Never Say Goodbye.

I sit in the Sydney airport waiting for my connection flight. Everything feels unreal. My body is tired after a way too short and restless night, but that is nothing compared to my emotional exhaustion. I have been avoiding to think the inevitable. All I wanted from my last days was happiness, laughter and smiles. No tears, no goodbyes, no sad moments, I told to everyone, including myself. There were moments I felt the sadness reaching me, but I pushed it away. I didn't start packing before the last minute possible; it felt like too concrete and scary thing to do.

But now it is time to admit that I am leaving.

There are not many things I hate, but I do hate goodbyes. I feel extremely sad leaving Brisbane, though at the same time I feel happy to feel sad: it means the time I spent there was worth every moment. Still, I can't help the overwhelming feelings from taking over me. My heart simply feels so heavy and I can constantly feel my tears trying to push through. The problem with happiness is that you get addicted and just want to have more. I want to stay. I want to keep my life as it is now. But life changes constantly and this is just one of my turning point. At the moment, yes, it hurts, but eventually good things won't hurt but rather make your life more meaningful.

My last weeks in Brisbane were simply amazing. I felt like I got to know some people a lot better in a short period of time. I met new amazing people. I had who knows how many farewell parties! I had my farewell dances in Rio's and Casa's. I went to new places and started to see the city in a different light. I spend lots of time with my friends and danced as much as I could. I lived every moment even more intensively. It was a perfect ending for my six month trip.

Leaving doesn't mean forgetting. Leaving doesn't mean losing the memories. Leaving doesn't mean goodbye. That is why I won't say goodbye. I will be back.

During my last few days I got huge amount of messages from my Brissy friends and I'd like to share some parts of them here:

"I remember the first couple of dances I had with you, a short journey of discovery. I in so many ways felt like a little child with a new toy... I explored new fields of connection, I had found someone to engage on the dance floor in a way I had never encountered before."

"You are our dream that none of us will forget. Thank you very much for being like a breath of fresh air."

"You have been like a ray of sunshine to the dancing scene in Brisbane. It has been pleasure to watch you dance and also be part of a little community of people you have brought together since you have been here - that quality you have, your beautiful personality as well as your beautiful dancing is what we will all miss the most."

"I think you are an amazing person and I love your smile and authenticity. You are definitely one of my favorite dancers to dance with."

"It was always a pleasure to watch you dance; the way you express yourself through dancing is highly inspiring. As a matter of fact, I will never forget how you danced with me on my birthday dance. We should have more of us like you!"

"My favorite memory of you is you and dancing! Watching you dance, dancing with you, every move you've taught me, every time you've done a steal with me! Your passion is infectious and your ability is astonishing."

"I think I've been to about five times more parties in the last couple of months than I usually do thanks to you!"

"It was great meeting you and thanks for the awesome dance inspiration and lessons - you really did play a big role in getting me hooked."

"Every dance [with you] is an adventure not everybody makes it our alike!"

"When I started dancing with you the first thing I thought was how easy it was to dance with you. Perhaps this was because you are such a great dancer, one of the best I've ever danced with, but beyond that I think it's because we feel things in a similar way."

"A big part of me just wants you to stay!"

I would like to thank you everybody from the bottom of my heart for your overwhelming words and for making my journey unforgettable. I don't have to mention names; you know that I'm talking about you.

Thank you so much.

Special Memories.

I am pretty against using intoxicants while dancing, and I think especially drunk dancing can be dangerous not only to yourself but others too. I don't like dancing drunk; it makes me numb and unbalanced, and I want to feel the dancing in my body the fullest. I also want to be able to trust my dance partner and not be afraid that he might accidentally drop or hurt me in some way because he is drunk. One of the reasons I fell for dancing was that I was able to go out and spend the whole night in the dance floor without being surrounded by drunk people.

However, the other night I had a small piece of special brownies before dancing. I have never had those kind of brownies before, but the effect I had in the dance floor was... wow! It wasn't like being drunk at all, but more like being my normal self with my senses made more sensitive. The music was loud and all I could hear; it blocked out all my thoughts. It was like the time slowed down: when I thought that the song was about to end it actually was only half way through. I had so much time to react to my partner's lead that I felt like being 100% synchronized. I could feel the tiniest lead and weight change and even the floor vibrating strongly due to our steps. I was able to feel every single touch so much more strong than ever before. My movements weren't uncontrollable at all and I glided slowly through the music. I was so relaxed and couldn't think of anything else but the extremely good feeling dancing gave me. It didn't matter with who I was dancing with; most of the time I had even forgotten who was leading me. There was nothing else, just that moment and that dance that seemed to last forever. It was an instant and strong dance flow.

Do not get me wrong, this was just one time experience for me and not here to encourage others to do same. There was an opportunity for which I went for. After all, this blog is a place where I want to store my dancing memories and dancing that night was different and, I must admit, simply amazing for me. Mind-blowing even! One more extraordinary memory to store to my dance world!

I'm having my last couple of days in Brisbane before flying to Tokyo and finally back home to Helsinki, so you can imagine how busy I have been lately having the last dances and catching up with everyone. So, I'll come back to my feelings about the whole Australia trip and going back home when I actually have time to sit down and figure out my confusing emotions that are going through me at the moment. Oh, I'm going to miss this life I'm having here so much!

