When Friends Become Enemies.

Fellow girls, you must know the feeling in a dance party when there are simply too many ladies waiting for their turn to dance with the few guys. You wish most of those bit**s would just go home leaving you more chances to have fun in the dance floor, right? It is cruel but true that the party is simply better when there is a shortage of good followers, making you feel like the most desired dance partner of the night.

There is one thing though: these bit**s are also your friends. Who would like their friends to get out of the great party?

The problem with a small dance scene is that there usually is just a handful of good leaders, but the amount of good followers is a double of that, at least. There can be many reasons behind this phenomenon, like that it is more challenging to be a good leader or that men generally don't start dancing as much as women do, but the problem remains. This is exactly what the Finnish Zouk scene is going through now. It is excellent that we have increasingly more great followers, but unfortunately the ratio between leaders and followers is getting more and more unbalanced. I like watching others having fun in the dance floor, but in the end I go to dance parties to dance, not to watch.

You could imagine that a surplus of ladies would draw more guys into the scene, but oddly that doesn't seem to be the case. Even if it successfully worked this way, no leader can become a great Zouk leader in a short period of time. Beginner guys don't take me wrong: it is fun to dance with you, but sometimes a lady just needs couple of awesome dances, a leader who makes her feel like the best dancer in the world. Zouk is not the easiest partner dance and naturally it takes time not just to understand the rules but to make those rules work in the dance floor.

It is exactly as my girl friend said the other day: "I'm sorry to say but I was glad you and the other good followers weren't in last weekend's party. It meant lots of good dancing for me." Yeah, I know. It's sad, because I would love to see all my friends in dance parties. It is just frustrating if there is some kind of fight of who gets to dance next. It does no good between the ladies plus in the worst case it exhausts the guys and leaves them with no freedom of choice. Dead end.

In a broader sense, one of the weaknesses, if you could say so, of partner dancing is that you need a good dance scene to enjoy it. There is no use of learning a dance that you cannot do in practice. I'm not the only one who must be thinking that why am I spending all my money and time to learn this dance so few dances in Finland? Does it make any sense that I have to travel somewhere else to use the skills I've learned?

In any case, what cannot happen is friends fighting with each other. A great dance scene needs great followers and a great dance party needs lots of good, beautiful and talented ladies. While waiting the guys to catch us up, we ladies just have to make sure we remain friends and not turn into enemies.

By the way, if you want to see another Zouk demonstration by me and Freddy from Oslo, you can find it in here: http://youtu.be/MXQ0x8KiAbU. You can maybe see that I'm more relaxed in this one and therefore it worked out better than the first one.

Dance Numbers.

In the end of last year I saw some dancers posting their dance numbers on Facebook: how many dance parties, how many dance trips, how many dance practices etc. they had that year. I thought it would be cool to keep up such a list myself. I'll give it a try. So from January my score would be something like this:

Dance parties: 4 (2x Zouk, 2x Kizomba/Zouk)
Dance weekends: 1 (Oslo!!!)
Dance practices: 2x WCS, 2x Ballroom, 5x Zouk
Dance practicas/socials: 4
Dance classes: 5 (as a teacher, still 0 as a student)

Hmh, in some areas quite a slow start (though my trip to Oslo gives some extra points!). A lot of time has been spent on my yoga mat instead. However, this week will change the figures, because I’m finally, after a long long break, going back to F&A’s Zouk classes. I’m so, super, hyper, excited. From now on, my Tuesday and Thursday nights will be spent first in a beginner and then in an intermediate class. Yeah!!

Some might wonder why to take beginner classes. The answer is simple: if you master the basic things everything else will be so much easier. Beginners are usually so impatient to go forward and to learn more difficult figures that they forget this. Therefore it is usually the basic things that need improvement. I know that my basics, at least, still need a lot of polishing. Also, it is mostly about your attitude in the dance class if you are going to learn something or not. If you think that I know this already, you won't learn anything. Every movement can be done better or in different way. When I started Zouk I most definitely got different things out of the beginner classes than what I’m going to now. Now that I already have some knowledge in my head and technique in my body, I can focus on smaller details and nuances, and the way of implementing everything to my own way of dancing. It is the details that I want to learn, because that is exactly what dancing is made of. Even a slight change in the position of your finger can make a difference. Actually, Tuesday's beginner class was one of the most useful Zouk classes I've had for a while!

Also, I’m happy to announce that I have found a new practice partner and it seems that this has a potential to develop into a longer-term practice partnership. At least we both have been offering each other some new challenges and have been having heaps of fun in our practices. And our dancing goes well together, that’s one of the most important things! We were having a practice the other day and some dancers came to ask how long we had been dancing together. They were amazed to hear that it was our second practice! I’m eager to see where this will lead – hopefully into something good.

