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!

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?

Losing and Finding Myself through Dancing.

"I can see it so clearly from your face that you had a great time in the festival". I sure did, why should I hide it! I had such a great time that I don't even know if there are words to describe all the joy, happiness and other mind-blowing feelings I went through during the Afro Latin Flow weekend. There is so much to tell but I don't know how to even start the story. Still after couple of days I feel like I'm glowing this bright dance glow of mine that I have when I'm enjoying myself in the dance floor.

I could start by telling how much I liked the Zouk and Kizomba workshops I went to, or maybe how I somehow ended up doing an extempore dance demo in the first workshop with a dance teacher I had hardly never danced before. Alternatively I could start by telling about my lack of sleep, my sore feet and a pile of sweaty clothes as a prove of well-danced weekend. I also could start by telling how much I enjoyed the "Good2Great" master class and what new thoughts about dancing it woke inside me. These alone would have made my weekend amazingly good, but there was even a step further and deeper - and that happened in the dance floor.

I could say that there are different "levels" of dancing for me. The better connection I have with my partner and the music, the higher level the dance gets. The higher the level gets, the more I give myself up to the dance and the more I drop everything else. In the highest level there is not only a connection to my partner and to the music, but a further connection to myself, to my soul, to my partner's soul and into the whole universe around us. At this level there is no hesitation, no expectations, no faking, no barriers, no showing off, no fear nor thinking. There are not two, but one dancer. It is a pure dance ecstasy. The dance and energy just flows through us as it would be the most natural thing in the world. It is these magical moments that are the ultimate reason why I dance.

What made the weekend so special was that there were not only one but two amazing dancers with who I reached this stage of dance ecstasy. Gosh, I had forgotten what a dance connection can be in its highest stage! It made me speechless. Two really different dancers, two really different connections. With the other I had maybe one of my strongest physical dance connections and we were truly being a one dancer flying on the dance floor. It was so unbelievable, like a dream! We were so into our dancing that there were times when we tried to stop, gave each other tight hugs and thanks, but just kept on dancing just a few more songs. The other dancer I had danced before couple of years back and I was super excited to dance with him again, hoping to reach the same kind of connection we had before. When we finally met in the dance floor, I felt the connection immediately. With him it was different kind of connection though, like I had known this person, who really was a stranger to me, for a long time. Maybe I could describe it more like an emotional connection, or the similar way we both think and feel about dancing and the way we both connect with the music. One dancer later on came to tell me that she fell in love the way we danced together so much that she refused from dance invitations just to be able to watch us dance. What a beautiful thing to say!

Experiencing and sharing these amazingly strong connections also showed me a path to somewhere really deep into myself through the physical and emotional link. It was like exploring the universe inside me, finding something new and true about myself. I feel like dancing those dances changed something inside me, or rather that I was finally able to find that something and to bring it out. I still feel the warmth and glow coming out from my chest, spreading happiness and positive energy into my life. So, wow, I hope that these two special persons feel at least a small part of my gratitude that I'm sending to them for giving me all this.

On Monday morning I woke up with huge smile that has been following me persistently the rest of the week. However, I think the (way too) early wake up taught me an important lesson: never plan a dance practice for the following morning of any dance festival!

The First Dance.

There is no denying it: I've been having quite a hard month. But the good thing is that I have started to heal myself and learned both to let go and to hold back when needed. I have also started to enjoy my dance practices again (phew!!) and got back that joy of dancing on the social dance floor. In addition, there has been really great news in my career, which has really put my mood up. Really, the timing could have not been better.

I wanted to write some more of one specific new dance connection that has helped me getting back my dance joy. It was something like three weeks ago when we had our first dance and I felt from the very first move that it was going to be something special between us. You know who I'm talking about if you have seen a glimpse of our dance.

There is just something magical in a really good first dance. You have never met the other person, maybe changed only few words before the dance, and bam, you feel like you have found the missing part of you, like you two are born to dance with one another, like you can read each others minds and hearts. Everything else disappears, there is just you two and the music. Every single move is synchronized, there is no two but one, moving perfectly together, feeling the music exactly the same way. And when the music stops, you both are so overwhelmed of the surprise that just happened that you just stand there, stupefied, not knowing what to say or do. It even feels a bit awkward having revealed so much of you and having learnt so much of the other during the one single song, and there you stand, not knowing the other's name or anything else that you feel you should be knowing, and yet you feel like you know this stranger next to you in some special way no one else does.

Yes, it was exactly like this and exactly what I really needed, right now, right there. Maybe my craving for this kind of dance connection was one reason why I just let go completely. In just few seconds I felt like I trusted this stranger with all my heart and was ready to do whatever he wanted me to do. I had so many feelings going through me during the dance that I can't remember the last time I was able to feel so strongly in the dance floor. When the dance was over, I must have looked so silly, feeling kind of lost, little embarrassed and truly happy at the same time.

Interestingly, that was our only dance that night. It was like, if I try to put it metaphorically, having a first kiss, amazing and mind blowing first kiss, when saying goodbye; the kind of first kiss that wakes up the butterflies in your stomach and leaves them flying around. Not surprisingly, I found myself looking for him in the next dance party. When I finally found him, I was little nervous whether our second dance could reach the same level since now there were these huge expectations and no surprise factor putting the extra something into the feeling. However, the expectations were not let down and there I went again, surrendering myself into our dance.

I've learnt to appreciate these kind of strong dance connections because I know those don't happen often. The beauty of them is that every single one has been special in their own way and have brought up different things and feelings in me. I have been lucky to find two of those during the last six months, and even more lucky that both of them live in the same city and go to the same dance parties that I do. What a lucky girl I am.

I'd like to finish with one song that has been on my playlist a lot during this week. It just somehow hits me right now.

The Hardest Thing Is Letting Go.

I knew there was something blocked inside of me when I went to my beloved dance class and all I could think of the whole class was that I wanted the class to be over. The time dragged on as I just wanted to go home.

I took a peak inside that block and found overwhelming amount of sadness, more that I was ever able to imagine. How easy it is to fool yourself to believe that everything is okay? Regardless of the sadness I found, I'll need to dance through that block and everything else that comes with it and, little by little, I won't have to fool myself anymore. Now I just have to let go, and that is the hardest part.