New Year’s Promises.

I guess it belongs to every blogger’s responsibilities to write some kind of wrapping of the year post. However, I regard it more as a responsibility for myself to go back to what has been going on in my life during the past year. New Year is not only time for dreaming for the year to come but also time for reflecting myself: where did I start from, what kind of journey did I make and where I am now.

It feels like the year has passed by really quickly (I wonder if the time is just accelerating its speed each year you grow older…?), but my journey during it has clearly left its marks on me. I feel stronger, more self-aware and awake. I have learned to view things in more positive way and to wander the beauty and wonders of my surroundings. I have learned to love, respect and listen to myself more. I have learned to give everything of me and to let go. I have learned to see my self-centralism and my self-serving needs. I graduated from law school and started my professional career. I went through two difficult endings. I got myself a place to call home. In the end of all of this, I’m proud to say that I have grown into a better version of myself.

Still, after this tough but amazing journey I feel somehow lost. Now it is time to find my path for my next adventure.

Dance-wise my year has taught me a lot. I decided to concentrate on my primary dance style and that decision has borne its fruit. I have been obediently attending to my Zouk classes three nights per week, paying closely attention to the slightest details and minor variations. In consequence I have taken a big step forward and been given some unforgettable opportunities to show what I’ve got. Yet, there is lots of potential in me to go further and I’m eagerly looking forward next year’s challenges to come.

One year ago I wrote that I want to learn to “think more positively of everything”. In relation to dancing I especially didn’t “want to find myself in the situation where I would put myself down because I don't improve, because I'm not as good as I wanted to be or because sometimes my body just doesn't behave the way I wanted to”. I’m now happy to realize that even though I have been concentrating to improve my dance technique, I haven’t gone into this negative mind-setting where I have been many times before. Even though my dancing has been focused on learning more than having fun in dance parties, I have been able to keep the joy of dancing present in my practices. This is something I definitely want to take with me from this year.

What am I looking from the new year then? Firstly, I’m hoping to find a dance partner since this year was the first without one. I have been doing well on my own but I feel like something is missing. A dance partner is someone with who I can share my passion with, dream together, have common goals and improve with. Partner dancing is something to do with someone, with a partner, so that is something what I wish for. Secondly, I’m going to work with my balance and body control. One way of doing this is starting some sort of partner acrobatics with a dancer friend of mine. I’m also going to continue my yoga journey towards more stability demanding asanas and hand balances.

Thirdly, I’m going to concentrate more of my energy to love. Yes, you read that right, love. I want to learn to love more – of everything. I’m not talking (only) about romantic kind of love here. I want to love myself more. I want to love my friends more. I want to love my family more. I want to love more of the things I do. I want to love life more. I want to think of dancing more like spreading around universal love: partner dancing can be like giving love to your partner; taking care of him (or her), giving all of your concentration to him, enjoying the dance to the fullest with him, channeling your positive energies to him and making him feel good about your connection. Yes, I want to love more the dancers I dance with.

I want to fall in love with every single dance I dance through the year to come.

One thing is for sure: I will start my year 2015 with a proper cleaning of myself – physically and mentally – for getting the best possible kick off for my new journey. I wish you all happy New Year and new exciting adventures to come!

End of the Year Swinging.

West Coast Swing is a dance I definitely want to learn dance well at some point in my life. That point has not been this year, though, because the times I have been dancing WCS during the year can be counted with one hand fingers. However, I wanted to go back to this dance before the year was over and so I headed for two WCS events: WCS boat cruise on 29-30th November and Swinging Xmas Party Weekend on 12-14th December.

I went to a similar boat cruise one year ago and I remember having a good time there, though that time I was there with my best friend, who fortunately also dances WCS, and she might have had something to do with my good memories. This time I was brave enough to go “alone”, without even knowing who will be my cabin roommate. Luckily I was partnered up with an awesome roommate with who I quickly made friends with. Getting to know to her was actually one of my highlights of the whole cruise – it is not always easy to get to know to someone (especially a follower) more deeply during a busy dance event.

The Swinging Xmas Party Weekend was an event I wasn’t supposed to go in the beginning since my plan was to spend the weekend in peace at home relaxing and doing Christmas things. However, I got a message on the last minute from a dance friend and, to be honest, it wasn’t that hard to convince me to join the event after all. I’m pretty pleased that I went because not only did I find the workshops useful I also got to hang out with my best friend and the new friend I made in the boat cruise. As a cherry on the top I won the novice JnJ competition on Saturday and now have the next WCS event booked: Neverland Swing 2015 in the end of February. Woohoo!

Novice JnJ winners.

These two events brought me back some feelings I haven’t had for a while. Not long time ago did I write about scary advanced dancer phenomenon and all of the sudden I went from that into being a worried beginner dancer. Not long ago did I declare that advanced dancers like to dance also with beginners and soon after I am the one who needs to be convinced about that. In the parties I felt like I wouldn’t be fun to dance with and got shy at asking others to dance with me. Result: not much dancing done. Stressing out that others wouldn’t have fun led into that I didn’t have much fun. Not cool.

At the moment I’m generally quite frustrated about my WCS dancing: I still haven’t got a proper understanding of the basic technique, especially dance posture and stepping, and I know my dancing doesn’t have that WCS touch in it at all. It is a dance style that doesn’t feel natural to me and even though I have really been trying to observe and understand, I still haven’t “got” the right kind of movement to my body. To compare this to Argentinean Tango, for example, it has been pretty easy for me to get the right kind of feeling in it even though I have been practicing it less than WCS, and thus I feel like Argentinean Tango is just more natural way of moving to me. This is exactly what happened with me and Zouk: I instantly felt that the movements in Zouk were almost like made for my body. However, this is not the case with WCS: why I fell for the dance style was because I saw how much fun everyone were having in the dance floor and I wanted to learn to do the same.

I can hear you saying that I just need more practice. Yes I do, but I know just a little practice won’t do it. I can promise to give it a try, really give it a try, but I’m afraid this super fun dance style will never feel natural way of moving for me. Some might say that I’m just being too critical on myself – I won the novice JnJ competition and all last weekend so I shouldn’t be so bad – but I have seen myself dancing and it just doesn’t look as it should. I could settle for being a low intermediate WCS dancer but with my ambition I know that is not going to satisfy me. Even though I would try to say to myself that WCS is just a dance to have fun and not really to polish, in the end I know I would want to go forward and make it look and feel good. Not perfect, but at least to the level that I wouldn’t feel awkward dancing it.

