Playlist: Dance, Dance

Tonight is DANCE MARATHON AT USC!!! In honor of dancing for 24 hours, I'm making a playlist of GREAT dancing songs for y'all:

1. Copperhead Road by Steve Earler: There's a great line dance that my favorite country western bar does to this song! It's SO easy to learn and everyone knows the dance!

2. Hey! Baby by Bruce Channel: This is one of my favorite songs to shag to! It's got a fun beat and everyone recognizes it. We're even lucky at Gamecock football games when they play this and the whole stadium joins in!

3. Push It by Salt-n-Pepa: Now when you hear this song, don't you IMMEDIATELY think of the dancing scene in Something Borrowed?! I know I always do!!

4. Where Them Girls At by David Guetta, Nicki Minaj, and Flo Rida: Good beats, fun lyrics and totally a GIRLS song!

5. Country Girl (Shake It for Me) by Luke Bryan: I don't know anyone who wasn't groovin' to this song live at the Luke Bryan concert! Shake it we will!

6. Bennie and the Jets by Elton John: Another song that makes me thing of a dancing scene in a movie--27 Dresses this time!

7. Hold Back the Night by The Trammps: Again, another shagging song, but I also love the lyrics in this song. It was even the title of one of my facebook albums!

8. Super Bass by Nicki Minaj: I don't care what anyone says about this--it's a really fun dancing song! It's also a HUGE crowd pleaser!

9. Dancin' In the Moonlight by Toploader: I love this version from "A Walk to Remember" and this makes me want to snag a partner and shuffle around the dance floor!

10. The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra: This is my last movie dancing scene one! Taken from one of my favorite movies, My Best Friend's Wedding, I love this song for a sweet slow dance!

11. We R Who We R by Ke$ha: Really, any Ke$ha song is a great dancing song! Am I right?

12. Love Done Gone by Billy Currington: This tune has the IDEAL shagging beat and timing! I once heard it called "the happiest sounding sad song ever" on the radio! I shag a little just hearing it!

13. No Hands by Waka Flocka Flame: Anyone who hears this song, HAS to dance to it! ...with no hands!

14. Come Away with Me by Norah Jones: I know a few couples who have used this as their slow dance for their weddings. So sweet I can't get over it!

15. Why Don't We Just Dance by Josh Turner: The title says it all!

Hear the whole playlist here on Spotify!

xxKatie

Tush Push Time!

I was thinking about school and shagging and Beach Weekend (Steph and Tori, I'm not sure if you read this, but remember?! Trying to teach the boys??) the other day and remembered a very fun dance that was slightly part of all 3! This dance, called "The Tush Push" is a line dance we learned at Jillian's! It was hard to track down EXACTLY the same one we learned, but 100% this is spot on!



These guys break it down so it's easy to learn (I even feel better about my skills)! It is such a fun dance to do and you can do it to modern/pop/country songs! I love that! Adding the Tush Push to my wedding playlist is a definite! It was a fun way to get everyone up and dancing and was easy to learn since you do everything in 4 counts! Anyone else know how to do the Tush Push? I am speaking for most of the girls in my class who learned how to do it (and at least for Molly, Colleen and I) and can say that we LOVE it!

Put on those dancin' shoes now! Grab a friend and pull a "Something Borrowed Push It" moment and learn the Tush Push in a few minutes!

xxKatie

P.S.: Happy June y'all!

