The Essence of Social Dancing.

Dancing makes me feel strongly throughout my body. One of the best things about dancing is these strong feelings, especially the extreme positive ones, the joy of dancing. For me, it is the ultimate reward of hours and hours of practicing and learning dance-technical details. I tend to get these extreme feelings mostly from small but oh-so-wonderful moments of dancing with someone socially. There is just something very pure and unique about those moments!

As you have noticed, this is also what I mostly write about, because for me it is the most interesting and addictive part of dancing. It creates so much energy inside of me that I need to get it out and share it. However, there is another reason why I write so much about it. Sometimes I feel that writing my blog is the only way of releasing some of that energy, because talking about it might be too much for some to receive. It has happened many times that I feel I should be really careful of what I say or express. It can happen that I talk too much about my dancing experiences and others get bored of hearing about the same topic over and over again. Alternatively, my excitement might be misunderstood as arrogance: “oh I had this amazing dance and therefore I’m such a great dancer, better than you”, or “I had a great connection with this and this person and therefore he likes dancing with me the most”, or “I had mind-blowing dance with another leader, so now I’m comparing it to dancing with you”. But believe me, this is exactly the opposite of my intention.

Let’s make one thing clear: social dancing doesn’t include such thing as competition. Dance competitions are a totally different world with different basis. Social dancing is not about who is having the most fun or the best dances; even to measure these factors is impossible. Having a great dance with someone doesn’t take anything away from anyone. There is either no point of comparing one dance connection with another one, because each and every one is unique. Having an amazing dance with someone doesn’t prevent me, or my partner, to have other amazing dances with many others, and there is no point of feeling bad when this happens. Dancing with other dancers won’t take away the fact that what you had in that moment you shared with that specific partner was and always will be one of a kind and cannot ever be repeated.

I have to admit that I used to get jealous of other followers when they were having great time in the dance floor. “I wish he danced the same way with me”, I used to think. I had convinced myself that their strong connection would make me somehow worse off. It is true that I, as probably everyone else, like dancing with some dancers more than with other dancers. However, it is impossible to put those dancers in line and measure with who I like dancing with the most, second, third etc. More importantly, there is even no reason of doing such measurement, because each dance connection is separate in a way that they cannot take something away from the other. Amazing dance with someone doesn’t make another dance with someone else any less amazing (or rather, any less anything). On the other hand, an amazing dance with someone doesn't guarantee another as amazing dance with the same person. Now having this mindset, I can fully enjoy watching other dancers having the time of their lives in the dance floor, because I know it doesn’t take anything away from me, but rather adds more positive energy around me. A good example of this way of thinking was during the last weekend in WCS event FinFest. I was having a horrible night: it was one of those I felt that I couldn't dance at all, nothing just seemed to work. However, I was able to fully enjoy watching others having a great night without getting negative thoughts of them at all. Why would I feel bad seeing others having fun?

I feel bad if someone takes my dancing excitement negatively. It is not my intention to put anyone down or lift myself up with my hyping. I simply want to share what is so great about dancing: those tiny but precious moments. What I especially don’t want to, or can’t, do is to try to hide or block the positive energy I’ve received from dancing. I regard this energy should be shared and that this should be a topic that everyone should feel comfortable discussing. I don't want to be afraid of saying or showing how great I feel or how deeply I fell in love during a dance, and neither should you. After all, this positive energy is one of the best things in dancing.

So, share your energy, express your feelings, get excited, show your enjoyment and forget jealousy.

To finish off: Bruno&Eglantine's demo from their

Helsinki weekend. Enjoy!

Every Single Dance.

Last weekend we had the privilege of having a Zouk teacher couple coming over to give us workshops all the way from Brazil: Bruno and Eglantine. This couple amazed our Zouk scene already in Helsinki Zouk Festival last year, so a full class of enthusiastic students didn't come as a surprise. I truly love them both as dancers and admire the way they give their hearts to Zouk.

One thing that I highly appreciate in a dance teacher, or in any partner dancer for that matter, is the ability in social dancing to make every single dance special and personal no matter with who they are dancing with. This ability comes up normally when you find someone with who you have a strong dance connection, but can be extremely hard if that connection is weak. Since dance teachers are travelling around the world and dancing almost every weekend with a huge amount of different dancers constantly, I feel amazed if they can keep up this attitude. It is kind of spreading the love of dancing to everyone around you, but to everyone separately and uniquely.

Bruno is exactly this kind of a dancer and this ability of his didn't go unnoticed during the weekend. It didn't make a difference whether the follower was a beginner or more advanced, or whether the connection between them was stronger or weaker: every single time he was making a personal contact with his partner and created something unique form that connection and the music. Every dance seemed to be like an exciting exploratory expedition for him. He was open, he was right there. No wonder all that the girls were talking about was that how much they loved the personal touch he was giving to everyone. Everyone loved dancing with him - and he loved dancing with everyone.

There is no denying that he took also my breath away during our magical dances. He made me feel so special, like the most amazing dancer in the world. I was completely his and he was all mine during those moments. What more could I even ask for? Also, the way he counter-reacted to my reaction of his leading made him create new movements, just in that moment (as he, to my surprise, mentioned in our Sunday's workshop after our dances on Saturday's party). It was like a conversation, a flowing and intensive one, far away from a monologue, the kind of which we got completely absorbed in.