Well, enough with this opening up! I’ll have to wait and see where this dance style takes me – or if it takes anywhere at all.

Greetings from Tango Class.

This fall my Monday evenings have been spent in Argentinean Tango classes. Yesterday was the last class of the season and we had a special Christmas version of the normal classes. The classroom was decorated with candles and Christmas lights, dancers had been dressed nicely and there were sweets, like gingerbreads and fruit cake, as well as glögi served. Unlike the usual classes, you could pop into any/all of the three classes for the price of one. What a nice way to end the season!

I have found Argentinean Tango to be very useful dance style to practice even though I haven’t really been dancing it outside the classes. It is a social dance and the emphasis in the classes has strongly been on leading and following, so the classes has given me a great opportunity to improve my following skills – something that is valuable in regards to any partner dancing style. Misplacing a step with only few centimeters can change the whole dance figure or make the couple lose their balance. I really love this delicate touch that Argentinean Tango has. It has also directed much of my concentration into my frame and rotation of the upper body that, yet again, are crucial things in many dance styles. Also my posture and footwork are something that I feel I have been improving with; I got good feedback especially from my “clean footwork” from our teacher.

If you want to give Argentinean Tango a try, I can highly recommend Tangokoulu’s classes. You will be needing your own partner to the class though since there is no rotation of partners but I have found this pretty good way of practicing the small nuances of the tango technique. I’m not quite sure what my dance spring is going to look like but these classes are very likely to be included. Maybe I will even find the courage of going to a milonga.

DIZC & HZF 2014.

I have been trying to start writing this post for countless of times now. I feel like I have so much in my heart to share but somehow I can't put it to words in the way that I'd like to. I would like to write my feelings down as beautiful as they are inside of me and yet I feel that goal is impossible to achieve. After lingering with this post for more than a month, I decided that something is better than nothing, so here we go.

In the end of October I was fortunate to receive a huge amount of wonderful dancing memories in two really different dance festivals: Dutch International Zouk Congress and Helsinki Zouk Festival. During this intensive dancing period I noticed, even more, that the most beautiful ingredient of partner dancing is exactly those memories that are created together with my dance partners, my fellow dancers and my dance community. Having two intensive dance weekends in a row is definitely an exhausting experience especially if you want to do it the hard-core way - take every possible workshop, dance through the parties from the very beginning until the last song and in between socialize with your dancer friends - but it gives so much in return that somehow you just forget your tiredness, sore feet, the forthcoming work week and keep on dancing. Result: happiness that makes you, well, so speechless that it is hard to write anything down.

Having those two such a different festivals so close to each other gave a nice contrast to both of them. The Dutch congress was a huge event with up to thousand attendees, dozens of artists, packed dance floors (in two floors), live performances, variety of shows and too many great workshops to choose from. There were so many dancers you could loose your friends to the dance floor - no kidding! It was the place to be if you wanted to spend the weekend just dancing and exploring new dance connections. The party was like going to a big candy store; you didn't know which one to pick!

 

The Helsinki festival was pretty tiny against it, but the utmost warm atmosphere was breathtaking, the quality of performances was superb and the parties were one of the best I've ever attended. Maybe it was the quality over quantity that made it shine out so bright from one of the biggest European Zouk events. Really, by far my favorite dance event I have ever been to and I'm not the only one: see, for example, my fellow Zouk dancer's blog post about HZF.

In Helsinki festival I was also given some nice opportunities to experience another side of dance classes: being a dance teacher. Our Rio Zouk Style team gave beginners' classes on Friday to the festival attendees and we all were really happy with the experience. I had the privilege to teach with my own teacher, which of course made things easier for me since he knew exactly what to do in case I got lost. Everything went extremely well and I really liked teaching with him. I must admit, though, that I was pretty nervous; not really that much about the class itself but the dance demo in the end of it. Two days before I was actually crying in a tram and almost cancelling the whole demo because I felt I would just screw it up badly - we've just had a group practice and I happened to dance exceptionally bad that day. Luckily I didn't and neither did I fall down or screw up; I was actually very pleased with it. Yet another nice dance memory caught in tape.

In addition to the beginner classes, me and Ngirl instructed partner stretching & relaxation classes in the end of both workshop days. We took some elements from partner yoga classes we have been going together and set our goal as to calm down the participants after their hectic days. In the beginning it seemed a hard task but in the end both classes were extremely successful and many came to tell us how much they loved it. It felt so amazing to see everyone living in the moment, concentrating on their partner and dropping down everything. It was simply beautiful.

How do you like my Halloween party costume on Friday night's party?

It always hits me. I know what an amazing feeling dancing can give me. I know how deeply I can loose myself into a dance. I know all this, but when I feel it, the intensity of the feelings can really blow my mind away. I still remember, after more than 5 weeks, how amazed I was after dancing in HZF parties. There were so many good dances I couldn't choose "the dance" of the night. So many great dancers that time was lost too fast to dance enough with all of them. Not a single moment I would have felt uncomfortable, lost or disappointed on the dance floor. The atmosphere was so captivating, music so inspiring and dancers so connective that the dance flow hit me from the first dance on and before I noticed it was already time to go home. Purely ecstatic from the beginning to the end!

Well, as I was afraid, the above didn't pass on the beautiful feelings as I would have wanted. You see, this one weekend spent in HZF in the middle of dark autumn (combined with the great "warm up" weekend in Holland) was most probably the highlight of my dance year 2014. Not only because it was my home festival or because I was not only a participant there but most importantly because of the mind blowing dance parties. It is hard to explain exactly what made the parties so amazing (and I'm not talking only for my behalf here!) but if you were there, you know precisely what I mean. We all will be anxiously waiting for the next year's festival.

The Scary Advanced Follower Syndrome.

You could imagine that the better you get in partner dancing, the more everybody would like to dance with you. Sounds pretty logical, right, and actually this logic seems work with leader dancers: when they reach a certain level it will become hard for them to even leave the dance floor in dance parties let alone have time to go and ask someone for dance. Great, a nice reward for the hard work done!

However, when a follower reaches a certain level, instead of having the same reward of a constant dance queue, she is suddenly left alone. There are almost no leaders inviting her to dance and, thus, if she wants to dance she has to make the initiative herself. The question is: why?

A concrete example of this phenomenon can easily be found in any dance congress. All the leader teachers are exhausted after each party because it is impossible for them to leave the dance floor. The girls are literally attaching them just to have one dance with their favorite teacher. But if you pay attention to the follower teachers, they are mostly left in peace – not because they would reject all the dance invitations but because they hardly get any!

