Umm... when is it?
I've heard much about Beach Boogie... and we know the dynamic of the Rock Bottoms events.
My holiday situation has changed and this is now an option. Any thoughts?? Is a week too long? Is there space to do other things?? How wild does it get??? The teaching line up looks good, though haven't seen DJ line up... Thoughts??
Thank U, in advance.
CJ
P.S. Anyone thinking of going??
Last edited by CJ; 26th-May-2009 at 08:42 PM. Reason: cos I'm a dill...
Umm... when is it?
AUGUST 22ND - 28TH : BEACH BOTTOMS IN WEYMOUTH
http://www.jivelive.com/rockbottoms/...toms/index.htm
--ooOoo--
Age is a question of mind over matter, if you don't mind, it doesn't matter
Leroy (Satchel) Paige (1906-1982)
Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, Minnie, made her film debut, along with Mickey, in "Steamboat Willie" on November 18, 1928.
That date is recognized as her official birthday.
Well - based on my experience of Beach Boogie and Rock Bottoms, you can be certain you'll get a mildly insane, superbly organised fun and friendly event.
Based on my experience of assorted long dance camps, a week is definitely not too long, especially if you want to develop your dancing in any way - quite simply, a week (or more) of total immersion in dance is (for me, anyway) the best way to achieve dramatic improvement. At the moment, including Beach Bottoms, I know of three week-long dance camps, one fortnight-long one and one month-long one - and if I could afford the expense and the time, I'd religiously attend every single one.
Hello CJ
I have posted on the subject of Beach Boogie (the precursor to Beach Bottoms) before and so you might like to go and have a look at some of those threads to get a wide range of opinions.
I hope that the only thing that has changed is that the accommodation at Weymouth is much better. That is not an ambitious hope as the accommodation at the former venue could hardly have been worse. The dance venue at the former venue was a slightly shabby 1950s feel which, bizarrely, added to the appeal for me. The after dinner antics and information were entertaining but dragged on way too long for me after a day of lessons and wanting to rest up and get ready for the evenings dancing.
I am hoping that the new venue will merely lift the standard of the accommodation because, for me, everything about beach boogie was perfect for me as a dancer. The week is not too long in fact I only ever wished to be able to do the week, have a week to rest and then do it again – and live that way until my feet fell off. There is something about dance weekenders where your dancing seems to hit “the zone” somewhere about 2am on the Sunday night where you dance to the music without active thinking and you become telepathic with your partners. This also used to happen on beach boogie on the second night AND THEN the feeling just intensified over the remainder of the week.
It used to attract a hard core of very able dancers drawn from the MJ and lindy hop worlds but mostly very able dancers who could span a number of dance styles. You can never predict the dancers that will come along but if the facebook group is anything to go by there will be a hard core of able dancers. There always were a small number of people who booked on it and came along who were relatively inexperienced. They would look at the dancers and feel intimidated (as I did my first few times) but they would get sucked into everything in the lessons and the social activities. They were not left feeling on the outside unless they seemed determined to do so.
The inclusion of a “young offenders” teaching and activities program meant that people could bring their children along with them and quite a few of the young faces you see on the dance scene started their dancing at beach boogie. The children were never intrusive at BB as they were having far too much fun to need the adults that much. It was always good to see the end of week childrens performance.
Hope this helps.
I'll be there CJ. If the rockbottoms weekenders are a yardstick to this it should be fab.....certainly the W/e in January was.
DJ line up is ...Jon Brett, Dance Demon, James Batchelor and Nelson Rose
I'm thinking of hiring a car for the week, so that I can tour the sarf coast a bit. be good to see ya if you can make it.
I stayed there at Holiday Rock's event at Easter. The rooms are basic, but clean. The place is ex-Pontins, but all of the accommodation is in one building. Not every room can be reached without going outside, although it's just a question of going about 10 yards from one covered walkway to another. No seagulls!
The food wasn't especially interesting, but it was plentiful. Having to get up for breakfast puts a whole new complexion on dance holidays! Only one dance room was in use when I was there. This has a sturdy woodern floor about the size of a tennis court. It's biggest attraction was that the doors and windows could be left open all night long without any neighbours complainingI didn't see the other room, which was being used as a wedding venue.
That'll probably be me then. I've asked my boss for the leave, but I'm still waiting for it to be authorised.
I'll be sharing with a strangler
.
![]()
Is that a hobbyist strangler, or a professional one? With a pro, you should be fairly safe, as they'll be on holiday... unless it's one of these people who takes their work with them wherever they go. With a hobbyist or amateur on the other hand.... I think you'd need to find another room.
You should probably find out which ASAP.
Here's where the event is being heldhttp://www.rivierahotelweymouth.co.uk/...looks good to me![]()
My only experience is of Beach Boogie. The teaching on that one was fantastic - a series of well-crafted WCS lessons, at least one every day, meaning that by the end of the week I'd focussed on a small area but felt I'd really made progress in it - unlike a weekender where the classes make very little difference to my progress as they are too sketchy and diffuse. They were small classes so everybody got some individual attention and the teachers were able to match their teaching to the level of the class quite well - unlike a weekender.
