The New Me.

Gentleman, apologies: this is going to be a girly post, so you might want to skip the rest of it. However, since you made it all the way to this blog, you might as well check out this video about last weekend's Swingsation, which nicely puts together many things that happened there:

So, into the girly stuff! First of all, I finally got myself new dance high heels, even two pairs of them! My old shoes are so worn out that I felt embarrassed to wear them in the dance parties. One nice thing I have learned here in Brisbane is wearing high heels when dancing Zouk, which used to be something I rather didn't do. I was simply feeling more comfortable with my sneakers and didn't want to disturb my dancing experiences with worrying about my balance in high heels. Because here are so many Zouk parties around, I've had plenty of opportunities to get rid of this bad habit and got used to wearing heels. It is just a matter of practice and adjusting really. The more I wear heels the more comfortable I feel with them and the more I want to wear them.

Anyway, back to my new pretty shoes! There is this nice lady in Brisbane who has a dance shoe shop at her house in Annerly, and that's where I headed on Wednesday before Swingsation. I was desperate getting a pair of West Coasting shoes for the event since I sure didn't want to wear my dance sneakers for the whole event. My challenging plan was to find a pair that I could dance both West Coast and Zouk with. Challenging because West Coast dancers wear block heel shoes that no one uses in Latin world. Well, I was lucky to find the perfect "compromise" shoes: more Latin style but with wider and lower heels suitable for WCS. I also grabbed a new beautiful pair of Zouk shoes with me, and I can't wait to drive them in on this weekend on DouDoule! There is a good possibility that I'll visit the lady again before going back home. Too many pretty shoes to choose from!

Another girly thing worth mentioning is that I'm no longer a curly blond but a short brunette. I took my curls around an year ago, because I wanted to get that thick and voluminous Zouk hair that wouldn't fizzle out during the parties. My curls served me well but they made my hair in such a bad condition that I simply had to cut it away. I've never had this short hair, so it was kind of a big decision for me. It might feel weird not being able to swing my hair while dancing Zouk, but I since far I've liked the transformation. Isn't it funny that dancing affects to all of my decisions, even the choice of a hair cut! I don't have a nice dancing picture of my new hair yet, but here is a WCS video from last night:

Pretty different look, huh! By the way, please take into account how short time I've been dancing West Coast while watching the video. I still have long way to go, as you can see. The leader I'm dancing with in the video is someone who have helped me a lot with my West Coast. One of the persons who I'll definitely miss when I get back home.

So, this weekend it is time for Doudoule Latin Dance Camp! Those who know me and browse through the artists in the web page can easily guess with who of them I'm dying to dance with. Its going to be yet another amazing dancing weekend!

Swingsation.

Oh my god what an amazing weekend I had in Swingsation! Those couple of days put my dancing into a whole different level and made me understand the feeling and dynamics of West Coast Swing. One noticeable highlight was my first placement in newcomer's Jack& Jill competition on Saturday night. Nice acknowledgement for my hard practicing during the last few months. And I was close for not even taking part!

I've been to quite a few Latin dance festivals, so I think I was expecting something similar to those from Swingsation, but no, it was really different. First significant difference was the competitions that took big amount of time of the weekend. It is a whole different concept that everybody competes, it is kind of part of the dance. There were three kind of competitions: choreographed performances, competition with set partners and competition with randomly picked partners. Most of Friday and Saturday nights were reserved for the competitions, with some social dancing in between and after. I'm not sure how I feel about this; it definitely has its pros and cons. Good thing is that it keeps the dance "clean" and makes dancers aware of proper technique and how the dance looks outside. Its also a great way of noticing your own improvement and gives everybody an opportunity to show others what they've got. Bad side of it was that it took so much time away from social dancing during the nights. Even though it was fun and inspiring to watch the competitions, I would have rather done more workshops and social dancing. I also wonder if the competitions hinder the development of the dance by setting specific rules of how the dance is supposed to be danced. Further, I had a feeling that the competitions clearly divided people into different levels of dancers, and as a beginner, made me feel quite outsider. You'd have to work hard to get a high level dancer position and that way to get into the "inside group" with who the other high level dancers dance with. Well, maybe that is one of the reasons why there are so many great dancers in WCS. I just have to say wow, really great dancers!

Second major difference was the feeling and atmosphere in the event, which I feel like Latin dance festivals have more friendly and warm touch than WCS. Then again, what I really loved was that people came there to have lots of fun, to laugh a lot and have crazy times in the dance floor. I have always preferred to dance to slower songs that have lots of feeling, but in West Coast I just love those energetic and fast beat songs that you can just party through with lots of speed and energy.

