Dance: What a Shock (aka in Soul Line Dance – Freaks on the Floor)
Choreographer: Larry Bass
Song: Freak on YouTube
Artist: Cheri Dennis
Step Sheet: What A Shock from Copperknob Line Dance Sheets
I am so intrigued as to why my brain can latch onto some steps immediately, even some that appear difficult, but other steps have me baffled and confused. Notice that I did not say discouraged! 🙂 I have been line dancing seven months now, and I have faith that I WILL pick up the steps! I do have to admit this is the most difficult dance I have ever tried to learn.
The first time I saw What a Shock was at The Line Dance Party’s quarterly line dance party in mid-April. Another group of local line dancers – Shades of Distinction – performed the dance and the next week our instructor taught the dance. He taught the dance for three weeks in a row, and I was just not getting it.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t been practicing on the weekends. I notice a dramatic improvement when I make a point to practice. My instructor sends out a link to a video so we can practice the line dance, but I needed a bit more concentration on the steps. I started searching on YouTube and found the video which is first on this blog post.
I managed to figure out how to make the video loop and just kept practicing over and over and over… like, for 45 minutes. Yes. It took that long for me to get the first few steps memorized! I just feel like if I had tried to rely on learning only while at class, I never would have learned this dance.
But now I feel like the dance is in my brain and I’ll keep practicing to make sure it stays.
So a little background for this dance. It was originally a country and western line dance, the first video is actually the choreographer, Larry Bass, demonstrating the steps! I think that’s pretty cool!
However, as happens fairly often (I’m told) it was converted to a soul line dance at some point in time, and the song used is by Cheri Dennis, and is called Freak. There is just one tiny problem… I could only find this song on YouTube. I could not find it on iTunes, nor on Amazon. So, if you are wanting to do this dance, you’ll need to use the music found on YouTube.
After my intensive practice, I was able to follow along with Linda Simms in the following video. I am not 100% yet, but much better having practiced. At least now I don’t feel like my right foot turned to a left foot again (two left feet).
Look how much fun Linda and the ladies are having dancing this line dance!