Last Sunday was probably a first day this year when I had a possibility just to chill at home, do nothing and relax. The horrible and super snowy weather made sure I didn't even want to leave my warm and cozy apartment. In the afternoon, however, I was brave enough to pull on warm clothes and take a packed buss to the Sunday's Zouk practica. I regretted my decision at least dozen of times before I finally reached the HSA's dance studio, but it didn't take a long time to change my opinion. My favorite part was when two leaders decided to share me and I had my first threesome dance experience. I like getting attention - there is no use of denying it - so of course it was great to feel like two guys were competing of me! What was challenging, though, was the constant changes in two really different leads that I had to adapt myself quickly. I also got some good advice of doing a deep cambré, and got my legs sore after practicing the new technique.
On Tuesday I finally got myself into going to Havanna for some social dancing. It was Zouk and Kizomba night that time and it was nice meeting some Zouk dancers I haven't been dancing with for a long time. The time went fast and the night made me wonder why I even had skipped all the Tuesdays' social dancing this year.
My zoukking continued also on Wednesday. I first met up with Michaelo with our regular Zouk practice after which we made a special decision: we chose the song into which we will start making our first Zouk choreography! The song is just the kind of song that I wanted it to be: beautiful and sentimental. It gives lots of possibilities for different kind of dancing, lifts and emotions. It has very slow and light movements, rhythmic variability and stronger parts. It will take a lot of time before the choreography will be ready but at least I can never get bored to the song. After our practice Michaelo joined my and Mr A.'s practice with Zouk ladies N and L. The idea was to have a smaller scale common practice and to learn something new together. It was a good idea but next time we'd better have some sort of plan for the practice: now everyone seemed more or less confused about how we should construct the practice.
After so much zoukking it was nice to go back to ballroom dancing in Thursday's classes and Friday's HOT-Dancing party. Thursday's classes didn't offer me that much new, though, and there was too big unbalance between leaders and followers. There is nothing more irritating than waiting in line for a partner in pair dancing class! The same problem with unbalance continued on Friday, but I was being active and so was able to dance almost as much as I wanted. I was supposed to leave early, because I had to wake up early the next morning, but I was enjoying the party so much that I wasn't able. Huge thanks to Mr A. who was playing awesome music throughout the whole night! Great dancing and lots of fun.
Rest of this week is non-dancing time for me since I flew to the northern Finland for some snowboarding with my family. Unfortunately yesterday I hurt myself in the slopes and my lower back is now pretty sore. I am only hoping that it is not nothing big and that I will be fine before Tuesday's dancing.
This week was also highlighted with two dancing related news: Argentine Tango teacher was killed because of snow falling from apartment building's roof and two Salsa teachers were charged with multiple sex offenses. Confusing.
The Zouk festival shook out the last remains of my dance burn out depression, but I had to start dancing this week slowly because my back and feet were hurting a lot after dancing so much during the festival weekend. My feet were actually full of blisters and it was even painful to walk for couple of days! There would have been a Valentine's Day Bachata party in Havanna where I would have loved to go, but I decided to listen to my body and stay home. On Wednesday both Michaelo and Mr A. canceled our practices (tut-tut for both of you!), so I had to wait until Thursday to pull on my dancing shoes again. This time HOT-Dancing offered Salsa in the intermediate and Rumba in the advanced class.
I have created a weird attitude towards Salsa. Last summer I absolutely loved dancing Salsa and tried to induce Nic to any Salsa party I could find. Now I feel like Salsa music don't really inspire me and I haven't been to any Salsa party for ages. At it's best, Salsa is an extremly energetic and fun dance but lately I have had a feeling that I am not getting into the Salsa mood. I guess my problem is that I used to dance so much Salsa with Nic and only with him, so following someone else is just not that simple for me. I think I should take some Salsa classes or just hit some Salsa parties and start everything from the beginning.
