AndrewS
04-18-2007, 05:10 AM
Subject: Jaime and Liz - Britsalsafest 2007 - advanced
I posted this review on another webiste that doesn't get as much viewing as this one so I thought I would put it here too.
This class was great, probably the best one I went to the whole weekend. Before it started I thought there were way too many people in the room and there would be the usual complaints about the rotation not working, not being able to see the teachers... the usual stuff that is really irritating when you've only had 3 hour's sleep.
But these two are the best organisers of a class I've seen. First the class was split into men and women for shines. For this I can only comment on the male half but Jaime did two things which I've not seen any other teacher do. First he sorted the men into rows indicating where ech row was - usually this is left up the students to do and I've lost count of the number of classes where this ends up being a confusing mess of e.g. five staggered rows where three ordered rows would do. Second, when he showed some footwork he got the first two rows to crouch down so the guys behind could see - GENIUS! - never attended a class before where this has happened. Such a simple thing but so effective.
The shine was complicated but broken down well and so was easy to follow and there was a bit of comedy at the end where everyone chanted "guapa!" ("guapo!" for the women's shines I guess).
Then the partner work. Again, Jaime and Liz spent a couple of minutes sorting everyone into columns up along the floor - the whole dance floor was filled so there was no way the standard big circle was going to work. Again they got the people at the front to crouch down so everyone could see when they were teaching each part of the pattern.
The turn pattern itself was tougher than a regular 'advanced' class in London but then congress 'advanced' is always harder than your home town advanced class (which it should be, in my opinion). They went into enough detail on the techniques for each move so that they could be lead correctly (and in the case of the first spin, safely). I got the feeling that everyone in the class was happy they had chosen that particular workshop.
I just find it a shame that Jaime and Liz are not based somewhere in Europe - Australia is a long way to go to attend their classes! I will definitely choses their class the next time I am at a congress they are teaching at.
I posted this review on another webiste that doesn't get as much viewing as this one so I thought I would put it here too.
This class was great, probably the best one I went to the whole weekend. Before it started I thought there were way too many people in the room and there would be the usual complaints about the rotation not working, not being able to see the teachers... the usual stuff that is really irritating when you've only had 3 hour's sleep.
But these two are the best organisers of a class I've seen. First the class was split into men and women for shines. For this I can only comment on the male half but Jaime did two things which I've not seen any other teacher do. First he sorted the men into rows indicating where ech row was - usually this is left up the students to do and I've lost count of the number of classes where this ends up being a confusing mess of e.g. five staggered rows where three ordered rows would do. Second, when he showed some footwork he got the first two rows to crouch down so the guys behind could see - GENIUS! - never attended a class before where this has happened. Such a simple thing but so effective.
The shine was complicated but broken down well and so was easy to follow and there was a bit of comedy at the end where everyone chanted "guapa!" ("guapo!" for the women's shines I guess).
Then the partner work. Again, Jaime and Liz spent a couple of minutes sorting everyone into columns up along the floor - the whole dance floor was filled so there was no way the standard big circle was going to work. Again they got the people at the front to crouch down so everyone could see when they were teaching each part of the pattern.
The turn pattern itself was tougher than a regular 'advanced' class in London but then congress 'advanced' is always harder than your home town advanced class (which it should be, in my opinion). They went into enough detail on the techniques for each move so that they could be lead correctly (and in the case of the first spin, safely). I got the feeling that everyone in the class was happy they had chosen that particular workshop.
I just find it a shame that Jaime and Liz are not based somewhere in Europe - Australia is a long way to go to attend their classes! I will definitely choses their class the next time I am at a congress they are teaching at.