from home; including rest breaks, traffic lights and slower street traffic, we made it easily in about 90 minutes.

Our hotel room was very nice although I didn't sleep worth a damn Friday or Saturday night. While the bed was very comfortable, I wasn't. I suspect I should have turned on the air conditioning to cool the room just a little to allow for better sleep but since I almost always have trouble adjusting to a new bed for the first night or two, it may just have been me.

Friday evening, cuyahogarvr and I died dined at Sam & Tony's Pasta House on Market Street. We normally don't do italian or pasta because of kent4str's gluten intolerance but since he was in Palo Alto, CA, on business, this was our opportunity to indulge. And it was very good indeed. Best of all, we talked to the staff and confirmed they will adjust their entrees upon request in such a fashion that he can join us the next time. Yay!

Friday's C2 dancing was moderately easy, as is proper for warming up the dancers. We acquitted ourselves fairly well. We wisely chose not to join in the C2 star tips that evening: there was definitely some difficult calling taking place and I would have crashed the square a number of times if I had been included. Oy!

On Saturday morning, we went to the local farmers' market to indulge in a flurry of purchasing, including cheeses, crackers & three pies for the evening party (peach, pumpkin & grape(!)), pretzels for breakfast, cupcakes for later and their entire inventory dark chocolate almond bark for my personal stash.

The dancing started easy and ramped up gradually through the morning and early afternoon (with a lunch break). Extra time was taken to look at concepts such as "disconnected," "once removed" and such where necessary. The evening dancing seemed harder but probably only because our brains (and feet) were getting a little tired towards the end of the night. We attempted the star tips but we were clearly not ready for that level of difficulty yet.

We let ourselves sleep in Sunday morning as the prior night had been rough: I think I only drifted off to sleep at 4am. I was a little sluggish getting up to speed but we ended the morning dancing on a good note and were on the road home by 12:30pm.

I had two particularly nice experiences through the weekend. At least three people commented that cuyahogarvr and I were very good C2 dancers and were welcome additions to the C2 floor. Indeed, during open sets, we were actively solicited by more experienced dancers to participate in their squares. I'm also happy to say that I'm nearly over my customary trepidation of dancing C2. Up until now, I've been too keenly aware that I couldn't dance the calls as automatically as I could, say, A2 or C1: I had to consciously dip into conscious recollection of definitions for nearly all C2 calls rather than just dance them automatically where appropriate. By Saturday afternoon, however, I was aware that I was dancing "counter," "perk up," "swing along" and such reflexively rather than thinking through the calls. Yay me! I'm sure it will take still more active floor time to reinforce this but it's a nice feeling.

John Marshall has a C2 weekend at the same Yorktowne Hotel in York, PA, on March 4-6, 2011. While the hotel's availability hasn't been confirmed yet, there are plans afoot for a John & Bill repeat weekend Sept 30-Oct 2, 2011 as well.