I have noticed this happening to myself too. I am rarely asked for a dance in any social dancing events. Of course it is not only the leaders’ task to make the dance invitations but if it is me who has to make the effort again and again, it just doesn’t feel nice. First I thought that maybe there is something wrong with my dancing or with me – I thought others just didn’t like dancing with me! Or maybe all the leaders were simply too busy since there are usually excess amount of followers around. But no, there were too many situations where leaders were making the invites that this could be the ultimate reason.

Then I realized there are some more universal rules happening behind this phenomenon: I call it the scary advanced follower syndrome.

The thing is, when a follower gets into more advanced level, the leaders below her level easily get intimidated by her. The leaders might think that they will not be able to impress her or to make the kind of moves she would like to be led. They might get worried that she will get bored. They might be worried that she will reveal all his mistakes. Thus, she becomes a scary advanced follower in the eyes of the leaders and as a consequence the leaders will start avoiding her.

I have to admit that I can kind of associate with the feeling though. When I started dancing Zouk I was terrified of asking teachers to dance with me and at some point I was even avoiding of getting any dance invites from them. You see, I knew that I wasn’t able to follow many of the moves they normally led and I felt bad when my skills were inadequate to keep up the dance flow. I felt lost especially if I was supposed to do any head movements. As a follower you never know what was going to happen and I was expecting the worst: that something too difficult would come and that I would of course screw it up. However, I don’t see the leaders having the same problem. Leaders know (because it’s their job to decide) what kind of movements there will be and they are familiar with those movements. Since the follower is more advanced it is likely that she will understand what movement the leader wants to lead and thus there will not be any unexpected new movements that could scare off the leader. Also, a more advanced follower is capable of fixing some possible small mistakes the leader makes and thus to add more flow to the dance. So what is the problem?

“Yes, I think you are scary”, I was told when discussing about this topic the other day with my dancer friends. “But don’t take it personally – it’s mostly a matter of a male ego!”


So that is the thing: male ego! Well guys, you better grow some balls and start dancing with everybody because I didn’t spend countless of hours of improving my dancing skills just to be left alone in dance parties! Besides, I’m not looking for advanced or complicated moves or someone to impress me. I just want to dance. It is not that I would like to dance only with advanced leaders – I want to dance with everyone. For me partner dancing is a conversation and I would like to have a big variety of conversations with different kind of dancers, from beginners to professionals and everything in between. So what if I have better technique than you: there will also always be dancers who will have better technique than what I have and that doesn’t make me any worse off. So what if another leader can do "more" than you: sometimes less is more. So what if everything is not working out: make it part of the conversation.

Dancing isn’t all about technique or the level you are in but the way you connect with your partner in that very moment you share together in the dance floor. I'm not expecting showy lifts, crazy combinations or mind-blowing figures. Just feel the dance and enjoy it – and stop putting your male ego in between!

Let me tell you a secret before I finish: I'm not really that scary.

Are You a Dance Bully?

I’m aware that there are people who don’t like me. There has always been. Similarly, there are people that I like less than others. That’s the way it goes with everybody and there is nothing unusual about it. The good thing is that everybody can choose who they let into their lives and who not. At least in most of the cases.

If you are a partner dancer, and if your dance circles are small (as they many times are), it is likely that you will have some people around you that you might not otherwise choose to include in your life. Dancers come from different backgrounds and of course everybody can’t like everyone. Sure, it is very possible that there is nothing problematic in this, but it can also cause some negative consequences, because – let’s face it – people love to gossip. Gossiping can be done in a positive intention, but in the worst case it can even turn into nasty bullying or image ruining. I think that spreading negative image about one’s fellow dancers does nothing but bad not only to the dancer in question but in the long run also to the whole dance scene.

Everybody has their good and bad sides. Everybody. There is no way that someone is perfect – and even if s/he was that for one, the 'perfection' can irritate another. So practically there is always something negative to be found in any fellow dancer. However, on the other hand there is always something positive in each and every one. The main question is then which side one decides to emphasize when talking to someone about the fellow dancer. This question becomes more crucial if talking to someone who yet doesn’t know the dancer: deciding to tell negative aspects might cause the listener to create negative first impression about the target, and we all know how important first impressions are. Furthermore, what will a newcomer think about the dance scene if the first things s/he will hear are bad rumors about some of the dancers inside the scene? Think about it: would you like to step in to a dance community that includes these persons with (unnecessary) bad reputation?

I’m in favor of a positive and open atmosphere where issues are discussed with the party in question, not behind him/her. If there is something that bugs you off about me, I appreciate that you’d come to talk about it to me rather than going around telling other dancers something like “oh I know her, she’s a total bitch who doesn’t get along with anyone”. If you think that the target won’t find out that you’re the one spreading bad things about him/her, here’s a newsflash: what goes around comes around. So, why wouldn’t you instead go and talk straight to the person? Many things surely are just misunderstandings which could be easily solved – by talking to the person. If not done in this way, misunderstandings can easily transform into “common facts” which actually have no real basis at all. These “facts” will slowly but surely poison not only the dancer but also the dance community.

I know some cases where a dancer has been but in a really bad light, unnecessarily and without knowledge of actual facts. This can cause such a bad reputation that other dancers will start to avoid dancing, talking and interacting with the target. Quite a heavy outcome caused by misunderstandings, lack of knowledge, jealousness or other reasons out of control of the target.

I’m not saying that negative things should not be discussed. They should, but not in a form of bullying or talking badly behind one’s back. One should be extra careful when talking to new dancers who don’t know the target because this is the way stories can transform into nasty gossips. I’m not saying either that all gossiping should be banned. At least I’m interested on knowing what is happening in my dance community and spreading good stories helps to build up good and encouraging atmosphere for everyone.

Words are powerful. Saying something negative aloud creates a peak of bad energy (that is one reason why you also shouldn’t say negative things about yourself aloud!). The danger in telling negative stories is that they tend to spread around – and while spreading might even turn into worse than their original versions. It is true that also the listener should be careful of believing everything, but unfortunately people tend to believe the stories. Personally, though, I highly prefer getting to know to the target than to trust rumors about him/her. I also rather talk something good about my fellow dancers and refrain from spreading bad rumors. I think no one deserves that kind of bullying.

I regard that what someone decides to spread around about others reveals more about the storyteller than the target. Therefore a self-confident person who has a positive attitude towards life is more likely to choose positive things to tell because those are the ones that grab his/her attention. So the bottom line is: if you decide to spread negativity around and outside your dance scene, maybe you should first consider what it tells about you.