Talking about practice partners – and dance partners – this was something that I noticed missing about Finland when I was away. Here it is common to have your private practices and it is pretty easy to ask someone to have a practice with. In addition to improving my dancing, I also find it a great way to get to know to other dancers better. Maybe the biggest challenge on finding a more regular practice partner, though, is that both must be able to give the other something from the practices in a longer term. I don't mind having a practice with a beginner, giving tips and advice – it can be fun and useful. Maybe this sounds cruel, but I still rather have regular practices with someone who can challenge me in some way, let it be in some other dance style, technique or way of moving. A dance partner, then again, is something more than a practice partner, at least for me it is. It is not just random practices every now and then, but there is something more, some kind of commitment to your improvement as a dance couple. So far I've had many practice partners, even quite regular ones, but I would count only two of them as dance partners. Hm, maybe I should write down more thoughts on this later on.

Me dancing in Helsinki Zouk Festival 2013. Photo by Berg Chabot.

This weekend is special in a way that we have three Zouk events in Helsinki: Kizomba/Zouk party on Friday, Zouk party on Saturday and Zouk social on Sunday. This might be the first time since I came back to Helsinki that we have this much going on in one weekend! I highly appreciate the dancers who have the enthusiasm to organize events and parties; I know it takes a lot of time and effort. Frankly speaking, I'm not an organizer kind of person. I used to work in a charity organization for so many years that I got enough of organizing events. Hopefully these dancers won't and we'll have more weekends like this.

Zouk Workshops in Oslo.

Dancing has taken me many places I never been before. Last time it took me to Oslo.

This was not an ordinary dance trip however. I was offered an exciting chance to assist Zouk workshops there with my Zouk teacher and, of course, this was something that I couldn't say no to. I’m so happy that I was given this chance to have this kind of experience and see what it is like to be in a workshop weekend not as a participant, as I have been many times, but as a teacher.

When I was offered this chance, I first couldn't believe that it was me who he was asking this. This kind of chance was not something that would happen often – actually I don't know if students have ever been assisting F&A in their classes. Secondly, since there are many good Zouk students in Helsinki, I would have thought that this chance would have been given to someone else of them: I feel like I haven't really been going anywhere but backwards with my Zouk lately. So, you can imagine my surprised and super excited expression when I got the message!

The second thought after the overwhelming excitement was that would I be ready for this? Am I going to perform so good that I won’t be a disappointment to anyone? Am I just good enough yet? What if I’m going to be a total mess? You know, it is not an easy task to replace a professional dance teacher! Well, surely these kind of thoughts are not going to help anyone to perform confidently nor to enjoy the moment when it comes. So, to get rid of these annoying thoughts I said to myself, every day before the weekend, that I can do it and I will do it as well as I can. In the end, I wouldn’t have been asked to go there if I didn’t have the needed potential. When the actual weekend came, the thoughts were not there anymore. One good thing that F pointed out to me before our classes was that he wants me to be myself and dance my own way. If I try to be someone else or imitate my teacher, I’m going to be no-one.

So, how did everything go? Well, I simply loved it! The classes went really well and I felt like I actually had something to give to the participants. Of course, since I was assisting the classes, I had a smaller part to play, but nevertheless it was me who was showing the example, who the participants looked up to. I never had the feeling that they were disapponted of having me there as a replacement - no, everybody were really happy to have me there. And well, I must admit that I liked the feeling of being in the middle of attention. Some people don't like it but it gives me something.

However, maybe it was me who learned the most during the weekend. Observing others, answering specific questions and trying to figure out what could be the most useful tip for the group made me learn a lot. Also, being in front of everyone made me focus more on my lines, my posture, my steps, how I should place my hands, how to hold myself. I also learned a lot about F during our long and hearty discussions after the classes and parties. I appreciate the way he made me feel like equal and the way he gave me more of a teacher rather than a student role in the classes. This is one of the things that makes a great teacher to stand out.

Maybe the most exciting part of the workshops was to give improvised dance demos with F. I knew these were going to go to spread everywhere in Facebook - not the best time to mess something up. Now that I look at the videos I can spot the points where I could have done better, but hey, this is how I will learn more and more. And I don't want to underestimate the parts I do really well, because there is nothing wrong to say that I did.

There is one highlight I have to tell you about the trip. I was hoping to see one specific leader there who I knew was from Oslo. I met him two years ago in Helsinki Zouk Festival and I had just amazing dance connection with him, definitely the best dances of the festival. I was quite disappointed not to see him in Friday's party or Saturday's classes, but when I came to Saturday's party, I immediately recognized him. Apparently he didn't, so I asked him for a dance. Then he realized: we have been dancing before, haven't we? Yes we had. And for a couple of songs, we were back.