C3B Ian McConnall 2010

This event was a breakthrough in several ways. It was our first dancing event after the childbirth (a caller school cannot be counted as such, at least not for Lenka), and it was the first large trip for Robin. Driving should take five hours; we better counted six, since we should breastfeed twice. We set off at 11 o’clock and Robin fell asleep practically immediately after the car took off. We had our lunch at our favorite Shell station near Rokycany still in the Czech Republic. The food was OK (for a gas station) and it was a good breastfeeding and diaper changing place, too. We took our second stop already in Germany. We have found out that we can change diapers and breastfeed in the car pretty well (or rather on the car). Our little Robin really behaved perfectly the whole journey. He either slept or if not than he looked out the window a watched the surroundings.

When we arrived at Bermuthshain, Wolfgang came out of doors by chance, and when he saw us, said: "What are you doing here? I have not expected you." I went to get a key to reception, where I met several other people. Everybody swarmed out to the car to watch a baby. They really had something to admire. Robin has behaved well all weekend and let us dance. He reacted to people surprisingly well and did not even mind music. True, Sunday afternoon he started to have enough, so only I was dancing and Lenka was with him in the evening in the room.

Dancing itself was super. We worried a little that especially Lenka’s thoughts would be on the baby, but she danced well, almost like there was no childbirth. Ian went through all concepts during those four days and gradually added on difficulty and speed. I loved that he did not even avoid Magic Diamonds and we did dance fairly long figures in Split Phantom and Phantom formations.

Caller’s observation: Vic Ceder taught us in school that if we want to increase difficulty, we do not have to come up with any complicated figures, all we need is to put things behind our left arm and fragment the figures. For Ian this was standard he started with. We spent most of the time in left formations. This made the dancing even more interesting.

Second caller’s observation: Ian never used figures under C1 and if he did, than modified by a concept. All sequences were pure C.