I’m aware that there are some interesting gossips going around in the dance circles about me at the moment. However, this post is not to defend myself – actually I find it surprising that an ordinary girl like me makes people talk so much! I have nothing to hide and I haven’t intentionally done anything bad for anyone. If for some reason you believe that I’m a bad, cold and selfish person, as the rumors go, I would be very interested of hearing why. I know it takes a courage to approach a person you have something against, but how about you tried? You might get surprised.

Living in a Dance Bubble.

What we perceive as normal behavior is hugely affected by the environment we live in and the people which we are surrounded by. Living in a dance environment and having all these dancers around me has definitely given an impact on me. For me it’s normal to spend almost all of my free time on dancing. For me it’s like an automation to go to my dance classes – even if I had something else that evening that something else is just not going to happen. For me it’s normal to plan my holidays around dancing – everybody does dance festivals regularly, right? Who would be interested on going to some holiday destination that doesn’t have a dance scene, let alone to move into a place like that? It is normal to build my life around dancing, to (almost exclusively) have friends that dance and on top of that to write about it to an online diary.

I was walking home from a dance party late on Monday evening, something yet again a normal thing for me to do, and started to think about the situation. It was slightly raining and the streets were empty. I didn’t have that great night dancing, maybe because my feet were hurting badly after a two hour tango class before the party. Suddenly I felt somehow empty. Was this the thing I want out from my life? To run to a dance class after work, followed by more dancing until late night until I crash to bed (meaning an unpleasant wake up the next morning after short sleep), and repeating the same pattern the next day? Work, eat, dance, sleep, repeat. To be honest, there’s not that much more in my life. Isn’t that a bit… limited?

Lately I have been giving this a thought quite regularly. Do I really want dancing to take up so much time from my life that I don’t have much left for anything else? I mean, the world is full of exciting things to do, interesting people to meet, new skills to learn and beautiful feelings to feel! From all those I have chosen, for the last couple of years, to dance. That very moment this choice had led me to walk alone in the empty streets of Helsinki on Monday night and I got a cold feeling that I want something more.

I have to admit some things to myself. I have to admit that sometimes dancing has been my way of escaping from reality. Sometimes dancing has been my way of fulfilling a need for physical closeness. Sometimes dancing has been my way of ignoring the feeling of loneliness. Sometimes dancing has been my way of staying in my comfort zone. Sometimes dancing has been my way of feeling less insecure.

Have I been living in a dance bubble?

Dancing – a Dangerous Addiction?

The other day I was asked about something that made me think about my relationship with dancing. My answer to a question, that whether I knew my passion for dancing was something above normal, was obvious: of course I was aware of that. For many dancers dancing is just a nice way of spending time every now and then and they wouldn’t put that much time and effort into it than what I do. I think of dancing as something more than a hobby; it is more like a lifestyle, as I have also written here before. Surely, for an average dancer putting as much time to dancing as I do in weekly basis is above normal.

But had I ever thought that my passion for dancing would be so extreme that it would actually go above the limit of being healthy – no, never even crossed my mind. When put in this way it even sounds like a horrible accusation towards something as dear to me as dancing is. How could dancing be unhealthy?! No, of course it is not unhealthy, I responded furiously, surprisingly feeling somehow offended about the question. It is exactly the opposite, I continued and ended the discussion.

Regardless my stiff response the question made me think later on. After all, as I have said many times, I am a dance addict, truly addicted to dancing. Is it really a good thing to be addicted to anything, let it be dancing? Could there be a chance that my relationship with dancing was unhealthy at some level, or could develop into that?

 

I’m the kind of person who likes to put in 100 percent of myself. When I’m in, I’m in. When I think about my previous hobbies I have always had some sort of a main hobby that has taken over most of my free time. I haven’t had many different hobbies and those that I have chosen have been with me many years. This shows that I like to put my concentration into something and to develop myself in that area, and also that I’m willing to work on those areas consistently and patiently. It is also that when I find something that I really like doing, something that could be my thing, I want to put all my effort into it.

This is what happened with me and dancing: I quickly came to realize that it definitely could be my thing and soon I noticed I had given up the other my things that used to take up my free time… And that is the way it has been since! The other hobbies I have now (do I have any of those…?) became part of my life because I saw them as something that could support my dancing. There is no doubt dancing is a central part of my life and that my life would seem quite empty without it, taken into account that also my social circles are nowadays considerably made up of, who else but, dancers.

But maybe it is not only about how much time I put into dancing, it must also be about how I think about dancing. Do I put dancing above everything else in my life? Do I feel a compulsion to dance? If a behavioral addiction is defined to cause negative consequences to physical, mental, social and/or financial well-being, does dancing cause that to me?

These are definitely not easy questions with any straightforward answers just because dancing is so huge thing for me. I must say that I put dancing above many things in my life – maybe sometimes even into too high priority. For example, it has to be quite exceptional circumstances for me to skip my dance class, and if there is a nice dance party going on in the city I’m glad to skip any other evening gathering for that. Also, I do start to miss dancing if I don’t do it for a while, let’s say, a couple of weeks – does this tell that I have a compulsion or that I just regularly want to do something that I like doing?

 

What about those negative consequences? What comes to physical, I must say that dancing has actually increased my heath and has proved to be a good and healthy way of exercise for me. Before I was exercising too intensively and causing too much stress to my body and thus I got ill multiple times per year. Since I started dancing I have been considerable less sick and been feeling a lot better in general. What comes to social consequences, dancing has yet again affected to my social life in a positive way: it is such a nice and easy way to get to know to new people constantly. Partner dancing is a social dance and the social aspect of it makes it so enjoyable. What about my financial well-being? Yes, dancing takes up money but not that radically it would become a problem; when I have been low in cash I have just found more affordable classes and concentrated on social dancing. The most difficult aspect to consider would then be the mental side. Even thinking what would be a negative mental consequence is a hard task. That I develop a need to dance? That I will get into a bad mood if I don’t get to dance? Also, everything affects to everything so it would be hard to predict some possible outcomes. But that dancing would really mess up my mind – I doubt there is a big chance to that. To sum up the above: not big needs to be worried.

Still, I’m not denying that there is something very addictive in dancing. Smokers usually say that they could stop smoking if they wanted to but they just don’t want to. To be honest, I don’t know if I could stop dancing even if I wanted to. It is so integrated into my life and my way of thinking. And I simply don’t want to. It is the my thing. However, I think that some (positive) addictions can be accepted. So I’ll let dancing be the one for me.

Partner Dancing to the Power of Two.

