I found out late October that Ceth Stifel, the man behind the Captain Lindy website, was bringing Todd Yannacone and Ramona Staffeld to teach workshops in Denver, Colorado. I was really excited for three reasons. 1. Colorado needs more intimate workshops  featuring national and international instructors. 2. Todd and Ramona are awesome (evidence above) and 3. I was going to be in Denver. Notice the past tense, but that’s a different story for a different time.

It’s true that Denver has several large events featuring many national instructors. Oftentimes, you’ll get 1 or 2 hours with an instructor, and may never learn from some instructor couples. With smaller local workshops, you will get 4-7 hours with an instructor couple. This allows you to understand their dance philosophy better, develop your dancing with them during an afternoon, and receive more personal attention. It’s wonderful to have consistency and gradual development. This makes learning fun, enjoyable, and more fun.

This brings me to my second point. Todd and Ramona are great teachers and you should take this opportunity to learn from them. I’ve had limited experience with Todd, but recently took a Masters Level class with him and Annie Trudeau at Lindy Focus. The material was solid, got me brainstorming new ideas (always welcome for the mad scientist!), we practiced lots to music, and they kept the class moving. I also watched another class he taught with Nina Gilkenson. This class featured some fancy arm-y stuff that Todd is known for. He was concise, precise, and technique driven without being too wordy.

While in Australia, I had the opportunity to work firsthand with Ramona when I substitute taught with her. Along with being a great dancer, she’s a great person. She smoothly segued me from lengthy technical driven detail into teaching through dance action. Lesson learned. And that’s the thing about Ramona’s classes. She had a jazz dance series she taught in Melbourne and students would come away pouring sweat, walking stiltedly, but beaming big smiles. You learn, you dance, it’s action and movement.

Whether you are an intermediate, advanced, advanced +++++ whatever dancer, I strongly encourage you to take these workshops. There will be something for everyone. Take advantage now. You have 10 more days to enjoy early bird pricing of $60 (price goes up after January 20).

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Further thoughts: small workshops are the backbone of the European scene. Dancers across Europe are hungry to learn whether they have an established scene or just beginning. I spend most of my time in Europe teaching workshops for local organizers. I rarely work a big event, but specialize in teaching workshops geared toward that community’s specific needs.

Madrid has 7 schools, around 150 dancers, and have a workshop with out of town instructors about once a month. Sometimes it’s a big event, but most often it’s small. London has at least 3 large schools and Swing Patrol brings between 600-1,000 dancers a week. Sometimes they might have 2 workshops by 2 different instructors in a weekend. The point is that scene leaders, like Ceth, Heather, Shana, Joe, are developing the scene by bringing in out of town instructors and designing workshops based on the community’s needs. They’re not waiting for the big organizers to throw their big event. I want to support them any way I can. I hope you can.