Redefining Myself.

Last weekend I travelled to my first foreign WCS event to Neverland Swing 2015 held in a small Dutch city called Veenendaal about an hour train trip from Amsterdam. I won a full pass to the event from a J’n’J competition in the Swinging Xmas Party Weekend last December and thus had a good excuse to travel again to Holland for dancing. Another good excuse was to meet up with my best friend and to spend some quality time together in the beautiful city of Amsterdam.

The event was pretty small scale, having only one workshop day, two parties and roughly 50 attendees, but it had a nice cozy feeling in it and actually this kind of friendly atmosphere is the reason I prefer smaller events to huge ones. The level of the dancers was also closer to my own and maybe this is why I felt more comfortable on the dance floor – sometimes being in a lower level compared to most of the dancers makes me feel I should be somehow better than what I am (a bad habit I should definitely get rid of). The workshops were thought through nicely, each class supporting the next one forming a good continuum, and concentration on the dance technique was something that supported my own learning the best possible way.

It is very useful to define some kind of goal for a dance weekend, even if it was just to enjoy the social dancing to the max. This time I decided that I was going to put my concentration during the whole weekend to my basic technique – I was not going to practice stepping variations, hijacking or things like that. There are some specific things that irritate me in my basic WCS dancing, such as my anchoring and stiffness of my arms, and those are the ones I’m trying to fix during this dance semester. Thus, I was mostly 'just' following and not even trying to mix things up so that I could learn first to follow well before adding in some spices. Because of this decision, at some points I felt like I was being a boring (or uninspiring) follower because I didn't do much variations or suggest anything.

However, being a 'boring follower' didn’t prevent me from winning the level 2 J’nJ competition (thank you my lovely German dance partner for the dances in the finals!!). To be honest, I was quite surprised about the judges decision because I didn't feel that I was contributing our dancing with anything special. Maybe the judges were paying more attention to the team work this time? Anyway, it felt nice to have this kind of encouragement to keep on working with my basic technique and following; apparently I'm heading to the right direction. As a prize I got to be part of the teacher’s show (someone must have the video of me dancing there - I need to find it!) and further I won yet another full pass to the next foreign WCS event: West Coast Swing Insomnia in Slovenia on 1-4 October 2015. So apparently I need to continue travelling for WCS (not that I would mind!). Who's in?

Why I wanted to write this post was actually to write down some feelings I went through during the event. I think that for the first time I felt that I was being part of the crowd, that I could identify myself as a WCS dancer. That was a nice feeling. I've always liked everything WCS has to offer as a dance style but felt a little bit like an oddball within WCS dancers. Maybe I have been identifying myself so strongly as a Zouk dancer that it has put my confidence in WCS down. Or maybe identifying myself as a Zouk dancer has been my excuse of sticking in the beginner level in WCS. Whatever the case it might be, I find it quite interesting that I notice this only now after dancing WCS for quite a long time!

So, from now on I would rather like to identify myself simply as a dancer, not some-specific-style-of-a-dancer because identifying myself as a Zouk dancer has obviously already restricted my improvement as a dancer (even though it might have contributed to my improvement as a Zouk dancer). Same goes with identifying myself as a partner dancer, something that I have been definitely doing – I don't want the identification as a partner dancer to restrict my improvement as a solo dancer because in the end it will restrict also my improvement as a partner dancer. You define yourself. As simple as that.


So, here we go:

I am a dancer.

...

Hmm, I like the sound of that.

Spring Season.

I had quite a kick off to this dance year by going to two dance weekends in a row: first to III Zouk Libre festival to Warsaw followed with Snow Coast Swing event in Tampere. What an amazing time I had in both of those! Especially Warsaw's trip was somehow just perfect... Better not to even get started about it! Here are few pictures caught from me dancing in the festival (credit goes to Berg Chabot):

Also the spring season for dancing has started well and there are now no need to worry how to fill up my evenings. I must admit, though, that I was a bit greedy with my dancing and practice schedule for this season. My weekly training program now looks like this:

Monday: two hours of Argentinean Tango in Tangokoulu
Tuesday: 1,5 hour WCS class in Rock’n’Roll Dance Club Comets and two Zouk classes in Rio Zouk Style
Wednesday: partner acrobatics practice followed with 75 min jazz dance class in Helsingin Tanssiopisto
Thursday: two Zouk classes in Rio Zouk Style