Twentythree.

And so Michaelo went back home, reminding me once again how short time I have left: 23 days to be exact. He was replaced by my best friend and soon also my family is coming over. Now is the time of my trip to go sightseeing in and around Brisbane that I have been saving for my visitors. Its going to be lots of adventures and unforgettable memories! Unfortunately, all this will mean a lot less dancing. With Michaelo it was easy, because he is as much dance addict as I am, but taking a non-dancer to a dance party... just doesn't work. It means either that the non-dancer will be super bored while I am in the dance floor or that I will feel horrible not being able to go to the dance floor while keeping company to the other. One thing is for sure though: I will need my dance fix every week or else I'll get restless. I just have to make sure my friend has something to do while I go and dance my heart out. It is not that I don't want to spend my time with her, but that I'm simply addicted to dancing.

Okay, lets get into the topic of dancing and something that many dancers do to improve: private classes. During the two years of dancing I have never done a private dance class. I've had plenty of one-on-one dance practices but never a real private. Last Thursday changed the situation, but I didn't settle just for one: I had my first private as a student as well as a teacher!

Luckily, I was able to exchange the prizes we won in the Zouk competition to a private from Kadu and Larissa and make it happen before Michaelo headed back to Finland. We were both pretty excited about the class, taken that these teachers were the first Zouk idols we both had when starting dancing Zouk. I remember us watching their videos together, being amazed of their technique and precise movements. And there we were, going to their private that we won from a competition organized by them. You can imagine the child-like wide smiles on our faces.

I don't know how privates usually go, but what I wanted out of it was corrections and 'cleaning' of my Zouk technique, not any new movements or figures. The feedback we got was really positive and there weren't any major issues to correct. Kadu spoke well especially of our musicality. However, we both got some good tips of some smaller things we could pay attention to. It was more talking than dancing really, which I found good because we can practice the small details later together now that we are aware of those. I got at least two new things to concentrate on that I haven't realized doing badly before. It was also good to learn of their styling that is in some parts quite different to Freddy and Andressa's. All in all, very successful first private and I have already been trying the new things out while social dancing.

What comes to the private as a teacher, one dancer contacted me to give him a Kizomba class after dancing with me in DouDouLe. I wanted to give him a good start to the dance and asked Michaelo to help me with the class. I'm very happy with the results he made and hopefully gave him motivation to keep on learning more, even though unfortunately we won't be able to have another class with him. Wow, my first dollars earned as a dancer, how cool is that!

Another thing about teaching Kizomba happened last Wednesday when me and Michaelo organized a Kizomba evening at my place. As I have been saying before, I have been missing dancing Kizomba in Brisbane and I think that the approach to the dance here is wrong in a sense that the focus is somewhere else than in the connection which I regard as the most important thing in Kizomba; it is like two bodies moving as one. The evening had great turn over and our living room was filled with eager and well-motivated dancers. We concentrated on the fundamentals and tried to make the people to understand the feeling and basic movement of the dance. Everybody seemed happy with our approach and I had a feeling that everybody really wanted to listen carefully what we were saying and teaching. After the class we had couple of hours of free dancing and I simply loved the view of my living room full of couples concentrating on their connection, eyes closed and soft smile on their face. Later many of the attendees have been coming to me saying that these kind of home Kizomba evenings should become a regularity, because they loved the evening so much.

I don't know if it is the awareness that I am leaving soon, but I now seem to get even more out of the social dancing. Last Friday the Brisbane Zouk dancers were spoiled with choice when there were three parties to go to. It is great to have a choice but it meant less dancers for each party. I went for Zouk and the City party at Normanby hotel which wasn't that huge success, but I nevertheless had many amazing dances there that were a stand out from the hundreds (or more likely thousands) of dances I've had here. Also Saturday's 50/50 party included some mind-blowing dances with many dancers. You know, those kind of dances after which you are just speechless. I also had my first really great Zouk with Kadu for which I was super happy about. I haven't had sore feet from dancing for a while, so I must have spend quite some time on the dance floor during those nights, even though it didn't feel like that at all. Amazing dancing nights, simply amazing.

There is one thing I must criticize though, and this must result from the awareness that I am leaving soon. There are many dancers I want to dance with and especially now I don't want to miss the last chances to dance with them. In Saturday's party there were many moments when I was clearly going towards someone to ask him to dance with me, when another dancer suddenly grabbed my back and stopped me. In this kind of moment it didn't matter who it was stopping me, but it was hard to enjoy the next dance with him because of the way our dance started. For me it is really hard to say no if asked for a dance, but it doesn't mean that I'm a fare game whenever walking free in a dance party. If I need to get a zip of water or have a short break, I do it clearly by walking away from the dance floor, avoiding taking any eye-contact and placing myself somewhere as far away from the dance floor as possible. If I am clearly making an eye-contact with someone I'd like to dance the next song with, and walking towards him, it doesn't mean that anyone who is faster getting a hold on me, would be entitled to have that dance instead. I have even been taken away after I started the dance with someone else ("hey, I think its my turn now, if you don't mind" - well, I do!). Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I can spend the whole night in the dance floor without asking anyone to dance myself, but there should be some manners, don't you agree.

So, 23 days to go. Another 23 amazing days.