The general dancing in the evenings was the opposite - As there were only 200 or so dancers on the holiday I thought the limited choice of partners soon became a bit restrictive, especially towards the end of the week, unlike a weekender, which is usually a veritable and seemingly limitless smorgasbord of hitherto undiscovered dance delights.
I thought there was a good spread of levels of experience and did not find there was a large cluster of very able dancers.
There was loads of time to do other stuff, though on the Iof W other stuff was limited!
Looking at the 1120 songs that have been "Touched by Cliff", I can't say I get much inspiration for fancy dress. How exactly can one dress as a Millennium Prayer?It's a bit tricky to get mistletoe at this time of year. Do I actually need to do anything to be a Bachelor Boy? (no I'm not going as a tin of soup)
Maybe I'll have an early night on the Thursday![]()
Beach Bottoms 2009
My review...
Lounge Room
The smaller ‘lounge’ room is an excellent blues room. It stayed cool and had a nice balance of tables, seating and dance floor. The temporary floor was excellent, with the tiles securely bolted together. Other operators – find out where these come from and stockpile them now!
Main Room
Very hot. However, the doors stayed open all night as the hotel has no near-neighbours. A big extraction fan next to one of the doors could make this room much nicer. Two small fans on the stage just did the usual trick of blowing the hot air around a bit whilst heating the room even more.
Dinner
For some reason, the vegetables had a yellow theme. One could get greenery from the salad bar, but the main courses themselves always seemed to come with a selection of cauliflower, swede and multiple types of potato.
A key part of providing info. for the next day was a briefing at 2000 in the dining room. This also seemed to involved pie-ing someone for a misdemeanour in the previous 24 hours. Shame that I’d usually finished eating by 1930 and gone back to my room.
Apart from a passing acquaintance with some of the teachers, I didn’t know anyone at BBot. To make dinner more bearable, a “meet and eat” table was provided for loners. This got off to a bad start as on the 1st night, most of the places on the table had “reserved” markers on them. I ended up sitting on a family table instead and mostly being ignored. I ate most of my other meals at the M&E table.
Water
Free water during the day, 60p/bottle at the bar in the evenings.
Children
No separate activities for minors. Some were allowed by their parents to dance at night, others not.
Teachers
All of the teaching was good, although I think I’d have preferred Nigel&Nina to Nigel&Anna. Pretty much every teacher was to be found social dancing each night. Refreshingly, they were all to be found doing MJ as well as their specialist dances.
Sleep
Dancing carried on to about 0300-0400 each night. Quite early by the standards of some other holidays, but with breakfast 0830-0945 and housekeeping at my door everyday at 0930, not such a bad thing.
Evening entertainment
All of the teachers did some sort of cabaret in their own styles, although Amir could have done with a specialist tango partner. There were also lots of other teacher group dances, punter cabarets and competitions.
Cliquiness
BBoo had a reputation for cliquiness. This has continued into BBot; there were lots of in-jokes that I didn’t get and no-one explained.
Lindy
I must admit that I find it odd that one of the UK’s premier MJ events is run by a Lindy crowd. I can’t imagine a Salsa holiday organised by Ballroom teachers.
Nostalgia
At dinner, while playing silly games, while queuing for the BBQ.... for some reason, a lot of people who’d previously been to Beach Boogies or Rock Bottoms felt a pressing and continuing need to tell everyone why those events were so much better. Better food, better cabarets, better teachers, better atmosphere, better value for money. This line of convo was especially prevalent at the M&E table, and quite dispiriting after 6 nights.
Useful info. for future BBots
There is no laundry on-site. However you can use the laundrette in the “Waterside” caravan park across the road. Walk past the main gate, and walk half way around the outside of the main complex, following the ‘housekeeping’ signs. The laundrette is open 0800-2000. It costs £3 to do a normal domestic sized washing load and £2 to dry it. Save up some 50p and £1 coins before you go; allow 2 hours total. The laundrette is unstaffed and doesn’t have a washing powder selling machine.
There is a small shop in the “Waterside” main complex which sells washing powder as well as chocolate, milk, newspapers, sandwiches etc. But not postcards.
There is a bus that stops outside the front door of the hotel, which runs through the day every 20mins ‘til 1800. A competing bus runs just down the road into the Waterside caravan park, also every 20 mins and with the same fares. This one runs ‘til 2300.
The hotel has a number of irons that can be borrowed for a deposit of £5. Borrow them on the first day while there are still some available – no-one returns them until the end of the week.
Final thoughts
Will I go to BBot 2010? Maybe. By the end of the week, my body was suffering heavily from fatigue. As such, it was beginning to feel like an endurance event and not a holiday.
On a weekender, it’s possible to avoid dancing with the same person twice all weekend. That allows fairly lazy dancing on my part, by falling back on my stock moves. At BBot, I danced with most of the people there many times. The need to innovate makes the dancing much harder, but hopefully I’ll benefit in the long run.
Wii Fit tells me that I lost 8Ib over the week and improved my balance by “10%”. Give me a week and some cream cakes and normal service will be resumed.
Perhaps a nice admin could re-title this thread "Beach Bottoms 2009" so that people will be able to find it in the future.
Great review, FM. Loved the dinner-table angst!
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