In addition, I got myself a gym membership in SatsElixia where I'm going 2-3 times/week (mostly morning workouts since all my evenings are "quite" full with dancing), and I also want to keep up with my weekly yoga practices. Then, of course, there are the social dancing evenings that I cannot miss, now regularly also on Thursdays in addition to Mondays (+ Zouk practica on Sundays). Not forgetting the weekend dance events that happen every now and then like it already did twice last month…

Now when I look at this little plan I have managed to make, I cannot help but to think: will my body really like to have this much activity on regular basis? Surely, dancing classes are not really that physically demanding, but nevertheless it should be good to have proper time for resting too. I don't want to spend half of the time getting sick of not having enough time for recovering and sleeping! Maybe the gym card was a bit too much…? And what about that other life I’m supposed to have? (oh I guess I forget to mention that I also have a full-time job nowadays?)

Yes, it might look a bit intense. However, I made a conscious decision to devote as much of my free time to dancing this year as needed to push my dancing forward. You see, something pretty exciting might just be coming my way this year ;)

By the way, since now I have been writing here under a nickname but I think it's time to throw that away. So hi, my name is Riikka, and I'm a dance addict. Nice to have you here to share my passion with.

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.

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.

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?!?

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!

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.

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!

Snow Coast Swing 2014.

The last couple of months I have been learning to take big dance steps because in Zouk leaving enough space between your feet gives so much better balance especially in the movements where you tilt your body in some angle. So this weekend I had to keep on repeating myself constantly: small steps, small steps. You see, I had my first WCS weekend for the year, Snow Coast Swing in Tampere.

I haven't been doing anything for my WCS this year: no classes, no practices, no parties, no youtubing, nothing. Some of the WCS dancers have been organizing regular parties in Helsinki so actually I would have had a chance to at least go there. But the whole dance somehow took a back seat in my dance life and I slowly started to forget why the dance got me hooked in the first place. I had forgotten it so badly that I wasn't really that excited about the weekend beforehand, but the weekend was the best reminder I could have gotten at this point. Good classes, nice socials, new and old friends and couple of those great dances in the dance floor that just makes your weekend worth the lack of sleep. It is always nice to see own improvement in a short period of time and I feel that I went at least a bit forward with my basic technique.

It is not nice to jump from more advanced dancer to the beginner level, and the fact that I still can't do WCS's basic step even in an unremarkable way, drives me nuts. I try and try, think and think, but no. But to be honest, and I don't mean to be cruel, I'm not the only one here in Finland. It is really awesome that there are a lot of people in the events like these, but the truth is that most of us are still quite lost. Lost in a sense that when you look the general view it looks so messy. However, it is great that we have opportunities like these to learn also from dancers outside Finland. It is not that I would say that I'm better than others but I've been in a scene with good WCS dancers in Brisbane and we're oh still so far from that. Anyway, easy does it.

I learned couple of good things to keep in mind when dancing WCS, most importantly that less is more. In our Zouk classes we have been learning to make big movements, use the whole body to those. Sorry, doesn't work in WCS. Better to keep everything calm and simple. Move only one part of the body at a time. I need to clam down my hands, calm down my body and hips. Maybe for the first time I had a object for the evening's dance party. I decided that I would try not to do any crazy movements, just concentrate on keeping the movement like a tranquil sea. Setting one goal like this is, by the way, a good way to get something into your basic dancing if you keep the goal in your mind the whole party.

The addictive part of these kind of events is that they make you want more. So, anyone willing to register with me to the FinnFest West Coast Swing Festival in June?!

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.

DouDouLe.

Note to self: two intense dance weekends in a row might be pretty hard for your body! I felt like a dance junkie on Sunday evening when waking up after seriously needed three hour afternoon nap, feeling absolutely horrible, but still crawling out from the bed and getting ready for Casablanca's Sunday dancing - the final party for DouDouLe.

There is one wonderful person living in Brisbane who is passionate about building the Latin dance scene here, and he is the man behind last weekend's DouDouLe Latin Dance Camp. I have high respect to those people who do these kind of things and work really hard to make dance events to happen. Therefore I'd like to express my highest thanks for Jean-Luc for organizing an amazing weekend of dance.

The idea behind DouDouLe is to bring different dance schools together under the same roof to share their love to dancing. The workshops included huge variety of dance styles: Salsa, Zouk, Bachata, Kizomba, Samba, Reggeaton, Tango, Samba de Gafieira and ChaCha. I'm proud to say that I went to my first ever Salsa class during the weekend! (Result: nah, still not the dance for me.) Other than that I mostly wandered between the Zouk workshops, but attended as a leader. Maybe I should have taken advantage the variety and tried something new, but how could have I missed Kadu&Larissa's or Alisson&Audrey's classes?

