Zagreb – Why Are You Here?

“Why are you here” was asked several times while I was in Zagreb, Croatia. I even had to answer this question before I began teaching Saturday. I think this post is the perfect place to answer the most repeated questions.

Q: Why are you here? A: I enjoy traveling and teaching swing dance. Also, I had a free weekend between two other workshops and wanted to do something en route to Sofia, Bulgaria. A friend from Cork introduced me to his friend in Zagreb and workshop talk started there.

Q: How long have you been dancing? A: For 17 years now.

Q: How long have you been swing dancing? A: About 14 years.

Q: How long have you been dancing lindy hop? A: For about 11-12 years.

This is the thing with questions. Depending on their detail, you will receive different answers. Based on the question asker’s reaction, it always seem they meant to ask the last question. But yes, I’ve been dancing a long time and been through many development stages.

Q: What’s your favorite city? A: London or Barcelona. I like Barcelona for its narrow alleyways with surprising shops, great architecture (Gaudi) and one of my favorite restaurants (Ohla Gastrobar). Unfortunately,  my favorite bartender moved. I’ll live.

Typically, I enjoy a brief mental freeze with this all-encompassing question. I keep expecting more to be added to its end. Since this question is asked in context of my travels, Denver doesn’t ever get mentioned. Why? Because I still live there contrary to others’ opinions.

Q: What city would you revisit? A: Porto. I have many friends there, I like the city’s winding streets, the Ribeira at night, and the Porto dancers are crazy (in a good way, of course). Also, I would revisit London. There’s so much to see there. The city is massive, but feels smaller with each neighborhood having its own vibe. And for foodies, this place is heaven with its amazing restaurants, bars, and markets.

Depending on the question, Berlins gets mentioned for its cool buildings, international cuisine at cheap prices (check out Chén Chè Teehaus), graffiti, and just pure uniqueness. Valencia will get mentioned because I have great hosts that love food and treat me well, there’s a beach, and it’s cool. Just is.

Q: What’s your favorite dance? A: It depends on the dance scene. Currently, it’s lindy hop. It’s what I’m dancing and teaching the most. When I was in Melbourne, west coast swing was my favorite dance. I had a dance partner, taught wcs once every 2-3 weeks, and there were great dancers and a kickass vibe.

Q: Why has it been so long since you competed in west coast swing? A: (inside my head: darn that online points registry). Out loud: It’s a combination of factors. My favorite follows moved away from Denver and my current favorites live in Melbourne and Tel Aviv. Long commute. When you don’t have dance passion in your home scene, motivation is difficult. I still love the dance and stay current the best I can. My last competition was in 2012 at Best of the Best in Sydney, Australia.

Q: You do parkour!? Interlude: This question was asked so often at the Heartland Swing Festival this year. I still don’t know who was telling people about this. I have a feeling when this question is asked with so much enthusiasm (and it was), they expect me to go outside and immediately start jumping around and flipping off things. A: Yes, but I have done most of my training indoors at Apex Movement in Denver and Boulder, Colorado. I haven’t kept up with my training when traveling and training outdoors has its own mental blocks to overcome. If you ever want to train when you visit Denver, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

Q: Why am I in so much pain after aerials? A: It’s intense. You’re using muscles you don’t normally use to this extreme. You’re also coordinating whole body movements. Your body is not used to this. If you want to keep doing aerials, workout more. Get in shape. Train as much as possible and get your repetitions in. Watch DemonDrills.

That’s all. If you have any questions, email me. I’m always happy to give advice, whether it’s for training or you want Denver restaurant recommendations. Also, I’d be glad to teach in your scene. Cheers!

Prague – 16 Teaching Hours Made Easy

How do you recap teaching 16 hours? 7 blues, 5 west coast swing, 4 lindy hop. 2 hours private lesson, 2 hours group private lesson, 1 hour taster class, 11 hours workshops. Ok, clearly there are a few ways to summarize my teaching time spent in Prague. Then add 4 or so training hours. I like making sure my teaching partners are prepared with the teaching material, the possible examples and drills I might use, and know what I might look for from the students. Let’s also add another 3-5 hours for class planning. Each scene is unique and has unique needs. Organizers are always welcome to provide guidance so I can deliver what they think their dance scene needs. Also, I run a popular YouTube channel, so I’m always pushing myself to have new material. Redundancy does occur, but it’s nice that I can give a unique video recap playlist.

16 hours is a breeze when you have great organizers. Zdeněk Kabát and Aneta Pérez represented the westie organizers, Monika Kadanková and Matus Haluska the lindy hop/blues organizers with Marie Prachenská also assisting me in those workshops. Some qualities they exhibited that I enjoyed were their organization, promotions (online and flyers), communication, great tour guides (Prague tourism sites and great food), enthusiasm for their scene and making the workshops a success. I felt very comfortable and at ease in Prague. That could be  the delicious potato salad, dumplings, and sausage talking.

Some highlights from my weekend were the westies organizing a Czech Blues demonstration for me. Marie and I taught a 50 person blues taster at the Jam Cafe Saturday night. We expected a few people and planned accordingly. I threw those plans out as soon as 20-30+ random people showed up. Wow! Secrets to teaching large taster classes in foreign cities: entertain, keep them dancing, play lots of music, keep them learning, reduce any technical information that comes to mind, have fun. A recent highlight has been the Easter decorations in Old Town Square with cute farm animals, live orchestra, and much food.

So come to Prague, dance a bit, enjoy the Czech cuisine, see the sites. I hear there is a blues festival in May.