What has always been really important to me in partner dancing is the dance connection. During the weekend I found that in WCS I can have a good connection with more people but the connection is never as "deep" as in Zouk. I felt like in WCS they think the connection as a part of the technique, whilst I think its more than just a technique, something quite magical between the two dancers. Funnily, I experienced the deepest connections during the weekend (unknowingly) with dancers of Zouk and Kizomba background. "So what else have you danced?" -"Zouk." -"Oh, that makes sense". I also found out that it is pretty easy to mix Zouk into West Coast. Easy way of dancing Zouk not only to Zouk music but also into any music with 4/4 count!

So, what next? All the WCS practices before Swingsation were kind of aiming there, it was my goal. As far as I know there is no WCS scene in Finland, and since I'll be having visitors for the last two months of my stay in Brissy, there will be not that much opportunities to dance here either. A great investment that I can't utilize, right? Yes, I was feeling really sad on Sunday after the final workshops and social dancing. I had so much fun. I learned so much. I fell in love with the dance. Now what?

Even if this was the end of my West Coast (at least for a long while), I am deeply happy that I went for it. Besides, I do realize that dancing is living in a moment, and I loved each and every one of my Swingsation moments. That is what matters.

Btw, Ben&Jen's WCS routine with a Hiphop touch was simply amazing to watch. One of the best routines I've ever seen. Check them performing the same routine in Swing Diego:

West Coast Swing.

Today was the beginning of my WCS marathon. This means I'm going to West Coast every day until Monday morning, and hopefully day and night long during the weekend. Its sure going to be an exciting weekend; I even registered to my first WCS competition! I know, pretty crazy thing to do after just couple of months of dancing, but after a long consideration I thought why not. I'm not going to have these opportunities for a long time after this. Its all about having fun anyway.

It wasn't long time ago when I was having second thoughts about going to the Swingsation. The last thing I wanted to do was to get depressed of being a horrible dancer beside the pros and other amazing West Coast dancers. Now I finally have a feeling that this is very unlikely to happen. Rather, I'll get inspired seeing those great dancers. Plus, I'll most definitely will have lots of fun now that I've somehow gotten into the dance. I feel like I'm dancing West Coast, maybe with my own Latin-affected style, but West Coast nonetheless. Its been so helpful to get some feedback and couple of private practices.

So, why have I been going to WCS classes twice every week since end of March? Even though the Swingsation pass was giving me extra motivation, it was surely not the only reason. I fell in love with the extremely positive feeling that people were having. I fell for the opportunities the dance style offers. I got excited that WCS can be danced to almost any music. It was interesting to see these different dance circles and atmosphere compared to latin dancers. Everything was something so different to my beloved Zouk: technique, music, connection, following, the whole feeling of the dance. I soon realized that it also took me out of my dance comfort zone, which can be unpleasant feeling, but makes me learn more in shorter period of time. I think I've already come a long way even though I have heaps to learn.

In the beginnig of this year I promised myself to learn a whole new dance style. Well, you know what, I have a feeling that after this weekend I can proudly say that I am a West Coast dancer.

Going Solo?

First of all, I appreciate that so many have messaged me to express their conserns and shared their tips for knee problems. Actually, my knee got lot better during the weekend, and on Monday I already thought that I just got scared for noting. However, it seems that I am doing something wrong in West Coast, because on Tuesday's class my knee went back to super painful only after 20-something minutes of social dancing. Seriously, on Saturday I was dancing Zouk for two hours in a row and the knee was fine! And nothing on Popping or Hiphop classes! It is like my body was telling me it doesn't want me to turn into a West Coast dancer. What worries me now is the Swingsation that is happening already next week. How can I handle a whole weekend if I barely can manage one night?

Anyway, enough with complaining about my knee. As you might have noticed, one new thing I have started doing here is street dancing. I do Popping on Monday evenings in Mad Dance House and Hiphop on Wednesdays in Mega Jam, and I have totally fallen into both of those. The Popping classes offer lots of challenging technique and make me feel like wanting to learn more and more. In the Hiphop, then again, we do a different routine each time, and even though I have had quite negative attitude for those kind of classes, doing a choreo is actually fun way to learn new moves and get inspiring ideas. Its also great memory and speed test (and a good work-out)!

