It's amazing how many things you can do when you don't have kids ;-P

So I'm really enjoying my dance classes.  Enough that I've been relying strongly on YouTube University to learn things that haven't been in class (yet).  A few challenges to this - one, I have to find videos for single dancers since C is not nearly as entertained by this new adventure as I am.  And two - some lessons greatly overestimate my definition of "beginner".  But I am finding some snippets of super usefulness.  

And when I find those snippets, I need to slow it down to like 50% to be able to actually figure out what's going on more often than not lol.   And as I was doing that, I started to see some similarities to my piano adventures.

Playing piano with two hands doing different things - learn one hand, then the other, then put it together.  When you put it together it'll all fall apart.  Slow it RIDICULOUSLY down, figure it out one note a time, and then speed it back up again.  Don't even bother introducing a foot pedal ;-P

Dancing - learn feet, then the arms, then put it together.  When you put it together it'll all fall apart.  Slow it RIDICULOUSLY down, figure it out one beat at a time, then speed it back up again.  Don't even consider introducing hips or body movement ;-P

Bonus round - it sometimes falls apart again when you put it to actual music.

The half-hour "beginner" Bachata video I've been working my way through, I've been working on for two days and am not quite all the way through lol.  Legs alone, all good.   Arms alone - slightly more of a challenge, but got there.  Put them together?  lol.  Right.  We'll get there.  Some day ;-P

But is it ever fun.  I feel absolutely ridiculous at times, but those odd moments where I actually get something right are just so exciting.  Also, after lesson 2 (before I even fell down the YouTube rabbit hole)

With the painoing - working my way through Playground sessions.  Their intermediate level songs are lower in difficulty than Flowkey's which is slightly disappointing as I don't feel I've accomplished anything when I get learn one, but their lessons are way harder.   I am learning a lot more though so that counts.  Nola likes to help play which doesn't do good things for my accuracy scores at all ;)

Enola's musical interpretation in red ;)

Rounding out the hobbies, cause why not, clicked on a random targeted ad for a course in Latin American myths and legends -- that's taught in Spanish.  Since there's no writing or presenting required, I thought it might be an interesting challenge.   Topic I generally enjoy, and, well, I've taken ALL the literature classes in English, so I should get the general concepts ;).   Signed up and *then* realised there's two classes a week?!?!   Lol I definitely do not read Spanish fast enough for that.   So we'll see how it goes.   Also not sure I have sufficient vocabulary or can listen fast enough for the classes, but worst case I can watch the recording slightly slower.   And if I really need to cheat, with closed captioning on ;).   Always good to take on impossible challenges right? ;).  That one starts end of Feb and I'm really hoping they'll share some of the reading material in advance.  May the odds be ever in my favour.  Wish me luck!

Targeted advertising for the win