This made me thinking that why don't we all have this kind of an attitude towards dancing? Why don't we just give everything we've got and surrender completely for every dance, not just for those "special" ones? Giving your everything doesn't take anything away from anyone, but only spreads the love of dancing to all the people around you. Sure, the other person can block your openness, but is it the end of the world? Compared to the possibilities and energy it creates, I think it is rather a small adversity. Every dance has the possibility to be an adventure, but it will become one only if you let it - and this is what requires openness and surrendering. I'm not saying that only you should do it, but this is what I would want to learn. Giving my everything to every dance, making any dance personal and special every single time, no matter with who I dance with, no matter where or when.

After turning over these thoughts for a couple of days I realized that it is not only dancing where I want to implement this attitude. Why wouldn't I be open to everyone and to everything all the time? If I give all of myself in any situation, what harm can it cause? If I meet someone, anyone, why wouldn't I try to connect with this person open minded, and show them who I truly am? What is the point of hiding myself? What is the point of giving only fragment of all the potential that lies inside of me?

"I could see inside of you!", he whispered to me, smiling the wide and charming smile of his, after one of our dances. And I felt the same about him. It was truly an adventure.

Notes to My Dance Diary.

I noticed that I have been writing a lot about dance connection lately... and not much about anything else! To leave some kind of memory of my current dance life to this blog for myself, I think something about my everyday life should be in place.

Our spring Zouk classes came to an end last week. I haven't really had any regular practice partner to practice Zouk with, but still I feel like my technique has improved a lot during these months. This week I took a private from F&A as a kind of  a close up for the spring course and got some good tips for working with one of my biggest weaknesses: balance. It was nice to hear from them that I have been going forward with my technique really well. This week I also had a practice with JV and, for the first time this year, I videotaped my dancing. It has been a long break and I was prepared for the worst ("omg, do I really look that horrible!?"), but in the end it didn't look too bad! Actually, JV posted the video on his Facebook account and we got a lot of good feedback from it. Some could say it was a brave thing to post a practice video publicly in that way, since those always inevitably contain mistakes and flaws that you might not want to reveal to everyone. However, I got some good energy from it and it was nice to receive encouraging comments from our friends and even teachers. You shouldn't be too afraid of mistakes anyway because a dance will never look perfect in a video. And its the mistakes you lean the best from.

Last month I have had two practice partners with who I have been practicing weekly. With AK we've been doing lots of things, my favorite being lifts, balances and acrobatic exercises. He has also been teaching me some LA style Salsa while I have been teaching some Zouk in return. With PL it has been Finish ballroom dances, mostly Tango, Slow Waltz and Cha-cha. I hope that I can continue practicing regularly with both of them during the summer because it is good to have some variety in dancing styles rather than sticking only with one. In addition I should find someone with who to have Zouk practices to keep up with my improved technique during the summer break from regular classes.

I have been having time off from work on May and since that freed me extra time I decided to go through quite a radical diet for a couple of weeks period: I cut basically all carbs and put my body into ketosis. I have never done a diet like this and to be honest I was quite skeptical about it in the beginning. I nevertheless wanted to give a different kind of challenge for my body and to also put my focus into something else than what was going around in my mind. Despite my skeptical attitude, the two weeks actually made me feel really good and kind of purified my body. The diet gave me good energy for my dance practices and it made me think of my nutrition more carefully. As a dancer I want to have a strong and healthy body to dance with and a diet makes quite a big part of that. There is a good possibility that I'll make another intensive diet period like this later on summer.

Besides giving more thoughts to my diet I have been trying to strengthen my muscles, especially the core. I admit I have been a bit too lazy with my once-a-week work outs and I should increase those at least to twice a week, but yoga is something that I have found to be really good for me, both to my body and mind. I just don't like doing work outs that I have to force myself into: I rather do something fun and challenging at the same time. Now that there are no dance classes during the summer, I should use the time to make my body stronger. Anyone willing to become my work out buddy and to give us both more motivation for a better body to dance with? I also lined up for this rowing event for July, Sulkavan Soutu, in which teams of twelve row about 60 km, so I think I should prepare somehow for that.

Talking about my current dance life I shouldn't forget Monday nights that are nowadays dedicated to dancing in Uggla. I love the idea of connecting all Latin dancers in Helsinki under one dance party: you can do Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba and Zouk all under the same roof! Thumbs up that there are enough dancers to keep the parties rolling regularly.

One thing that I realized just now when I was browsing through my older blog posts (something that I enjoy doing every now and then - one of the reasons to keep up writing my memories here) was that, like an year ago, I'm living with Michaelo at the moment: last year he visited me in Brisbane and now I'm living at his place. This time, though, we're not having our morning Zouk practices as we were in Brisbane. It is a shame actually because I really loved starting my mornings with dancing! Well anyway, I'll be living with him only for couple of months before I find my own home. Let's see if I'll find a nice place with enough space to have my yoga and dance practices in!

Tomorrow morning I'm starting at my new work. How exciting! The only thing I'm worried about is that I'll start working long days and not having enough time for dancing. If you catch me doing that too much, could you just kidnap me to a dance floor, please?