Doing solo dancing is so different to partner dancing. I haven't really been doing solo dancing, but now I have a feeling that solo would be the next step for me to take. Many times I've had a feeling that I can't dance alone, that I need someone to lead me, and this is something I'd like to get rid of. I want to be able to shine in the dance floor without someone telling me what to do. So, I have been thinking that I might just concentrate on solo dancing when I get back to Finland. I am quite happy with the level of my following skills and believe solo dancing would give me the technique I need to put also my partner dancing to the next level.

I have been mostly doing only partner dancing during all of my dance career. Partner dancing is always a conversation with two people, and it includes adapting your dancing with the partner. Before dancing, however, I enjoyed doing sports alone. Going to gym, aerobics class, yoga or what ever I desired to do was truly my own time, time to concentrate only to myself. Lately I have been having this huge urge to start working out again and taking that time to concentrate to my body only. Going to solo dancing, I realized, is one way of satisfying that urge, and it comes with other advantages too: it gives me something new to think about dancing and, in the best case, makes me a more diverse dancer! Even though I absolutely love hard workouts and putting my body to its limits, I feel like it doesn't give me much more than a stronger body when it comes to abilities to utilize outside the gym. I think its so much more exciting and impressing to be able to do cool dancing moves than to have a great technique to lift weights, don't you agree? Sure, hard workouts give that heavenly after workout feeling and possibly a nice looking lean body, but that is achievable through dancing too.

That said, a strong dancer needs strong muscles to have good body control and better ability to perform variety of movements. Because I don't have a gym membership here, I've started to do some home workouts especially to strengthen my core muscles, but somehow I find it hard to motivate myself into doing those. Morning home workouts are not just my thing. So, when I get back home, I'll definitely either find a good and affordable gym to go once or twice a week, or find out other ways to take better care if my muscles (I'm thinking of starting yoga, some acrobatics, or maybe pole dancing...?). It has been too long since I've had that wonderful muscle ache telling me that I have been doing something challenging with my body. However, dancing will always be first in my priority list, and if I had to choose between gym and dance class, I'd no doubt go with the latter. Strong muscles are there to support and enable dancing, not my ultimate goal as such.

After all that, would I have much time left for partner dancing then? Hm, not really. Sometimes a change of direction is good though, and in my situation, maybe inevitable.

As a final treat, here is a link to some of my social dancing in Rio Rhythmics the other day. I tried to post the video straight to here, but apparently Blogger had something against it. Anyway, you can view the (amazingly high quality!) video through this link. Also, some pictures from dancing and having fun on top of beautiful scenery in Moreton Island a while ago:

Photos by Julien Fantin.

Ouch.

How ironic: just when I wrote how awful it would be to get an injury, something bad happened. I'm not exactly sure what actually happened, but during Thursday's West Coast class I started to feel that something wasn't right with my right knee, and after the class it was hurting so much I had to skip the social dancing part and go home early. I thought everything was back to normal on Friday morning but as soon as I stepped out and started walking, the pain was back. I have never had this kind of pain in my knees: its so sharp, biting and strong even walking hurts.

Well, hands up those who think I skipped Friday's Zouk party to rest my knee? No hands...? Come on, even one? No? You are right, I know I should have, but I thought that if I just warmed it up and wore a knee support, it would have been okay. Yes, maybe okay for the first hour but after three, not okay. Ouch. The thing is that I can't stop dancing. Its my stress relief, my social boost, feed for my soul, my work out, my whole free time! This weekend is so full of dance events I don't know how much I can resist the urge go dancing.

I'm afraid. What if it doesn't heal before the festivals this months into which I have just spent big dollars? More importantly, what if I have to stop dancing for a while? What will I do?

Okay, I have to end this post to something positive. If you take away my knee pain, last night's Zouk party was actually really great. I had this huge dance mood going everywhere in my body. I didn't want to leave the dance floor. And guess what, something pretty awesome happened after the party: someone came to ask me whether I did privates! I was speechless. Um.... Yes? Apparently my pain didn't show outside! Also, Alex got couple of nice shots of me dancing. What a luxury to have these photographers around!

Oh, last Wednesday I went to Mega Jam's hiphop class (great class btw, definitely going there again!) and the teacher was talking how late he started dancing: as late as 14-years-old. Damn, I just started two years ago, at 25! Yes, it has now been around two years I started, I realized. It feels so much longer though. I can't even remember what my life was like before dancing. Sometimes I have been going back to my blog to see what I was doing an year ago, but now I can go even two years back. Reading about my practices with Nic two years back brings back so many warm memories. Now I'm so glad I decided to start writing this blog: its is such an easy way to notice own progress and store those special moments I've had. I have never kept a diary as long as this one, and I have to think all my readers who have been encouraging me to keep on writing. Thats what I will keep on doing.