Shag Debut: The Next Day

Last night we had our big "final" shag debut! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! We all had a blast strutting our stuff all around the dance floor. We danced with almost everyone in our class and even some of the people just there dancing on their own. We had such a blast and I can't believe that we've made SO MUCH progress since our first night!! This was what I wore for our big night out:

April 14 by letsbepreppy featuring jack rogers shoes

My Lilly Worth Shift is like a boost of confidence in a dress! It is my absolute favorite item in my closet so it was easily my go-to for a big night like tonight!! I was so excited to spend one of my last weekends with these folks and I think we all really had a great time! Only a few more weeks left in the school year...I can't believe it!

xxKatie

Country Strong

Last night I watched Country Strong with 2 girlfriends and man-oh-man is this a sad one! We thought that it was going to be a much happier movie, but my favorite part was all the music. All of the songs were great! I had downloaded part of the soundtrack beforehand (before even seeing the movie) but I have an entirely new appreciation now! My favorite song was by Chiles Stanton, better known as Leighton Meester called "A Little Bit Stronger". It's a cover of a Sara Evans song, as you can watch here:





I'm definitely a fan of the LM version! The majority of the song had movie on top of it so we mostly heard dialogue but I was still lip-synching the words along with it!

Has anyone else seen this movie? What did you think, I'd love to hear other reviews!

xxKatie

PS: Tonight is my official Shag debut to the Shag community of Columbia. Wish me and my friends luck (and preferably, lots of it...). Thanks lovelies!!

Shag Update!

Tonight is my third class! Thanks for all the words of support and good luck! Class is going surprisingly well mostly because my entire class is new to shag. Very few of the class has even done it before, plus we're all pretty awkward, so there isn't much judgement or weirdness in class. I've been watching YouTube videos because we have a quiz in class, and I tend to absolutely crack under pressure when our instructors are watching. We've gone over the "basic step" as well as the "walking basic" and two types of passes already! Like I said in the beginning, we missed our first two classes, so we've gotta move fast! I've been having a great time, and even getting a workout! My friend Colleen and I had sore backs after our first class because our posture has to be a certain way every class. I also have a problem with letting the guy lead, but I'm working on it! This video has really been helping me understand the passes and footwork more:

It really is SO much fun and I can't wait to learn more! On an upcoming Thursday, we have to go to a local shag club (Jillian's here specializes in Thursday shag nights) and dance with the professionals! I've heard it is a TON of fun and my old roommate used to go to it, but now she's abroad! I'm excited to be led around by a trained dancer who isn't in our class and we get extra credit for it! 

Any of my SC readers been to Jillian's? Anyone really good and have a few pointers!?

xxKatie

Shagging Shoe Shopping

Today at 6:15, I have my first shagging dance class. (Read: I'm very very nervous). I've posted about shagging before, but decided to bite the bullet and enroll in a class. I figured it would be fun to take a random class with no one I knew and put my best foot forward. Low and behold, a know very many people in class (which I think is good and bad) and one of my best friends, Colleen, signed up for my moral support (I'm still thankful...). For anyone who's not entirely familiar with shagging, here's a good video to watch:


My professor is pretty strict about what kinds of shoes we can wear to class and sent us (5) an email about all the kinds of shoes we couldn't wear. They had to be closed toe, no black bottoms, no sneakers, no streak-leaving, no sandals, no heels, that were comfortable enough to dance in. What was I left with? Nothing. She said boat shoes were acceptable, but this girl doesn't own any...can you believe that? In an effort to go shagging shoe shopping--say that five times fast--Colleen and I hurried over to the mall yesterday morning. I was lucky enough to find two pairs of boat shoes (a preppy pink and green pair and a standard brown pair that would match anything) and they were included on a BOGO sale!

I used to have two pairs of Sperrys, but one was the wrong size (there's a HUGE difference between a 9.5 and a 10!) and the other was a pink leather traditional boat shoe that gave me horrible blisters (also a 9.5!) and now I have two pairs that I can rely on. I'm really looking forward to having both pairs because they're so functional plus I can pop them on with shorts or in place of Jack Rogers with some outfits! I definitely needed a pair of these for a few years!

So here goes nothing...I haven't taken a dance class in YEARS! The last formal dance class I took was Irish dancing and this is certainly a departure, but how can you graduate from a Southern school and not know how to properly shag?! You just can't! Even my dad knows how, so here goes quite the class. Hopefully I won't be as nervous once 6:00 rolls around!

xxKatie