Lesson 2! Caresses!

After the initial excitement of making a start last week, lesson two has not come quickly enough. This week, after warm up and donning our highest heels, we took the basic moves from lesson one and learned linking steps to move from one to the other. While B moved around flawlessly, I spent around ten minutes confusing my left and right, not helped by my towering heels which I was convinced I would trip over at any second. After some practice however, it felt pretty damn snazzy- although to the onlooker, I was just a woman in shoes turning from back to front. Next, came some brand new moves: the arm and leg caress. After getting over the initial embarrassment of having to look at yourself as if you were the most delicious thing on the planet, these moves actually felt very graceful and in doing them we got taught how to use eye contact to focus the audiences' gaze onto where you want them to look. That mastered, we were all gathered upstairs to the bar, where we had a big table reserved for us so we could begin to fill out a mystery questionnaire. Apparently, our answers would form the basis for B to pick our very own burlesque names. The questions were light enough, favourite songs, scents, style icons, why we love burlesque- but suddenly everyone became very stressed as if their lives depended on the answers. (I didn't want to be stuck with a name that I didn't like, or didn't entirely encapsulate me as a person!) Luckily, we'd be given the chance to come back to them next week and I already know I'm going to spend the whole time re-thinking my responses- 'my favourite gem is a ruby- does that really represent ME?!!' A few wines followed...