For me partner dancing is, at its best, a conversation. A conversation between the leader and the follower about the interpretation of the music. By this I mean a true conversation into which both of the dancers can and will contribute to: a conversation which direction can be influenced by either one. It is true that the leader has to lead and the follower has to follow, that is the way partner dancing works, but it doesn’t mean that the leader wouldn’t need to follow or that the follower should turn into a passive ‘doll’ leaving the whole interpretation to the leader.

I’m not talking about ladies’ styling or men’s styling here. This styling is supposed to be done in a way that it doesn’t affect the outcome of the movement/figure the leader chooses to lead. Sure, styling can be a big part of the interpretation of the music, but the thing is that it doesn’t necessarily create conversation, simply because of the previously mentioned: ideally the follower can do her styling without interfering the lead and the leader doesn’t have to change the lead without interfering the follower’s styling. Thus, the trick to ladies styling is to find the small spots where the follower has freedom to interpret the music by herself.

This topic came into my mind when we were practicing dynamic dancing in our Zouk class the other day. The challenge for the followers in the exercise was to sense the change of energy and speed of the lead and to react to the change accordingly. It goes without a saying that this is an important skill for the follower (as well as the skill to change and play with the dynamics is for the leader). However, what I was missing in the exercise was the follower’s possibility to influence the dynamics of the dance: a possibility to step out of being a (yet responsive but) passive doll and to take part of the conversation. So I brought up whether I could suggest the leader for something I was hearing from the music, say, more energetic movement, an accent or a soft stretch for example.

I used the word suggest because taking part of the conversation doesn’t mean that I want to take over the lead. I still want that the leader is leading the conversation but I don’t want him to control it so that I won’t be able to say anything. Doing ladies styling in those tiny spots of freedom is not suggesting either because those are done exactly in those moments of independency. By suggesting I mean doing something that the leader, if he is listening to the follower, can sense as an input or influence to the conversation, and by which the movement develops to something different that the leader originally had in his mind.

Conversation in partner dancing is therefore kind of an endless series of counter-reactions. The leader leads something and the follower reacts. This is nothing new. But then if the leader, instead of yet again leading something and the follower reacting (and repeating this the whole dance through), in his turn counter-reacts to the reaction of the follower, the door for conversation opens. The leader’s counter-reaction is not giving up leading but rather giving up the control to determine totally in advance what is going to happen next. Maybe the follower reacted in a bit different way that the leader expected, but instead of going ‘oh now my next move got messed up because she couldn’t follow my lead’ he would try to explore what this unexpectancy could offer, thus to react to the follower’s reaction. Some might call it plan B (and/or plan C etc.) of the next movement but this is not exactly what I’m looking after here because even in this case the leader has made up a plan before the actual movement. The counter-reaction is rather something that comes up naturally or instinctually from the movement in hand. This obviously requires quite advanced level of leading and an ability to step out from the pre-determined set of figures.

So what is the point of creating this conversation? Isn’t partner dancing about leading and following, about the leader controlling the movements? Well, have you ever had this experience where you haven’t been 100 percent sure who was leading the dance even though there was clearly a leader and follower dancing? I by no means mean a situation where the follower is not following and is taking over the lead, but a situation where the couple is dancing synchronized together, counter-reacting to each other’s movements. Usually both come out of the situation confused feeling that yes something unusual happened but they don’t know what or how – it just happened. Movements that either one had never done before, movements that just flew together. This I would call partner dancing to the power of two.

From a follower’s perspective, this conversation gives me the opportunity to get involved and to use more my musicality. It gives me the opportunity to be something more than a doll to be danced around with. I love playing around with the music and thus I enjoy dancing with someone who also listens to me while I'm listening to him. In this way I feel like me and my partner are even better connected, forming together one body instead of two, because both are listening and telling the common story. In this way, either one will never know what will happen, except that it will be something magical.

The Brain Forgets Much, but the Lower Back Remembers Everything.

A healthy and well-working body is essential tool for all of us dancers. Some dance styles are more demanding for the body than others and, let’s face it, Zouk belongs to one of the more demanding ones, especially what comes to followers. There are many unfortunate examples of different kind of injuries that have been caused by dancing Zouk, especially neck, knee and lower back injuries. I’m not here to scare you off, though, because all of these can be avoided with good and safe dance technique and body awareness. However, many dancers, especially beginners, are not aware that their specific posture or poor technique is slowly but surely doing them harm – it can start from a small and periodic pain that later develops into something more serious.

I was one of those dancers.

For a long time I have felt pressure in my lower back after dancing a lot of Zouk, for example after or during a Zouk festival. Sometimes that pressure has developed into more unpleasant feeling that might have continued many days after the dancing. Sometimes I’ve had to stop dancing and leave the party early because I was afraid my lower back couldn’t handle dancing any more. There have also been few occasions, unfortunately, when I have felt sharp pain during a certain dance move. Last time when the latter happened around a year ago my back was aching really badly for weeks afterwards – you can imagine how uncomfortable it was to intensively rehearse a choreo in this condition (let alone what rehearsing in that condition must have done to my back). Since then I have been a way more cautious if I have felt some pressure in my back as well as paid more attention to proper warming up before both dance practices and dance parties.

Nevertheless, I got a wake-up call the other day when I was receiving a massage to my lower back after the Amsterdam’s congress. It has been a long time since I danced Zouk so much during one weekend and thus my back got tired, as it is normal for muscles to react to such extra strain. However, there was one specific tiny spot found on my left side that caused unbelievable amount of pain when stimulated. It was definitely not a muscle but a nerve – a nerve that must have been compressed for a quite some time there. I think this is exactly the spot that has been causing pain earlier too; now I was just was to locate the source to the exact place. What scared me off, though, was the amount of pain stored in that tiny spot.

One thing I know for sure: pain is never good.

Now that this nerve was extremely sore after dancing and massaging I was able to feel any additional pressure any movement could cause to it, and therefore I noticed that some certain moves increased the compression. This is a good example of a slowly developing problem because if the nerve was not extraordinary sore, I could not feel this extra pressure I was causing by having a wrong posture in my lower back. You might think that it’s nothing, just one tiny spot, but the thing is that if I continue dancing as before the nerve will keep on getting more and more pressure – and maybe in the worst case scenario I won’t be able to dance in few years’ time! Life without dancing… what a nightmare.

