Back From The Holiday.

Usually I hate coming back home from my travels. I'm rarely homesick, and the only thing I'm usually glad about coming home is not having to live from my backpack all the time. This time, however, I was happy to come back to Helsinki, not because I was homesick, but because I missed dancing. Fortunately I came home late on Tuesday night which meant multiple dance practices for the rest of the week starting from the very next day. I managed to arrange a dance practice with my new practice partner, Mr. A., already for Wednesday, so I got my dancing back on track right from the beginning.

I couldn't say I got that much new out from yesterday's beginners Waltz lesson, but it is good to go back to basics every now and then. In short, we started with Vienna Waltz and after an hour or so continued to Slow Waltz, the emphasis being on the basic steps and the rotation of upper body. Interestingly, some of the beginners' class leaders, who apparently want to get feedback and guidance from me (and have noticed that I easily give it!), have spotted me and kept coming and asking me to practice with them. Somehow I also unintentionally kept on bumping into one specific leader, which actually turned out to be a good thing in a way that we were able to adjust our dancing into each other's style. In the end off the class we did much better than in the beginning (plus we had much fun dancing together!).

Even though it is good to practice the basic steps, I must admit that I enjoyed my practice with Mr. A. after the HOT-dance class much more than the basic step training. After dancing with beginners it was so comfy to dance with someone who is an excellent leader and knows what he is doing. This was our second practice together, since we practiced once before my trip to Spain, but I felt like we already danced quite well together and were able to find a good connection. What I have noticed is that it is not enough your dance partner is a good dancer or a good leader to be able to dance with him well. I find it really hard to follow some brilliant dancers whose dancing style differs lots from mine even though they definitely know how to lead their partners. Well okay, I'm still just a beginner, but I bet I'm not the only one feeling this way.

I know Mr. A. could teach me lots about dancing, especially about some dances I haven't danced before, but for now I feel like I should stick with the dances I already know when practicing with him. I liked the feeling that we didn't have this teacher-student relationship that I had with Nic and have with JV, but that we both could somehow learn without the other's teaching. If there was something to comment on the other's dance, we did that, but other than that we basically just danced different dances, mostly Slow Fox, Fusku, Tango and Cha-cha. The best way to learn to dance, after all, is to actually dance. Okay, I have to admit that going for new dances with Mr. A. would mean stepping out of my comfort zone, so in a way I'm just taking the path of least resistance. Well, let's see how this partnership develops.