It's that time of year again! We're holding a bi-annual taster SCD workshop for beginners in cooperation with the Volkshochschule Frankfurt (Frankfurt adult learning centre). This takes place on a Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning (4 hours each) and the Saturday session of the spring 2025 workshop is today.

Last year we scheduled a workshop for the end of April but that had to be cancelled due to lack of interest, so this year we thought we'd go for an earlier date when the weather is likely to be worse and people are more inclined to do “indoor” things like dancing. This seems to have worked out reasonably well because 16 people registered for the workshop (although in the end only 11 of those turned up today). The other workshop is usually in the second half of November and we don't seem to have problems filling that up.

The crowd this time (8 women and 3 men) is pleasant and willing to learn, and we do manage to get through the whole planned programme of dances with ten minutes to spare at the end. This takes us from zero to Roy Goldring's Alice's Request, which as far as I'm concerned is quite a feat on the part of the dancers. The programme today is basically identical to the one from the November 2024 workshop, with a little fine-tuning to some of the exercises. I've found it's worth going slowly and especially spending time to ensure people figure out how the two-couple progression works, and that investment paid of fairly well. (Three-couple progression will come tomorrow.)

We're in high spirits on our way home until we get stuck in traffic for half an hour at the Mainspitzdreieck – apparently they are refurbishing the tarmac on the motorway bridge across the river Rhine, which looks like it could take quite some time while traffic is restricted to one lane instead of three. I think we will be taking a different route tomorrow.