I went to my Zouk teachers with my worries and it turned out they have also had similar problems with their back. We went through some moves where I felt increased pressure and they were able to advise me how to avoid having that pressure. It seems that I’m keeping my lower back a little bit too curved in many simple positions, like spins or a simple lounge/preparation. I guess I have been counting on too much to my (pretty strong) core muscles to hold everything in order but they won’t help if I constantly create pressure with a slightly wrong position. We’re not talking about a big malposition here but few centimeters can make a big difference. What I need to do now is to pay constant extra attention to my back’s position and learn away from my old bad habits. So if you see me curving my back at any point while dancing, I will really appreciate you pointing that out to me – I don’t want to do any more harm to my body.

Similarly, if you ever feel increased pressure or pain in your back, or any other part for that matter, please please please do something about it. Don’t wait until it gets worse. Don’t think that it is nothing. In most cases everything can be avoided with a small change of body positioning. Listen to your body: it’s the only one you’ll ever have.

Further, prepare your body before making any moves that can cause problems. I know it might feel awkward to stretch or warm up at a dance party but that short time can save your whole night. At least have a couple of warm up dances before putting in your 100 percent – and by warm up dance I mean (attention leaders!!) no cambres, head movements or other ‘unnatural’ positions or unnecessarily explosive movements for your body. One request for leaders: if a follower tells you she has not warmed up and wants you to take it easy, please respect her wish and be gentle (i.e. do not lead her into aforementioned positions). One request for followers: don’t throw yourself into a cambre or similar movement without you yourself holding your body because in the worst case your leader is not prepared and you will end up breaking his back when he is trying to save you from falling down. Let’s all take a good care of each other, shall we?

Last but not least, make sure you take a good care of your body outside dancing. Sorry to break the news for you, but dancing alone is not enough of exercise for a dancer’s body. Training core muscles is especially important as those will help to protect the body in many movements. Stretching and mobility exercises are other musts that I have noticed to make extra good for my body; in addition (and more importantly) to increased flexibility those release muscular tension and make energy flow more freely in my body. Slowing down and having a soft and gentle movement also puts the attention to the body and in this way it is easier to notice if there are some unwanted pressures or energy blocks hiding somewhere there.

I don't know about you, but at least I want to have a strong and healthy body to dance with. I might have not done the best job with taking care of it before but all the more so I want to do that now. After all, I want to have many more years of dancing, and that is going to happen only with a co-operation of a healthy body. 

Amsterdam Zouk Congress 2014 and WCS Suburbia 2014.

When you are a true dance addict, it goes without saying that your holidays will include going to some sort of a dance festival. I didn’t have a long summer holiday this year (due to starting to work in a new workplace) but I definitely made sure that there were dance festivals available during that time. On July I went to a Zouk festival in Mararó, as I wrote in my previous post, and in the end of August I traveled to the Amsterdam Zouk Congress.

After just partying and relaxing on the beach in Mataró, I decided to make Amsterdam a real dance congress kind of a trip: to attend all the workshops, pre-parties, parties etc. as much as possible and to return home truly exhausted but extremely happy for having such a great time dancing. No other plans, no sight-seeing tours, simply a trip dedicated to dancing. And that is what I made of it. I booked the closest hotel (read: the only one in the venue’s area) to avoid wasting time for travelling around, arrived one day early to attend the pre-party and to do some required food shopping for the weekend, stayed one extra day in Amsterdam for a possible after-party and socializing with new dancer friends, and, importantly, took the next week off from work so I didn’t have to worry about recovering afterwards. Well planned is already half done, as goes the Finnish saying. So, it ended up being a true dance trip, just as I wanted it to be.


Dancing in Amsterdam Zouk Congress.

When I was in Mataró, I felt like being a poor social dancer: I got worried that I was not capable to adapt my dancing enough to dancers outside my own comfy dance circles. Luckily Amsterdam proved that perception wrong. I was shining in the dance floor. It was not that I would have felt better or superior to the others, to make that sure here, but I definitely felt damn good – and I can tell when also the other is enjoying dancing with me. This feeling of being a good dancer, I think, was something that made good for my dancer self. You see, when I feel good, I dance better, and when I dance better I feel yet again better; it is a constant positive circle. One of the best things to have in the dance floor is self-confidence (though not arrogance!) to the dancer self, because in this way the dancer will use the most out of the skills s/he has at that very moment. If I don’t feel confident it reflects straight to my dancing and into my dance mood. This boost of dance confidence was much needed after how I felt in Mataró. It also made me realize the progress I have been doing with my Zouk dancing during this year and it was great to notice that all that constant work is now showing. It is such a great feeling when my body is doing something with ease that I wasn’t able to do, say, six months ago!

Here are some highlights for me to remember from the congress:

• A great new dance connection with a certain Aussie dancer with who I unfortunately had a small misunderstanding in the last day of the congress (due to which we missed our last dances together, damn!),
• Another new strong dance connection and our extremely energetic dances,
• A dance invite for the last song of the festival from a renowned dance teacher that I however turned down (I still can’t believe it myself either),
• Seeing and dancing with my good dancer friend and having our very special and unique moments in the dance floor,
• Listening different dance teachers talking about different aspects of teaching which gave me a lot to think about,
• A leader asking me, for the first time ever, if I had warmed up before leading any demanding moves – I think this shows high respect for the follower’s body,
• Dancing with my teacher in the party and ‘passing’ his attempts to test some new moves on me,
• Seeing how much a beginner can progress with his dancing during one weekend,
• Meeting some of my old Aussie friends and making some new ones – great people!
• And maybe most importantly: being on fire on Saturday’s party – woooow what a feeling!

After recovering from the Zouk festival I had kind of a cool-down dancing time in a WCS event in Tampere the following weekend before returning to work after my holiday. Actually I was invited there to give a taster Zouk class with JV and since I was there I thought I might as well join some of the workshops and, of course, social dancing. It was our first time teaching together with him, but I think we did pretty well; at least we got lots of good feedback. If nothing else, we got some Zouk knowledge spread to new dancers and possibly couple of new attendees for the soon coming Helsinki Zouk Festival. I have wanted to give Zouk classes in WCS events already before but then the timing didn’t seem right (I got even “it will never happen” comments to my plans). However this time many seemed to be interested and we got quite a nice amount of dancers to the class. My dream come true would be having Zouk+WCS combination parties or events in the near future. Let’s hope it happens – when there is hope there is a chance. Anyway, here is our demo after the taster class; I think we did pretty well considering that we haven't been dancing together lately that much at all.

