It's gotta be Rock 'n' Roll Music....

My wife Venus(in blue jeans) and I took up Rock 'n' Roll dancing late 1995...second childhood I suppose....and are having a great time, meeting some nice folks, and getting much fitter than we were. We have even managed to enter some contests...our best result being Third in the Senior Social Grade in the 1997 Capital City United Club Championships. I haven't got any photos of that yet, but I do have two clips pulled from Video of us dancing at the Kapi-Mana club champs back in May. One thing we realised from seeing ourselves on video in those outfits is that the colours are too dark. The dress and shirt are red tartan....but it doesn't come up all that bright, as you can see. So...the new outfits are white with bright red polka dots. This is on the theory that if the judges don't see you you won't get any marks. (Of course, even if they can't help noticing you, you might not be dancing well!) Incidently we couldn't find material with big red polka dots....so we printed our own!

Dancing tends to be difficult to photograph...I don't use flash as it can distract the dancers, and the light levels are not very high. The hall here had flourescent lights, which give strange colours. I have corrected these as well as I can. They were taken using 400 ASA film, with an f1.8 lens wide open at 1/125 of a second. This was the 1996 CCUCC. I have some shots to develop which I took with 1600 ASA film at the 1997 CCUCC, so hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to fill up my geocities space.

There are six Rock 'n' Roll clubs in the Wellington area, and most towns of any size in New Zealand seem to have one. If you would like to give it a try, email me and I will give you a contact name for a club.

Click for JPEG Graham and Emma

Seen dancing at the Capital City United Club Championships recently held in Lower Hutt. They are members of the Kapi-Mana club.

Click for JPEG Graham and Emma...at least, I think he is still there somewhere...

Some of the lifts get quite gymnastic and are hard for us oldies to get the hang of. Also the young ones don't have quite so far to fall!

Click for JPEG A couple from the Wellington Club

This couple won their age group at the 1996 CCUCC...they were truly excellent to watch, and were obviously enjoying their dancing immensely. I haven't yet found their names, so I hope they don't mind featuring here. They are from the Wellington Club.

Click for JPEG Venus and Mjolnir

Hmmmm...what can I say...those back steps are far too big...that's one of the things we have been working on since then. As you can see from the position of the skirt, Venus has just done a spin. She started beside my right side with my arm around her waist holding her left hand, so that when I pulled our arms unwound and she started to spin. Then as she comes around, you both lift your arms so she passes under them and keeps turning for a second rotation, to finish in the open position like this. Some can do a triple spin, but it gets a bit busy. Thanks to Bernie for digitising this off the video...I think Tom might have been the cameraman.

Click for JPEG A simple jump

This is one of the jumps we do...from a hold like a waltz position, the lady jumps up onto the guys hip, holding her legs tucked up, and the guy turns her around once before putting her down. My left arm seems to have vanished...I think I was just raising it to point upwards. It's a nice easy move to do, but looks good. Of course, for competition you need to choose the moves you try with care. You will get extra points for a harder move, but only if you do it well. There is something to be said for sticking with moves you have mastered. Also as you get better, you can add to moves. (credits to Bernie and Tom again)