I love this shot; my first great leader picture!

However, when organizing any event, you cannot please everyone, and when there is so many different people, it is simply impossible. Don't take me wrong, I had heaps of fun during the weekend, but for me there was something crucial missing. I go to dance events to dance as much as I can with as many people as I can.  I like learning new things in workshops, but it is the dance parties that I'm the most excited about. The best memories from every dance event are from the dance floor. The parties are the places where I can be blown away with amazing dances and unexpected dance connections. What didn't work for me in DouDouLe was that it didn't give me enough opportunities to create those precious memories. Too much time was used for dance performances and other entertainment. Few dance performances are nice to watch, but not more than ten in a night, especially when you are surrounded by people you are craving to dance with. People with who you might not have an opportunity to dance with after that night.

I loved the idea of bringing different dancers and dance styles together. However, I think this concept would have worked better if those dance styles included only partner style of dances. After watching the performances for hours and waiting the party to get started, I was more than happy to finally get to the dance floor. Shortly after getting into the dance mood, however, my long-waited party was interrupted by a group of Samba musicians who successfully made the Samba girls crazy, but left the ones who were there for partner dancing to wait for a 'proper' music to kick back in. When it finally did, most of the dancers who I was hoping to dance with had disappeared or gotten themselves drunk. It is not that I regard partner dancing better than solo dancing, but that is what I went there to do. If I wanted to party dance solo, I could go to a night club. I want to highlight that this is what I felt, and that I don't want to underestimate the hard work everybody had put into the weekend.

That said, the weekend was definitely worth going to. The atmosphere was so warm and welcoming, maybe because it was a closed area where everybody stayed the whole weekend. I was finally able to dance with Alisson, a Zouk teacher from Perth, had the best Kizomba dances in Australia with a dancer from Melbourne, and experienced couple of other strong dance connections. It is amazing feeling when you start to dance with someone and you feel like being one with the other. It is like every inch of you were synchronized. It feels so good. On top of that, I was surrounded the whole weekend by all my wonderful friends I have met while dancing in Brisbane. With that setting, how couldn't I feel like a top of the world?

If I would like to compare the two dance weekends, the best of Swingsation was that I learned so much, but in DouDouLe I felt more like being united and sharing my passion to dance with my friends. DouDouLe was a relaxed and fun event with open-minded and friendly people, all connected by a big heart for dancing. Thank you everybody for making me feel so happy and loved during the weekend.

Swingsation.

Oh my god what an amazing weekend I had in Swingsation! Those couple of days put my dancing into a whole different level and made me understand the feeling and dynamics of West Coast Swing. One noticeable highlight was my first placement in newcomer's Jack& Jill competition on Saturday night. Nice acknowledgement for my hard practicing during the last few months. And I was close for not even taking part!

I've been to quite a few Latin dance festivals, so I think I was expecting something similar to those from Swingsation, but no, it was really different. First significant difference was the competitions that took big amount of time of the weekend. It is a whole different concept that everybody competes, it is kind of part of the dance. There were three kind of competitions: choreographed performances, competition with set partners and competition with randomly picked partners. Most of Friday and Saturday nights were reserved for the competitions, with some social dancing in between and after. I'm not sure how I feel about this; it definitely has its pros and cons. Good thing is that it keeps the dance "clean" and makes dancers aware of proper technique and how the dance looks outside. Its also a great way of noticing your own improvement and gives everybody an opportunity to show others what they've got. Bad side of it was that it took so much time away from social dancing during the nights. Even though it was fun and inspiring to watch the competitions, I would have rather done more workshops and social dancing. I also wonder if the competitions hinder the development of the dance by setting specific rules of how the dance is supposed to be danced. Further, I had a feeling that the competitions clearly divided people into different levels of dancers, and as a beginner, made me feel quite outsider. You'd have to work hard to get a high level dancer position and that way to get into the "inside group" with who the other high level dancers dance with. Well, maybe that is one of the reasons why there are so many great dancers in WCS. I just have to say wow, really great dancers!

Second major difference was the feeling and atmosphere in the event, which I feel like Latin dance festivals have more friendly and warm touch than WCS. Then again, what I really loved was that people came there to have lots of fun, to laugh a lot and have crazy times in the dance floor. I have always preferred to dance to slower songs that have lots of feeling, but in West Coast I just love those energetic and fast beat songs that you can just party through with lots of speed and energy.

