No wasn't fixed, so it may have been me (pic on here so you can double check - don't think I've changed too much in the meantime! Thanks if it was you - if not, I'll take the complement anyway and return it. It's always good to get to practise my wcs especially if you end up with someone who knows what they're doing and it all works in the freestyle.
VLV 2010
Another superb weekend. Thanks to all those involved in planning set up etc so that I can simply come along and fill my boots with fun and dancing.
Good.
· Beating the ants this time.
· Sublime dancing and great friends. Some great tag and hopefully finding a new recruit to tag.
· Man auction. Was actually great fun. Unfortunately, as far as I understand ran over schedule and we had to miss the later bids as we needed to do the practice for the fashion show. Still we managed to confuse everyone with Caryn bidding as Kathleen to win Steve Hunt (Foxy Funkster).
· Fashion show as participant. Balca for the beautiful clothing and Coleen and Jammy for the Choreography and all that crowd for being fun and friendly
Funny
· Introducing Caryn to a friend who then asked how long we had been married for. I am married to Kathleen!
Disappointing
· Missing out on the bid for Marc Forster. Bidding closed quickly when Gorgon and co got excited with the £100 mark. Still KPS informed Marc we had been bidding for him to join a tag session. Marc come and joined us which was great but unfortunately the numbers were even and the two dances a little spoiled.
Bad
· England not beating the USA
· Not even being able to buy dances from a friend as the Foxy Funkster failed to make it out in the evening.
· One sacked DJ on Sunday afternoon. Good news is that you can only get better.
· Gigometer on the Escapee competition. Probably a simple mistake and there is still time to put it right. Why not put both into the final.
Ugly
· Floorcraft in the blues room. From drinks carried across that hollowed ground to being pushed out of the way by a woman who I was inconveniencing by dancing on the hallowed dancefloor. The worst floorcraft however was someone joining in my dance space and then becoming agressive and complaining that I had stopped their arm. I tried to explain it was about to connect with my head to no avail. Well done to Jinski for firstly moving them and then deserting them on the dancefloor.
· Could not Ceroc crew monitor basic floorcraft whilst checking wristbands on the dancefloor rather than checking them at the door.
Steve
I attended this weekender at very short notice and was lucky to get a ticket and a chalet. However, it all worked out well. I couldn't park my car onsite as there were no places left but "offsite" was just the road outside the Pontins complex so it wasn't a problem.
The Good : The classes offered seemed all to be of a high standard, I can vouch for the ones I did and other people commented on ones they had attended. The music was generally good (although a bit same-paced at times) and there were lots of great dancers to dance the nights away. The Chill out room was a much more comfortable temperature than the main room and I enjoyed the time I spent there. Sunday night's freestyle was the best night for me as quite a few people had departed which left more room for dancing and people were a bit more restrained than on the previous two nights. I had some great dances.
The Bad : Accommodation at these weekenders is generally not too great. The chalet I had was supposed to have a shower but only had a bath however, most of the time in the Chalet was sleeping. The music in the main room was continually fast, with very little variation in pace and it was very hot in spite of some cyclone standard fans continually running. Possibly the temperature was kept high because of the pace of the music. I enjoy a higher tempo to Jive to but this was relentless fast music and I felt that it begged for a variation of tempo at times.
The Ugly: Friday night freestyle in the main room. I've mentioned this before but the Friday night freestyle seems to always be ugly. It seemed to be a testosterone fuelled orgy of frantic Jiving with no thought or care for anyone else on the dancefloor as the leaders showed off with large and expansive moves totally unsuitable for a very crowded floor. I saw and experienced several "accidents" mostly caused by thoughtless dancing. There were damaged toes and ankles and even a black eye and few apologies. However, this made no difference as the continual, relentless high tempo music drove the dancers to continue with this behaviour regardless.
My experience of weekenders is minimal and at best sketchy but in the main room is there a definate music policy or is the music a very eclectic mix of tempo and dance style.
Sometimes the impression I get is that people dont go in the main room because they dont play enough latin,blues or wcs.
Well, in 'theory' the policy is that the main room plays up-tempo tracks of different genres and if you want to dance slower you should go downstairs. Having said that each DJ has a different style: some play a main room mix of general tracks with changes in tempo, some play more club based modern music and some incorporate some slower tracks. I personally keep the BPM from around 120-145 because I personally think that fulfills the brief of what the main room should be.
It's impossible to monitor what the DJ's do on a continual basis because it means having someone present for all of the sets - and in addition you always have the problem of the subjectivity of what people 'hear' in music and how they personally percieve it.
All we can do is mix and match DJ's with different styles, but we fully understand you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Having got myself some DVDs to look over the workshops, I checked this.
I wasn't there to compare it with a real world impression, but this from someone who was suggests the DVD hasn't had sound levels altered.
It appears the guy who measured it made no mistake.
(scale is entirely arbitrary).
1st (74.6 db) - couple 4 (who won) - Aleks ?
2nd (73.6 db) couple 1, couple 6 (Mark and Lyndsey)
3rd (72.0 db) - couple 5 - DD+ ?
4th (70.4 db) - couple 2
5th (70.0 db) - couple 3
Sorry not to be clearer. The reading was in DB and noted from the sound meter display.
The arbitrary part reflects the volume control dial on the DVD player rather than anything else.
BTW - Just noticed how easy it is to read your good/bad/ugly/etc. post because of the quality of formatting.
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