Dancing Salsa in HOT's classes or its parties is quite different compared to "normal" Salsa parties. No offense, but many dancers in HOT don't have the right body control nor the attitude for latin dances. Salsa without flirting or lets-have-crazy-fun-attitude is like food without spices; plain and unexciting. If you don't know anything else than basic step and couple of figures, just do them with an attitude and you'll be fine! I cannot feel like the dance was successful if my partner didn't give me a single smile or wink during it. Anyway, on Thursday's Salsa class we went through some basic things and figures to cross-body Salsa. It was surprisingly hard to follow some leaders, and I am not sure if it was me or them doing something wrong. At least I got some positive feedback on my "latin-like" movement.
Rumba class continued where we left last week and introduced some new figures for us. The most difficult thing for me in Rumba at the moment is the right amount of press and sense of weightiness. Also, since Nic taught me to keep my upper body still, I should learn how to activate my chest and sides during Rumba. It seems that most of the dancers just want to learn new figures, but for me it is the technique training that gives me the most. Fortunately I can concentrate on my body movement while my partner is learning a figure since, as a follower, I don't really need to remember single figures if I just can follow the lead. I am hoping for some more technique practices and less figures on next week's Rumba class though.
The Tango teachers.
On Friday I went to my first Argentine Tango class. First I didn't really feel like going there since I know how difficult the dance is, but it turned out to be a real beginner class and, even better, free of charge, so there was no reason skipping it. Besides, I have been wanting to try this dance for a long time. I had been dancing Argentine Tango with Mr A. couple of times before (read: he tried to lead and I desperately tried to follow with not so good results), but those times didn't really seem to affect to the fact how lost I was in this dance. My posture was wrong, my balance was bad and my stepping horrible. I must have had a funny I-am-trying-to-concentrate-to-hundred-things-look in my face for the whole class; everything was so new for me. Even though I usually hate being out of my comfort zone, the Zouk festival must have taught me some patience, since being lost didn't feel that uncomfortable at all this time. The class consisted some leading/following, stepping and turning practices. In total, I liked the class but I couldn't just go dancing Argentine Tango after this. Let's see if I start taking some classes after March when I start having some more time in my week schedule.
After the Tango class I headed to Pohjalaisten tanssikerho's dance party. This time they had two dance floors and playlists, one for quick and other for slow dances. I heard many complaining about this division, but I thought it was a good idea. This way there was more opportunities to dance your favorite dances and the dance floor wasn't as crowded as usually. They also had a cute Valentine's Day game: you drew a playing card when you entered the party and tried to find your match among your dance partners; the first ones to find their match were rewarded with a small prize. Although the party was good (you could argue the opposite about some of the music choices though) and there were quite a lot good leaders, somehow I didn't reach my dance mood that evening and decided to go home soon after midnight.
Yesterday I had my first practice with Michaelo after last weekend's festival. The practice ended up being one of those crazy practices where we fool around and laugh so much my abs start to hurt, but we still managed to review all of the 10 figures from the festival. I noticed that since the teachers have quite different Zouk styles, we cannot use all of the figures without changing a style quite radically in the middle of the dance, which won't go. What I would like my zoukking to be is a weightless follower who can react to sudden movements and signals fast and precise. Many lambada movements, for example, require quite a lot of press, and then a light connection is not enough. As a follower I have to adapt to my partner's lead, of course, but then again leaders also have to adapt to their partner too. What comes to me and Michaelo, I'm hoping that I'm having some more influence on our style than just adapting. Good thing is that we have a good understanding about this and want quite same things.
After our fun practice we had an intention of getting drunk - it was a Saturday night after all - but failed and managed to drink only one bottle of sparkling while watching a movie. No drunken opening up this time then! Oh, and I need to point out to my previous posting, how much Michaelo enjoyed the Zouk festival as well, and how nice he was helping me to ask the professionals to dance with me (our plan was to dance the previous song right next to the dancer I wanted to dance with so I could easily grab that person for the next dance. Sneaky!).
By the way, I have had this song in my head for days already, so I thought to share it with you:
Last weekend I traveled to Amsterdam with Michaelo to learn Zouk from some of the best teachers you can find. I don't even know where to start my story from since the weekend was so awesome and definitely one of my best dancing experiences since far.