 

 

Of course I had to take part to the Jack&Jill competition on Saturday night’s WCS party. I got into the novice finals but, as I was expecting after having at least 6 months break from the dance, didn’t make it to the top three. It was interesting to notice, however, how super nervous most of the dancers were in the competition. Seriously, I could feel their heart beating wildly just by holding their hand! Maybe it is that for me it really makes no difference whether I win or come last because WCS is not my primary dance, so there is no pressure and thus I don’t get nervous at all. It was nice to get into the finals though; it gave me hope there is still a chance that there is some WSC left in my attempts to dance that dance style. After all, the first comment I got in the first workshop was to keep my dancing to at least somehow resemble WCS. Whoops!

J&J finals.

There is one last thing I have to mention concerning the Amsterdam’s congress. It got me, once again, addicted to dance festivals. Therefore yesterday I booked another flights to Amsterdam for going to the Dutch International Zouk Congress in October just a week before Helsinki’s festival! So here I go again, back being a dance congress addict… Anyway, who else is coming?!?

My 30-day Yoga Challenge.

It all started around a year ago when I attended to one free yoga class in a park in Helsinki. After that yoga has slowly taken bigger and bigger role in my everyday life to the point that yoga is now something my body - and mind - need regularly. The next natural thing to do was to try out the 30-day yoga challenge by Yogobe: to practice yoga every day for 30 days. This post is to share how it went.

See more about the challenge from: http://more.yogobe.com/kesan-30-paivan-joogahaaste/

As a typical Finnish person, who usually keeps her life quite busy, the first thing to come in mind was whether I would have time to practice yoga every day. I didn't want to make the challenge as something I would have to stress about because yoga is everything else but a source of stress to me - actually it is a way of removing the stress gathered in my body. However, practicing yoga doesn't mean that you have to do 90 minutes session every time and sometimes just 10 minutes can be enough to relax your mind and to draw your attention to how your body is feeling at the present moment. So saying that there is no time is nonsense, really. There is always time; the thing is what I decide to do with it.

I moved to my new studio apartment conveniently just when the challenge started and the first thing I did there was a yoga practice. It is not a big home, actually quite tiny, but nevertheless there was one specific item I wanted to leave enough space to: my yoga mat. So I decided to bring as few furniture as possible to leave free space in the main room, and I have came to realize that comfy sofa, small dinner table and beautiful wooden chest is actually everything I need there. My yoga mat is always there in it's own space on the floor, ready and waiting for my next practice. There is no easier way of doing yoga than being able to jump on the mat whenever I'm home. It is like a constant reminder that this is something that is good for me, that I should be doing it more for myself in my everyday life. And it works!


Morning yoga with Yogobe @home.

I'm definitely a morning person: I never snooze my alarm, I'm the most efficient during the morning and early daytime, my thoughts flow better in the morning than evening, and I prefer waking up to going to sleep. However, I have hardly been using this time of the day for doing any sort of workout, stretching, dancing etc. Now that it has been pretty quiet at work because of the summer and I can start working a bit later, I decided to try starting most of my work days with a yoga practice during the challenge. And I can tell you: it is without a question the best way of starting a day. Even if I had a shorter sleep during the night and felt really sleepy when alarm rang, yoga woke up my body nicely and softly, opening up the sleepy muscles and especially my back that always seems to stiffen during the night. Morning is also a perfect timing to let positive thoughts conquer my mind so that they'll follow me the whole day. Always start your day with a smile is a good advice for anyone, don't you agree? Morning yoga quickly became a nice routine to kick off my days and now that I have been skipping it some mornings I already regret it at the time I reach my workplace.

Even though I love doing yoga at home and online yoga is definitely a great tool for that (atm most of my home practices are done with an online instructor), I also love sharing my yoga practices with other yogis. When doing yoga together there is so much more energy to share and that energy definitely makes the practice feel different. There are three yoga studios nearby my home and I checked out two of them during the challenge: both are definitely places that I’m going to visit also later on. Summer is also a great time to find several free outdoor yoga classes around Helsinki and I didn’t let this opportunity to run out of my hands. My favorite yoga practice during the whole challenge was a record-breaking big outdoor yoga event in Sinebrychoff Park where more than 300 yogis shared their practice and energy. That huge amount of energy really made magic happen in my body and soul, wow.

Sharing the energy @Yoga Goes Koffari.

Outdoor yoga @Töölönlahti.

So how did the challenge go? Did I manage to do yoga every day for 30 days? To be honest, no, not every single day, not because I wouldn’t have found time for it but because those days I decided to listen to my body that couldn’t take in a physical practice at that moment. However, that is not the main point. The main point is that I did challenge myself and while doing that found new ways of practicing yoga and created new healthy everyday routines into my life. I fell in love with yoga more deeply. I was able to, through yoga, open op my heart to other things happening in my life. I felt happier, more alive, healthier, more present and aware of myself.

 

  

Thank you Yogobe and Yoga365 for motivating me to challenge myself and, most importantly, making me feel better thoroughly. Keep on spreading the yoga love!

Zouk Devils&Friends Summer Weekend.

Ready to go!

When I sat down to the airplane going to Barcelona on Friday, I realized that I was traveling to my first dance festival/congress abroad since 1,5 years. I have been to dance events in the country where I have been living at that time, but it really surprised me it has been that long I had a proper dance festival trip. When I started dancing Zouk I traveled to a dance festival or congress every two months during my first year, and it is not unusual to travel for dancing that frequently, at least if I look at my dance friends. So there I was, traveling to Mataro for the 2nd Zouk Devils&Friends Summer Festival. I was accompanied with two pretty dance ladies from Helsinki who I must thank for organizing most of the practicalities - and infecting me with their enthusiasm of the trip! They were also excellent company for the trip from the beginning to the end, thanks girls!

Mataro's festival is quite unique dance festival because the organizers' idea is not to bring in big names for countless of workshops, but to create an environment where dancers can get to know each other both on and outside of the dance floor. The daytime is left mostly free for relaxing, sightseeing and hanging out in the beach, and therefore most of the zoukers headed to Tsunami Beach with their bikinis, sunscreen and, of course, Zouk music (read: beach dancing!). I must say that this made the whole trip feel like a nice holiday compared to tight scheduled workshops+parties combination. Good conversations, relaxed atmosphere, great music, nice dances, awesome weather... bliss! Also Friday night was spent in Mataro's cheerful town festival instead of dancing. Nice idea, though I, being a true dance addict, would have preferred to have a dance party.

