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!

Dating a Dancer.

To date or not to date a dancer: that is the question. I touched upon this topic already ages ago in my previous post, but the question seems to be something that I realize coming back every now and then. I was single when I started partner dancing and back then I used to have the opinion that dancers are definitely in my 'no-list'. Well, I nevertheless ended up dating a dancer for quite a long time and therefore I can now say from the experience that the dating a dancer itself - and breaking up with a dancer - sure has it's good and bad sides.

When I was getting into my dating a dancer relationship, there were many hesitations going through my mind. Would it be worth to endanger the awesome feeling I was having with him in the dance floor? Would it be worth of possibly putting some of my dance friendships in danger to go further with this guy? Do I want to put myself under the dance community's observing eye and be exposed to some inevitable gossip? And what if we break up - will it be possible to successfully go on in the dancing scene with a good attitude towards him? So even considering to date a dancer has an extra layer of caution. Even doing a simple thing as going on a casual date with a dancer isn't that simple thing for me: I think not only twice but at least trice before I would say yes to a date invitation. It might happen that I connect with the other amazingly well in the dance floor but after a boring date the excitement in the dance floor is gone. Or what if the date goes well and the other starts to expect more from me that I'm willing to give? On the other side are the possible gossips inside the dance scene that dating around might cause. I love social dancing so much that I don't want to create any disturbances or extra drama to my dancing environment, so I'd rather go with a better-to-be-safe-than-sorry attitude. Surely, there are dancers who see dancing as an easy way of finding that special person, but for me that is not the case. I just want to dance.

So if even going on a date with a dancer was tricky, having a relationship with one can be far away from easy. It has been already quite a while ago that I read an interesting article from one dance instructor who thought that "the one" simply cannot be found from dance scene. According to her, the dancer men will be meeting "new, younger, faster, better models every week and end up ignoring you, breaking up with you, or worse, physically abusing you in the end." I can't say that I agree with everything she says, but I must say that seeing your man having an extreme sensual dance with another girl right next to you requires quite a stable and healthy relationship. I too had my moments of jealousness and I can't say that we wouldn't have had some I-saw-how-you-danced-with-that-girl/guy typed arguments. However, we both knew that what happens in the dance floor can be left to the dance floor (of course taken that what happened in the dance floor was inside the limits of dancing). If the relationship doesn't have a strong base or if both don't think of dancing the same way, it is easy to find trouble. I know I sometimes like dancing physically quite close, and I wouldn't like to change that just because I dated another dancer.

One of my friends, who dates a non-dancer guy, said that it is so much better to date a non-dancer because then the dance parties she goes are her own time and when she is there she doesn't need to worry about what he would think of her dancing with other guys. Out of sight, out of mind. Some others have said that it is great to have a dancer boy/girlfriend because you can do both the dance party and spending time with him/her at the same time. This goes well if you both are as into dancing as the other is; in my case I might have been a bit more dance enthusiastic wanting to arrive the party earlier and also to leave it later - yet another juicy source for unnecessary argument there. But if both of you are equally big dance addicts, dancing is a great connecting factor (imagine, for example, all those wonderful possibilities to go to dance festivals or other dance trips together!). I have both good and bad experiences of having a boyfriend in dance parties. Sometimes it was just so perfect having him there, spending time together doing something both loved to do and to dance the last ah-so-romantic song with my very own dancer. Sometimes having him there was just a disturbance for me, the dances we had were simply horrible and in the end there was a tough decision to be made between whether to stay out dancing or to leave earlier to fall asleep in his arms.

Maybe the biggest advantage in dating a dancer, though, is that a dancer is able to understand the dancer side of you: what dancing is, what it means, what are the limits, why you want to spend so much time doing it, why you need to get your dance fix, how you live your life through dancing etc. I once shortly dated a non-dancer and it was quite impossible to explain him why dancing was so important for me and why I was, according to him, "always" dancing. Also the physical closeness of dancing was something strange, incomprehensible and unnecessary source of jealousness for him. In the end it came down to choosing him or dancing and, well, that's how it ended up short. So, a dancer can better understand what dancing is - and what it is not. Also, viewing dancing from a dancer's perspective allows both to have a deeper understanding on the other's dancing self. After all, dancing is such a big part of me that I would like to my partner to know also that side! Not understanding the dancer me would be like not knowing a big part of me; there is a danger that he would never be able to understand who I really am. This is one reason why many of my dancer friends say they would rather date a dancer than a non-dancer: to be able to connect in a dance-level. And isn't it every dancer girl's dream come true to be one of those amazing, cute and hot dance couples that you just cannot stop staring because of their intense dance connection full of love and desire...

Then what if everything doesn't go as smooth as planned, that is, if a dancer had dated and broken up with another dancer, it is possible to successfully go on in the dancing scene with a good attitude towards the dated dancer? Because let's be honest: if you break up, you are inevitably forced to face each other in the same parties and circles again and again. There is no way of avoiding the other unless one changes the circles, that is, stops dancing your common dance style. If that is not going to happen (as it most probably is the case), is it possible to go back as if nothing had happened? What a horrible thought it is of being in a dance party full of your ex-boyfriends with who you can't get along after some fiery break-ups! There goes the comfortable dancing environment I was talking about. And what about the amazing dance connection between you two that possibly was the initial trigger to your relationship: will you ever get that back?