Well, let's start from the beginning. We arrived to sunny and chilly Amsterdam on Friday morning and found our way to our hotel. It was one of the official festival hotels so transportation between different venues was pretty easy with a shuttle bus. We spent the day wondering around the city and returned to the hotel quite early since we didn't have any information of when the Friday's party would start. We soon realized that getting the information wasn't that simple and easy as we thought, but after all we found ourselves in the party venue, Amsterdam Convention Factory. The night started with some great Salsa and Zouk dance shows, in total 17 of them. The Zouk shows were from Gilson & Natasha and Willem & Sacha. It was well past midnight before we headed to the dance floor for some social dancing.
I was amazed when I saw all the Zouk dancers in the dance floor. The Zouk parties I had been before were nothing compared to that! I knew no one so I got really nervous, because that's just what I do when I dance with new people for the first time (yeah, I still haven't grown out of this weird habit of mine). However, it wasn't possible just to stand next to the dance floor and watch peoples' zoukking because the leaders were actively asking everybody to dance. Already my first dance proved how beginner I was. I struggled to follow everyone, even Michaelo, who tried to ease off my nervousness. Nevertheless, I tried to take the most out of it and learn as much as I could. It was quite a shock for me though, and I was ready to go back to the hotel as soon as Michaelo suggested going to sleep.
After a short sleep and big breakfast it was time for Saturday's Zouk workshops. Pasty & Josta started the workshops at 11 am, followed with Dani & Leticia. After a lunch break we had three more workshops from Willem & Sacha, Kadu & Larissa and Gilson & Natasha. All workshops followed the same structure: a warm up, learning a figure and a Zouk demo from the teachers. The workshops were for all level of dancers and we had constant rotation of dance partners. I liked some of the workshops more than others, but all of them offered something new. A negative thing was that the place, MuzyQ room 1, was a way too tight for all of us, and Zouk naturally takes lots of space. I got a sharp hit to my nose already during the first warm up! The beast teachers were (naturally) Kadu & Larissa, and I felt like a teenager when I went crazy with Michaelo whenever we saw a glimpse of them. I must say that they are simply amazing and inspirational not only as a dance couple but also as teachers. During the lunch break I got to know some Polish zoukkers with who I really enjoyed dancing (too bad they skipped the last party!).
After the workshops we had quick dinner and nap to gain some energy for Saturday's party. The party started again with some shows but this time they were simply amazing and even better than on Friday. I fell into tears when I saw Pasty & Josta's Zouk show, and even thoguh I had seen Kadu & Larissa's performance beforehand on YouTube, it was so much more powerfull and influential to see it live. The Salsa shows were also spectacular but I had a feeling that the crowd cheered more to the zoukkers.
Here's Pasty & Josta's beautiful performance from Saturday:
Saturday's social dancing part started off well. I had a great feeling to dance and my nervousness was gone after dancing with many leaders in the workshops earlier that day. The big dance floor was full but you still had enough space to dance. I didn't have half as much difficulties to follow as I did the night before so I could already see the workshops' teachings working. After dancing a while Michaelo insisted me to go and ask some of the teachers to dance with me. I hesitated but he didn't give up; after all, how many times I had this kind of possibility to dance with professionals? So bravely I walked up to Dani - a dancer I should have not picked up from all of the teachers. Frankly, it was horrible. Our dancing just didn't go together. Not too surprisingly, I overreached really badly and felt like my world just crashed. I lost my dance feeling for the rest of the night and swore I'd never ask any professionals to dance with me anymore. Rationally thinking I knew I was just overreacting but I couldn't help feeling down.
Fortunately my bad feelings were gone the next morning. Sunday's workshops included Zouk lessons from Gilson & Natasha, Ray & Pauline, Dani & Leticia and two lessons from Kadu & Larissa (yay!). The workshops were pretty advanced but offered great figures and ideas. We definitely have lots to work with when we start practicing again with Michaelo! Here's some videos from the Saturday's and Sundays's workshops:
The festival ended with Sunday's dance party. First we saw some dance shows again, and I was really surprised to see Kadu & Larissa performing not Zouk but Samba de Gafieira! The social dancing started a bit earlier than the previous nights, but unfortunately it was a lot less crowded than before. However, there were many good leaders and there wasn't any dance where I would have struggled with my following. It is amazing how much you can improve during one weekend! After I had recovered from my unpleasant experience with Dani I was encouraged to ask Kadu for a dance. I am so glad I did: he was the perfect leader and I felt like flying during the whole dance! His leading was so soft and uninterrupted, and he reached to everything I did (oh and you should have seen Michaelo's face after dancing with Larissa: like a little boy in Christmas!). Later I danced with Pasty which was super fun experience with his sudden decision of pair changing in the middle of the song. I had a great dance feeling for the whole night and could have danced all night long if my body wasn't that exhausted after all the dancing.
