Lindy Focus 2009

Lindy Focus, an event that is one of the finest, at least in my experience. This dance camp runs about 5 days and ends on New Year's Eve. I have made some amazing friends at this event. Here is where your acquaintances turn into friends, and your local group of dancers turns into a large network of friends across the states.
By the time LF rolls around I am ready for new inspirations, quality dancing, and pure fun. This year Lindy Focus had over 500 people attend in a small town called Asheville, NC. I would like to first congratulate the organizers, Jaya & Micheal Gamble and Sosh Howell, for putting on another year of this great event. For the amount of people came and what was offered at this event, I believe these three have done a fantastic job. I have some some Highlights for the week.

The Good Things:
When I arrived I felt like I was at my dance home. Here I can be comfortable as a dancer and just say hi to anyone. The opening dance was fun. Friends arrived, we hugged and danced.
I must say that Sunday, Monday and Tuesday late night were my favorites.
Sunday I felt that I got so settle in, Monday I taught a hair piece class that went very well (at the same time actually meeting other follows at the dance camp), and just having some spectacular dances to the Loose Marbles made the beginning of the week awesome.My Favorite band was the Loose Marbles. Their energy made me want to dance all night.
There were so many people who attended there was not enough time to dance with everyone. As much as I wanted to be at all the dances, my body was too tired to stay up past 2am to keep dancing.
Competitions were great to watch. I was impressed how the J&J crossovers turned out to be. All the performances throughout the week were amazing . I felt that I got to experience some high quality entertainment.
The variety of classes was good too. I felt that I learned more this year than the past two years at Lindy Focus.
The Jam Session room was great. There was musicians in there almost all the time! I stopped in when I could and sang a few songs. This was a big highlight for me. I actually felt comfortable singing in front of others.

Some not so good things:
How I missed late night counts! It was hard to motivate myself to attend to late night when I there was no emphasis to attend. I know I missed tons of great dances and music for being practical and going to bed early.
The Expo. This was a great place to host this many people but I felt that people had too many corners to hide. The Crowne room was crowded but you could see everyone and spend most of your time dancing instead of spending a whole song searching for someone you said you danced with. I miss the "squished" feeling honestly. Spontaneous things happened when we were all together! I feel that I really missed a lot of the "social magic" this year because we were all spread out.
Classes. The variety of classes were amazing! I did feel a little overwhelmed though. It was hard to find friends to take classes because so many things were happening. I know many people were jumping around from different tracks sometimes people in other levels would be in the wrong class. Not because they wanted to "sneak in and take Adv. classes, but because they people did not know that certain classes were only for adv. levels.
It is hard to keep classes leveled when 500 + people are running around. It is a a two way effort that is needed though. People who are not supposed to be in certain classes, look at the schedule and make sure you are going to the right one. Door watchers check the bands. You have an important job so do it. We should understand to have respect for others during workshop weekends. For Example: Adv. dancers want to learn and not have to teach a lead or follow what he or she needs to do because a) the adv. dancer might be teaching it wrong b) that dancer wants to learn but can't go further because the other lead/follow is not at the same level.
If you know that a class is not for you then leave. No one is going to make you look bad. You will still get great dances on the social floor.

Bands. I am sad to say that I missed Stephanie Morgan. I was so excited to here them but I fell asleep. (boo.) I wasn't a great fan of the Boilermaker Jazz band. I thought that they were better last year (2008). The Russ Wilson band only played one song I really liked which was when everyone did the Big Apple. That was Amazing! Other then that, I felt like just sitting around, the music was not inspiring for me to dance. This opinion was nothing to so with the bands talents, just the music choice could have been better.

As a closing note, I loved this event, it was not my favorite year, but it was a well run event. There were a few people that I never got to dance with! I am sad that we did not dance and I hope to see you at another event (or LF) to make up for those lost dances. I am glad that I can still see many of my friends is one place and get to know more people.

Ten fun cool things:
1. New Year's Eve dinner was great!
2. Catan at 3 in the morning was sooo much fun.
3. Spending time with friends I normally do not get to see was a big plus.
4. Performing at Lindy Focus again was a big step. Performing by myself was even bigger.
5. Using my sewing skills to help with others with costume stuff !
6. Dressing up every night
7. Teaching vintage craft classes
8. Not being sick this year!
9. Learning new techniques to work on
10. Watching the Red Hot Review.