 

Of course it depends on the dancers whether or not they can get along. I've seen this causing a lot of drama and trouble but I've also witnessed some good after-dating friendships being established. Being forced to see each other can even have a positive effect both to your own recovery and to your new mutual relationship. It might not be the easiest thing to do, especially if the break-up itself was already tough enough, but in the long run the forced encounters will do you good, especially if your intention is to build some sort of friendship between you two. Don't expect this to happen overnight, though, because it will take time. When I had just broken up, I always needed to know in advance whether he would be in the party I was going so I could be ready to confront him. But even though I was mentally prepared to meet him, my heart would remind me of itself the moment I would see him. Dancing with him felt either heartbreaking or made me feel really annoyed. I was simply feeling better and had better dances when he was not around. Now I'm already used seeing him around and we've had some great dances together reminding me in a good way what a great leader I used to date and what a great leader I'm going to have as a friend (though I must admit that seeing him openly hitting on the next dancer girl in a dance party not too long after the break-up did make my blood boil for a while!). Actually, now the first genuine feeling I get when I notice him in a dance party is that I'm happy to see him as I'm happy to see any of my other closer dance friends. I can't say that seeing my other exes unexpectedly would feel as natural and comfortable as seeing him.

So yes, it is possible to have a comfortable dance environment regardless of your ex being there and even to have back that good dance connection you used to share. If you meet someone with who you really connect in a romantic level, I think it would be just silly to let something like "what if we break up and I have to see my ex all the time" being a big obstacle. That said, being comfortable with having your ex in your dance scene does take quite a bit time and effort to achieve (and in some cases it might even be impossible), so I would still be pretty cautious of dating inside my dance scene. As I said: I just want to dance.

 

Majaalahti Zouk Weekend.

They say that one picture tells more than thousand words. Well here are some hundreds of thousands from last weekend's awesomeness.

 

Summer Life.

Now that I moved in to my new small but extremely cozy apartment this week, I can truly say that I've literally started a new life: no more studying after work, new job that I love already and, finally, my own little home. When you add a summer to that mix, meaning no weekly schedules or dance classes, my everyday life feels totally new.

Moving to a new empty space has given me a great chance to consider what kind of a surroundings I really want to build for myself. For the first few days I had no furniture and the only item in my living room was my turquoise yoga mat. I have no food of any kind lying around in the back of the cupboards or freezer. No piles of papers or useless stuff that have just been accumulating over the years. I find this so purifying! There is no better timing than this to make good decisions of what to let in into my everyday life. Now that I finally have a place to call home, I want to make it as good place for myself as I can. Ideally I'd have a space for dancing, but realistically it is not going to happen in such a small apartment. However, I have left a good amount of space for my yoga mat and (hopefully daily) yoga practices.

First thing to do when getting keys to a new apartment: to bring yoga mat and have a yoga date with the new, still empty home to be <3 (and I did dance around a bit, just from the excitement of having a home).

After-yoga happiness.

Talking of yoga, I decided to take part to the Yogobe's 30-day yoga challenge that started this week. The idea is simple: to practice yoga every day for 30 days, either in a group, with a friend or by yourself, and as short or long of a practice as you want or need. To make the challenge easier, an online yoga service Yogobe has made a schedule of yoga videos for each day (btw, you can try out the service free for 10 days with a code JOOGA so I urge also you to try it out!). Since my internet is not yet working in my apartment, I have done my own practice at home the first days, but right after I get the internet working I'm definitely trying out the ready-made schedule. Also, I realized that there are at least three yoga studios really near my apartment, and I already tried out one of them, a hot yoga studio Yoga Nordic. I did a nice one hour hot yoga practice before heading to the office in the morning and I must say that morning yoga is really the best way of starting the day, though hot yoga might not be the thing for me. However, the hot yoga studio has quite good summer deal (35 € / 1 week unlimited) which I might take advantage of some time soon. Again, you're more than welcomed to join my trial week if interested!

Since dancing is not that much included to my normal weeks during the summer as normally it is, couple of dance trips is a must do. In the end of July I'm heading to Mataro, Spain with couple of friends of mine for the 2nd ZoukDevils & Friends Summer Weekend. We're taking just the party passes and planning on relaxing in the beach during the day workshops. After the weekend we'll spend some days in Barcelona and hopefully make some visits to the Spiral Dancer's dance studio. Then, in the end of August I'll take part the Amsterdam Zouk Congress with a full pass. No need to mention that I'm spending all my holiday leave from work to these trips (bad thing about starting a new job is that you don't get full 4-week summer holiday, but I'm happy to get two). Talking about nearer future, I'm spending this weekend in a cottage with my Zouk family, so a lot of dancing and good company is guaranteed!

Even during the summer, I will be found every now and then in my dance space having a dance practice, workout or just a good chat with someone. What I love about summer schedules is that many are quite free to have extempore practices in a short notice. So let me know if you want to have one - I rarely will say no to dancing!

@ my dance space

Btw, check out this cool video of the summer Zouk Tuesday evenings behind the Opera house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-8SAOZE5k. Gotta love these crazy people!