Sideways 2013 – Loose in Lucerne

Look at us! Sideways in Lucerne. This was my second year teaching for Sideways, ran by Judith Estermann and Nadine Haller. Sideways is billed as a social dance event for lindy hoppers and blues dancers. There is much social dancing and us instructors are asked to focus on dance material immediately applicable to the social floor.

I arrived Wednesday morning, allowing me much time to explore Lucerne. Last year, I flew from Melbourne to Zurich and took the train to Basel to train with Louise Tangermann. I didn’t arrive in Lucerne until Friday evening. This year I taught with Alba Mengual and we planned everything my last week teaching for Big Mama Swing in Madrid. Freedom to wander Lucerne!

Lucerne has amazing structures starting with the ramparts, towers, colorfully understated stone houses. Then you have the bridges, covered bridges with trellis paintings, the water, and mountains. It’s a gorgeous city and I hope the other teachers and students were able to enjoy similar tourist moments.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend. Hearty bread, Sbrinz and Luzerner Rahmkäse cheese. The organizers went out of their way to take care of us instructors and the weekend’s guests. This was illustrated through carefully prepared dinners, potato fennel thai curry soup and cupcakes on Saturday, great venues, the Sideways Mile, and decor.

Classes were fun, the students great. We had a lot of good questions, including some particularly well timed questions in the Intermediate Lindy Hop (my only lindy hop class). I only wish that class had been as great at rotating as they were asking questions (kidding!). Themes that were running rampant during class were: reminding ourselves how we independently move and perfecting that movement when needed, connecting our bodies to our center, leaders initiating then followers following through and together finishing.

I also felt I was able to connect better with the other instructors. It helped that I could attend the teachers dinner Friday night. Over three hours, we enjoyed three different courses and snacks (thanks, chefs Thomas and Dieter!). It gave us great time to talk and find out more about each other. The teacher lineup was quite diverse, bringing instructors together from the US, Lithuania, Australia, UK, Greece, Switzerland, and Spain. And after hanging out with Martynas and Egle, I might have to visit Vilnius.

Sideways also featured quite a few favorite moments including the pictured David Zilkha rolling what became a giant snowball. Other favorites include: 1. Alba telling the advanced class they weren’t too bad for intermediates (someone didn’t pay attention to the schedule). 2. Scott Cupit actually getting Martynas’ intended fake birthday jam correct. They were both left wondering how Scott guessed right. 3. Swinging out to kickass swinging music (thanks Martynas, Kevin, and Scott). 4. Visiting Mt. Rigi again via boat and cog railway 5. Oh and I built a snowman on Mt Rigi and planked it. Go me. Cheers and here’s to more adventures.

Heartland Swing Festival 2013 – Back with Ballew

Back in the Midwest, where saying “y’all” is acceptable and recognized. It’s nice to let my American speech patterns run free. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if the students understand me, but they do! I’m no longer overseas. I can discard my Latin roots, return my American slang, speak faster, and be more natural. And it’s not just because I’m teaching again in American, it’s because I have Ballew, The Heather Ballew.

She’s a strong follow, leader of Colorado’s balboa scene, a kickass competitor, a friend, and a great teacher. It’s fun planning classes with her. We possess our individual dance philosophies and then Venn diagram them for classes, such as the ones we taught at Heartland Swing Festival. Here are a few reasons I enjoy teaching with Heather:

  1. always has something unique to give the students
  2. pays attention to individuals and the entire class (some people get sucked in by that one student, others only see the forest)
  3. it’s easy to riff ideas. Teaching becomes an easy two-way conversaton
  4. she knows her stuff and I trust her
  5. she sees things I don’t

So much on that list is important and emphasizes why it’s so great to be hired as a teaching couple, but also learn from a teaching couple. You get role models, individuals that have mastered their role, and equal information. I love teaching as a solo traveling instructor, but it’s a lot of work. Bottomline: hire Heather and I to teach for you. 🙂

Enough of the Ballew Appreciation Festival. Let’s talk about Heartland. This is one of the easiest events to work for. It’s well organized, Heather and I had an instructor liaison, Des Moines has cool restaurants (sidetracked!!!), has a great event management team, kickass MC (funny without wanting to be the center of attention), and hotel rooms with separate bathrooms. Other events could learn from Heartland.

This year was nuts! I was recruited to teach two early morning lindy hop classes with Lian Tarhay. Her partner, Dan Rosenthal, got delayed leaving Boston. Due to a miscommunication, I had to run .6 miles to the class venue at 8:40am. It wasn’t Heartland’s fault, but several people thought it was at the hotel venue. Oops. I was also the competition DJ which meant I was at the DJ booth a lot. I even dj’ed an impromptu set once I realized there was no music scheduled before the Friday comps. There were instructor demos, instructors dancing in the Novice J&J Finals (surprise!), judging slow finals at Friday late night. Those slow finals were pushed later due to Robert Bell playing later due to comps going over. Sleepy.

Sunday presented Heather and I with possibly our most unique class to date, the Team Talk private session, a great idea from Michael Brafford. Teams would come that morning to watch their video footage, receive personalized feedback, and practice some ideas. Heather judged the team competition and I ran their music Saturday night. I had someone film all the teams with my camera and I went back to my hotel room that night to watch the footage and take notes. Once Heather returned, we went through the footage together and talked ideas, practicing camel walks, and discussing swingouts. We went to bed around 2:30am. Thanks to all the team participants that arrived on time and took lots of notes. We appreciate your participation, finding out more about the teams, your excellent questions, and Charleston jamming with us.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun at Heartland. It was great seeing the other instructors, more familiar faces, and discovering I have a fan club. By the end, Heather and I taught 6 hours, judged numerous comps, danced so much, ate so much, and I dj’ed a whole lot. We hope to return next year.

If you reach the end, check my Heartland Video Playlist.