Smoky Mountain Encore Clogging Workshop is worth the drive from Ohio to Tennessee! Or the flight from Florida, or the drive/flight from Canada!
Not only do you get the chance to enjoy Gatlinburg, you have up to ten classes to choose from at any given time during the workshop!
Naomi Fleetwood-Pyle taught an intermediate-level routine to Carrie Underwood's "Dirty Laundry." If you did not take this class, pull out your syllabus NOW and read part C of Naomi's cue sheet!
If the combination of disco costumes, clogging, and the Smoky Mountains is wrong, I don't wanna be right! I'm totally cool with leaving out the bear, though!
Most of my team made the drive from Ohio to Tennessee on Thursday. 'Twas a fantastic day for a drive! (Yep, JT brought sexy back; I'm bringing the word 'twas back.)
Driving to Gatlinburg was actually my first excursion out of the house since surgery last week! My teen passenger was willing to take the wheel for a while if I needed a rest, but that wasn't necessary.
I am not a breakfast eater, certainly not a food blogger, not even a particularly good cook. However, a clogger's gotta eat! Thus is my dilemma most weekends before dance practice.
Practice starts at 1:00 (meaning I need to get there earlier to be READY by 1:00). Fancy Free Studio is about 60 miles from my house, and this clogger likes to get extra sleep on the weekends! I'll leisurely sip a mocha to wake up, which leaves me not wanting real food before it's time to leave. The granola bars I usually pack get old quick. I need SOMETHING to keep up the energy level!
In this final installment of the Florida Clogging Festival story, we discuss the adventures of the Fancy Free Cloggers at the fair and the competition itself! Previous posts discuss our trip from Ohio to Florida for the event and my experience attending the workshop.
The Florida Clogging Festival took place at Osceola Heritage Park.
Camron Thompson's professional photos of the Florida Clogging Festival are all over Facebook this week! He managed to beautifully capture the moods and moments of teams and individual dancers throughout the competition day.
Let's back it up to the morning and talk about the workshop that took place before competition!
Fancy Free Cloggers became snowbirds for the weekend as we traveled to the Florida Clogging Festival! We admit to texting a few smug photos to friends and family - it was 22 degrees back home when we took the competition stage! As usual, the trip was an adventure, and we have many stories to share...
Happy days (and clogging workshops) are here again! Once the flurry of activities to begin a new year settles down, clogging workshops are a welcome excuse to get out and dance!
My first workshop for 2017 was Cabin Fever, hosted by the Buckeye Country Cloggers! This workshop relocated a short distance to Mansfield, OH for a bit more space after packing the school gym in Bellville, OH last year. Not sure where it will be next year after filling this new venue, too!
This historical fiction isn't about clogging, but cloggers make a brief appearance in chapter twelve. Spoiler alert: These particular cloggers aren't so good...
The Tumbling Turner Sisters by Juliette Fay caught my eye during a wander through the "New Arrivals" bookcase at my local library. I'm glad it did!
There seems to be a "National Day" for everything! Normally, I don't care (unless it relates to cats or to me having an excuse for a good dinner...). However, when the National _____ Day unintentionally refers to a clogging step, I'm on board!
TODAY, January 19, is National Popcorn Day! If you know the popcorn step, feel free to randomly display 8 counts of fun throughout the day! If you don't know the popcorn step, what better day to learn?!
Everybody is familiar with today's vocabulary term: team spirit! It's not all hootin' and hollerin' and wearing a funny hat. Some aspects of team spirit require more work than that.
A basic definition:
Team spirit (noun): Feelings of cooperation, respect, and/or friendship which allow group members to work together for the greater good of the team as opposed to the good of any individual member. Group members who possess a great deal of team spirit are known as team players, and these folks are critical to the success of a clogging team. Indirect team members, such as fans and family, can also have team spirit.
Happy new year, cloggers! While it is appropriate to take stock of where you are and where you want to be all year long, the new year just begs for a little self-reflection. When my clogging team returned to classes on Tuesday after a holiday break, many teammates were willing to share their clogging goals for 2017. (Thanks!)
If you are still determining goals for the new year, you may find some inspiration here!
Does your clogging team do awards? Fancy Free Cloggers had our Christmas party/awards banquet this week! The banquet is a lovely time to look back on the year and appreciate the progress and contributions of each team member.
Every Fancy Free Clogger receives a medal and is recognized for something special he/she brought to the team during the previous year. We also give special awards which vary from year to year, depending on the circumstances. Everyone, however, waits anxiously to see who will win the two highest honors: the Larry Pummel Award and Clogger of the Year!
Today's post is inspired by the latest issue of Double Toe Times, the clogging magazine. (If you don't already subscribe, click HERE to fix that.) The article on pages 18-22 suggests a whole list of clogging party games and activities, including clogging ad-lib word games.
Word games AND clogging?! I am IN!!! Here are a few just in time for everybody's clogging team parties! Print these out and create a unique story with your fellow dancers!
For those of you who aren't familiar, the game leader asks one person (or the group as a whole) for words to fill in the blanks in a story. The story, which usually makes no sense, is then read aloud. The reader is encouraged to be as dramatic as he/she wishes!
We thought it would be a great holiday experience. The mayor asked us to clog at __________(local Christmas event) and we __________(verb ending in -ed) at the chance!
It's that time of year! Seems like every clogging team is part of a local holiday show or parade, or maybe they're putting on a show of their own. Our clogging vocabulary lesson this week examines the Christmas show!
Christmas show (noun): A dance performance which generally occurs sometime late November through December 25th, designed to not only bring the normal level of clogging joy, but to also get folks into the Christmas spirit! This may be exclusively a clogging show, or perhaps the dancers are part of a larger cast with singers, musicians, actors, etc.
The holiday season is in full swing, which means plenty of performance opportunities for cloggers! The latest for Fancy Free Cloggers was the Hometown Holidazzle lighted parade in Wilmington, Ohio!
First, the name "Hometown Holidazzle" is adorable and fun to say! Second, the town goes all out for this event!
I wish I had a photo of the parade grandstand, but couldn't get one since I was IN the parade! It was shining and flashing like Vegas! Way to go, Wilmington!
On a recent trip to Chicago, my clogging team tried something new for accommodations: Airbnb!
We normally do the hotel thing, sharing rooms to cut down on cost. That works fine, but we aren't all together, we're usually cramped in a small room, etc.
During the planning process for this trip, one of my teammates spoke up about her experience with Airbnb. She offered to research options through that service.
Why is it that certain clogging steps NEVER start on the right foot? It isn't a matter of difficulty; advanced cloggers are expected to perform pullbacks bilaterally, but most will hesitate when asked to perform these easier steps on the opposite foot!
Next dance class, challenge your teammates to give these steps a try on the right:
