I had four classes today, which was tough. The first was arranged only last
night, so half the students didn't find out about it and missed it. Sucks to
be them; Kevin and Jo were teaching.

They did leading and following full-time and half-time footwork, which I've
done before and which I reckon I can do. However, with the follows in my class,
I can't. I confess I became frustrated and started telling people what to do,
which is a bad habit. I asked Kevin in private after the class whether he can
lead this stuff on any follow and apart from some details he said yes. So
that's probably why I'm in this group and not in Advanced 1.

The second and fourth class were with Swedish teachers Matthias and Sandra, who
were a lot of fun. The classes were hard! Their teaching style is to cover as
much as possible in the class with the minimal practice time necessary to teach
the next bit, and then to send the students away to practice on their own. I
have only seen this attitude before from a couple of Russian teachers. Maybe it
is an Eastern European thing. It is not particularly practical in Herräng, in
my opinion, as the classes are packed in so densely that there isn't much time
to practice. Matthias and Sandra's moves were pretty hard, but I managed them
all in the end. One follow said I was the only lead in the class to do so.
There is hope!

The third class was with Michael and Evita who are fantastic. They taught us
technique through choreography, which I like. Together with yesterday's class
we learnt about 20 bars of fast, difficult moves including a frankly obscene
two-and-a-half follow turn that requires two separate leads to get enough
angular momentum. We did manage it, but I'm not sure I could lead it on
somebody who didn't know the choreography. Evita is a bit of a superstar and is
the favourite teacher of many of my colleagues. Michael is very good too.

I ended the day with four amazing class videos to show off to my friends.
Muharrem was totally unimpressed. "I could do that" he said. Maybe in a few
years, Muharrem, but not today!