 

 

Going to dance abroad after such a long break cruelly revealed that I have been dancing in my comfort zone for too long time. When you only dance inside your own dance scene, you easily get used to the common style dancers have inside the scene. This is exactly what happened to me. In Helsinki most of the Zouk dancers have similar style to dance and that was the case in Brisbane too. Surely these two places have slightly different styles, but both styles are strongly based on the 'pure' Rio style of Zouk. When I went to Brisbane it took a while to adapt to the locals' way of dancing and I needed to go through the same small adaptation phase when I got back home. However, Mataro's festival included multiple styles of Zouk and there were surprisingly few Rio zoukers, which made me struggle a lot more that I expected.

I haven't had a feeling for a long time that I'm a bad dancer. I usually feel really confident when dancing and I also know that I'm far away of being a bad dancer. Still, in Saturday's party I found myself blaming me for being a bad dancer, horrible follower and crappy partner to dance with. I felt like I was in hurry all the time: I didn't have time to finish my moves, do my styling nor even to step. I didn't have time to breath and I couldn't relax at all. No one asked me to dance. Why, I was thinking, why I was feeling like this? Why was I feeling like a bad dancer?

I was dancing out of my comfort zone, that is why. The leaders had a different way of leading that what I had get used to. Different, not wrong. However, I tried to dance the way I had used to, tried to stretch my movements when there was no time to do that, tried to be a light follow when the leader wanted to create counterweight. I simply struggled to adapt. I ended up craving for more embraces, more body movements, lighter leads, slower phase, less crazy head movements and all the other things I usually get. With that attitude it was no wonder I didn't get into any kind of a dance flow. There were few dances when I felt like I was actually dancing, not surviving, but those were not enough to lift me up to a higher dance level. I was not feeling down, mostly because of my dancing conference, but I couldn't say that it was a great dance party for me either.

The next day I was talking with my Finnish friend about my experience and she shared the similar feelings about the party. I then realized that this was actually a great opportunity to learn something new while simply social dancing. I had forgotten that social dancing in the dance parties used to be the time when I learned the most when I was a beginner - now social dancing has turned to be a time to enjoy and do what I already know. So I headed to Sunday's party with a different mind setting: if I feel like struggling, I'll take it as something new to be learned!

 

Many say that it is the last dance party of a dance festival that is the best. Dancers have gone in some kind of festival mood, they are too tired to show off any more, there is more space on the dance floor and you already know with who you liked dancing with in the previous parties. Sunday's party wasn't an exception to this general rule. It had a great start with 30-something minutes flow, I had some awesome time somewhere in the middle, and a beautiful ending. Though I can't report that I had some really exceptional dances, I sure had a great time. Yet another prove that you can yourself decide whether you're going to have a fun night or not!

After the festival we headed to Barcelona for few days to go around the city and also to visit Spiral Dance dance studio and join the festival's after party. A perfect ending for my little dance holiday! The two other dance addicts continued to Berlin's Zouk congress while I was feeling exhausted enough from the six day trip. Don't tell me I'm getting old...!

 

How to Teach the Basics Efficiently - and to Get New Dancers to Your Dance Scene.

Getting new beginners to a dance scene is a crucial thing. The hard thing with that is that new beginners, who hardly now anything about the dance style they are considering to try out, are not eager to commit to a dance course that lasts for months and takes quite a lot of their time and money. However, offering them just some drop-in classes that they can attend whenever and as many times as they wish, has some major weaknesses.

Longer term course that proceed progressively is more likely a better way to learn the essential basics and to adjust the classes to better suit the students. Progressive course is also good for avoiding beginners to implement commonly made mistakes to their basic dancing - and it is a way more difficult to learn away from the once learned bad habits than to put some extra effort to avoid those in the first place. So for a beginner it would be the ultimate best to offer an opportunity to learn slowly but consistently the most important building blocks of any dance, the basics, but at the same time it is understandable why it can be hard to commit to a dance course of a dance style one can't yet know whether s/he likes it or not.

A solution? An intensive beginners course, of course!

That is what we are having in Helsinki's Zouk scene this week and regardless that it is the busiest holiday season going on, the course has really a great amount of participants, most of who has no prior experience of Zouk. I was also happy to notice some familiar faces from our beginner spring course attending the intensive course, because rarely the beginners are willing to take yet another set of beginners classes of similar content. High fives to you! I got especially happy of those dancers with who I might have played a role of getting them to attend (I have to separately mention this beautiful lady who got inspired after reading this blog!). The big amount of participants shows that there definitely is a demand for this kind of courses where the beginners can learn the basics properly but where they don't need to invest a big amount of time and money to. It is kind of a trial period to the new dance style: an easy way to find out whether the dance is for you or not (and whether or not you like the teaching style of the teachers).

I and some other more advanced students of F&A were in the course as assistants: giving some personal feedback and advice to the new students and helping dancers who had missed some classes to catch up with the others. I think having some advanced students in beginner classes is really useful for everyone, both for the beginners and the advanced students as well as for the teachers.

What comes to the beginners, some of the new students in the course already told me that it is really great to have us there, because then they could better understand how the dance should feel like. A beginner still needs to concentrate a lot on the basic steps, the music, following and leading etc. and when you put him/her with another alike, the whole thing gets even harder for both. "It is so different to dance with you than the others!" was a common comment I had. The advanced students can also easily point out the possible mistakes the beginner is doing and therefore help him/her to avoid forming bad habits. It is those small yet so important details that can be easily corrected in this way but that are hard to be noticed by the beginner. In addition, a barrier of asking for advice from another student can be lower than asking the same thing from a teacher.

For the advanced student, on the other hand, being an assistant is a great experience to improve one's teaching skills and abilities to give constructive and helpful feedback. To help others to learn something makes also the advanced student to learn - teaching others has been said to be one of the best ways of learning! Furthermore, going back to the basics again and again does nothing but good to any dancer regardless of their level. The more advanced a dancer the more s/he realizes the importance of improving the basics.

Finally, for the teachers it is useful to have experienced students who you can count on around if, for example, there is couple of new students who are really struggling and therefore need some extra guidance. In situations like this, the teacher can go on with the rest of the group and put the experienced student to repeat the previous step/movement with those who need it (this is what I was doing during the second class). If it is a big group, it is impossible for the teacher to notice everything and to give personal attention to everyone, so the advanced students are also a great help to divide that job.

All in all, I think this kind of format for beginners course is quite workable method. I will be in the course assisting still today, but tomorrow and Friday I will be off - there is a Zouk festival waiting for me in Spain! It has been a good start and there are many really potential Zouk dancers on board, so I hope that many of the new students will get the Zouk spark from the course and join our Zouk family! If you have some feedback you'd like to give from the course, or you'd like to share your ideas of learning the basics more efficiently, feel free to contact me.

See you on the dance floor!