So, what are my feelings after the festival? Well, it was definitely worth going there. The weekend showed me how much I still have to learn to move up from my beginner level, but also gave me so much motivation to improve and continue zoukking. I am going to miss the parties where I had a constant chance to learn something new and experience intense feelings of both failing and succeeding. I cannot wait for my next Zouk festival in two months in Prague, and I have already been looking for a summer festival where I could go. Warning to all of you who are planning on going to dance festivals: this is highly addictive!
This is a question I have been thinking a lot lately. Many have been asking why I haven't been updating this blog and one reason is that I simply have been too busy with my life. Other, and maybe more significant, reason is that I have had a feeling that I have nothing to say about dancing. It is not because I would have stopped dancing. The problem is that dancing comes from my heart, and if that fact suddenly changes, nothing feels the same anymore.
When I was dancing a lot last fall, many dancers warned me something what they called a dance burn out. I guess this is something I experienced last month, and trust me, it was not a nice experience. Now that I look back I have to say that I did everything to make that happen. My life was not balanced but ruled over by one thing I loved: dancing. Even though I really enjoyed my dancing-full life that gave me an extreme amount of joy, an unbalanced life never leads to anything good. A short break from dancing made me question my motives behind filling my whole life with dancing. What am I dancing for? Or rather: what am I running away from?
After Christmas dancing just didn't feel the same anymore. Honestly, I did not want to dance. When I did dance, I wanted to get out of there. It is hard to put my feelings into words, but the best description I can come out with would be anxiety. I felt empty during dancing. No music inspired me, and even though I tried my best to find those strong feelings I used to get from dancing, I felt no happiness, no sorrow, no passion, nothing. I didn't feel like myself, it was like I was someone else, a stranger that I never wanted to be. I thought starting my dance classes again would do the trick but I was just checking the time constantly, hoping the class to end. I tried going to dance parties but found myself bored and feeling like an outsider. So, I stopped going out dancing and started to skip my dance practices as much as I could. This stranger scared me. Who was I? What was wrong with me?
It wasn't just me who noticed the change. People started to ask why I had disappeared from dance events and I got worried looks from my dance partners. One Tuesday evening I was sitting in Havanna and suddenly I asked my friend what he would think if I just quit dancing. He looked scared. "From the moment we met", he said, "you have been always talking how much dancing means to you, and now you want to quit? Stop talking nonsense girl!". He was right: I was only making my anxiety grow by exaggerating my negative feelings.
Then suddenly, at some point last week, the stranger in me decided to vanish. Now it even feels weird to write down all these negative experiences I had just a while ago. I even wonder if that ever happened, if it really was possible to have those strange feelings. Last week's dance practices were all just awesome: Wednesday with Michaelo (best practice for a long time, as he said, and I couldn't agree more), Thursday in HOT (Rumba, one of my favorites + spinning technique class), Friday morning with Mr A., Saturday with JV (we both left the practice with a shining dance-glow in our faces) and finally Sunday's Zouk practica in HSA. Especially Sunday I was able to reach an intensive dance flow that just took all over me. I guess last time I had that kind of feeling was in the Zouk festival last November.
So, finally, I am back being myself. I cannot tell you how big relief that is for me! I guess after some time I will be able to understand better why I felt the way I did and how I got out from it. I apologize for the long posting break, but I was actually surprised that so many have been asking new posts from me. I started to write about dancing only as a diary for myself, so I am happy that there are people who are interested about my dancing life, and I will try to update that here at least once or twice a week. Is there something particular You would like me to write about? This weekend I am going to Amsterdam Salsa & Zouk Festival with Michaelo so at least you'll find some videos from the festival next week here.