What has always been really important to me in partner dancing is the dance connection. During the weekend I found that in WCS I can have a good connection with more people but the connection is never as "deep" as in Zouk. I felt like in WCS they think the connection as a part of the technique, whilst I think its more than just a technique, something quite magical between the two dancers. Funnily, I experienced the deepest connections during the weekend (unknowingly) with dancers of Zouk and Kizomba background. "So what else have you danced?" -"Zouk." -"Oh, that makes sense". I also found out that it is pretty easy to mix Zouk into West Coast. Easy way of dancing Zouk not only to Zouk music but also into any music with 4/4 count!

So, what next? All the WCS practices before Swingsation were kind of aiming there, it was my goal. As far as I know there is no WCS scene in Finland, and since I'll be having visitors for the last two months of my stay in Brissy, there will be not that much opportunities to dance here either. A great investment that I can't utilize, right? Yes, I was feeling really sad on Sunday after the final workshops and social dancing. I had so much fun. I learned so much. I fell in love with the dance. Now what?

Even if this was the end of my West Coast (at least for a long while), I am deeply happy that I went for it. Besides, I do realize that dancing is living in a moment, and I loved each and every one of my Swingsation moments. That is what matters.

Btw, Ben&Jen's WCS routine with a Hiphop touch was simply amazing to watch. One of the best routines I've ever seen. Check them performing the same routine in Swing Diego:

4th Brazilian Zouk Festival in Finland.

Wow, last weekend... I don't know how to put it into words... was like a Zouk heaven!

Seriously, I knew the Zouk festival was going to be awesome event but it still exceeded my expectations. I had no idea that it was going to be that big and that so many dancers from so many countries would come to Helsinki to dance Zouk. And I had no idea how clearly I could feel my personal improvement in my body! On Sunday's party I felt like I was invincible, like I could do anything, that my body didn't put any limitations to my dancing. And I had no idea how amazing dance connections I was going to find during the parties. Wow.

I don't know if the dance festivals and congresses (or at least the parties!) keep on getting better when my dancing is getting better, but that is what I'm feeling now. Even though Helsinki's Zouk festival was smaller than the others I've been and there was maybe relatively more beginners, it gave me the best dance feeling since far. Maybe the smaller scale also made the atmosphere more relaxed and intimate and that way made me feel more comfortable and confident. I felt like it also enabled to dance more dances with those who I enjoyed dancing the most with.

So, for those who weren't there, the festival included dance parties on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, five hours of beginner and intermediate dance classes both on Saturday and Sunday, and on Saturday's party we were treated with four Zouk shows from the teachers. Talking about them, we had four amazing visiting teachers, Leonardo&Layssa from Brazil and Daniel&Leticia from Barcelona, plus our own local teachers Freddy&Andressa and Soile. I liked that the workshops concentrated more on technique than figures, and this time I was trying to get a double gain from those by learning also the leader's part. One memorable moment from the classes was when D&L commanded us who took part to their intensive workshop on August to come in front of everyone and do a Mzouk stepping technique practice - how awkward! My favorite classes, though, were from L&L where they taught body movements and how to lead them clearly. I'm not even exaggerating by saying that every leader later used those techniques in the parties, and Leonardo then again was constantly surrounded by a crowd of followers there (no wonder - I was part of that crowd!).

Here is some demos from L&L, D&L and F&A I took during the workshops:

The weekend showed once again that dancing isn't just moving to a music but there is a strong emotional connection to it. Dancing can put you to a highest heaven or in a worst case crush you down badly. I wasn't the only one to shed some tears during the weekend; mine were from happiness but I saw couple from sorrow too, something not that foreign also for me. The emotional connection is one of the reasons why dance though.

There would be so much more to say about the weekend but it is so hard to describe how great, warm and excited feeling I had there. All I can do, I guess, is to thank especially those who put me to the Zouk heaven in the dance floor. You know who you are.

Before the after-festival-depression was able to hit anyone, we had a special drop-in class from F&A and L&L followed with a practica last Tuesday evening. I must say that it was the most crowded and relaxed drop-in I've even been. Usually Freddy is always watching everybody with a desparate look and starts the feedback like "okay guys, you need to be carefull with..." but now he was just "okay, you all had your own timing but it was okay!".

Photos by Berg Chabot.