Around The World has come and gone!

Last night at the Johnson I presented our first official Special Ride, "Around the World." The ride was the synthesis of management actually pushing me to host a special event. Management was more interested in seeing a seasonal ride (AKA Halloween) but I vetoed that PDQ. I wanted to give my students something special that was both unique and creative, but also refreshingly free of gimmicks (esp. after a campaign season wrought with them).

The ride: 80 minutes. The profile was very simple. Basically a Phase I ride with opportunities to improvise with whatever you felt like. For special events I am less partial to dictating the exact when's and where's of the motion so that my students can for once be truly free. I always instruct my students that if a particular road isn't working for them to find another one, but it is rarer that they feel confident and independent enough to do it.

For those of you that got to RIDE the ride, I'm interested to know what you thought of the ride! Below is the playlist if you did not get a copy of the music.

The Playlist (not every song was used in full because of time constrictions):

WARM-UP
1. AfroCelts- When I Still Needed You

MAIN RIDE:
2. DJ Sin Plomo- African Stomper (Original Mombassa Mix) (Thanks to Patrick (spinninginprescott) for this track)
3. Panjabi MC- Beware of the Boys (Moonbootica Mix)
4. Amadou & Mariam- La Realite (Yuksek Remix) (Thanks to Susan for giving me the original version that turned me on to this remix)
5. Loreena McKennitt- The Mummer's Dance
6. Afro Celt Sound System- Lovers of Light
7. Midival Punditz- Raanjhan
8. Yoshida Bros.- Storm
9. Kodo- Strobe's the Hunted (Kannagara Mix)
10. Boubacar Traore- Mantjini (So beautiful. Must-have)
11. Conjure One- Redemption
12. Chicane- Offshore (Original Mix)
13. Sunlounger- Mediterranean Flower (Dance Mix) (Another must-have)
14. Kila- Ni Liom Fein
15. Solas- Darkness, Darkness
16. Run Lola Run Soundtrack- African Song (Gave it out on my WSSC cd's from 07 & 08)

RECOVERY
17. Celtic Woman- Ave Maria

FINISH
18. AfroCelts- The Otherside
19. Lynyrd Skynyrd- FreeBird (only the guitar solo. Went over SO WELL! I was nervous about it...)

Cool-down
20. Vas- Refuge
21. Arno Elias- Epic & Dream

It took over a month of compiling this music to get what I wanted, and the playlist turned out to be excellent. I suprisingly would've only left out "Redemption" by Conjure One. Despite being one of my favorite songs, it felt, to me, like the part of the ride that was least cohesive.

In health,

Patrick