Drag the Blues Away – Barcelona

Staff picture! Due to fortunate circumstances, I taught at Drag the Blues in Barcelona, Spain with Jana Grulichova. I was en route to Carcassone, France for culinary adventures and was glad I could participate in this new blues event.

Drag the Blues has a simple mission- slow blues. In a blues dancing world being dominated by speed and “authentic” blues, this event stands out. Hold your partner close, strut your stuff, be musical, be you, have fun dancing to blues music.

Because one of my specialties is dips, tricks, and aerials, Ferran gave me a Dips & Tricks class where people remained with their partner. How fun! We started easy and then advanced our way into two different lifts. Hopefully, dancers will practice these moves, be inspired to learn more, and one day use the bigger moves in a choreography.

I haven’t really mentioned my teaching partner yet. Jana Grulichova was a pleasure to work with. We hadn’t really talked about classes outside of me sharing blues lifts practice videos, so I outlined our 3 classes. We met at Swing Maniacs and went through 5 hours of material in 1 hour. Easy. She’s light on her feet, is comfortable giving me weight, does nice arm styling, takes talking opportunities (I’ve taught by myself too often), and personally helps students.

I’d like to share some more things that made Drag the Blues unique to me. They had two specialty classes Friday, 4 classes Saturday, and beach dancing and paella eating on Sunday. It was chill and I got to see more of the city. This rarely happens during weekend events. Us instructors also got many opportunities to hang out with each other and chat (another rare occurrence). The venue was at an amazing hotel with a great wood floor. There was live music both nights. I especially liked Saturday when Carrie Lewis took the stage. Then there was the Crazy Jack and Jill where each couple had a spotlight in which they had to act out a theme (casanova, hating each other, loving each other, etc).  It was quite fun and apparently my facial expressions were quite humorous to one competitor.

Overall, I thought Drag the Blues was quite fun. I hope they run it again next year. Keep your style, Barcelona.