Team Building – Recent Performances

Time flies when I’m keeping busy. Denver locals are always asking me “how long are you here?”, assuming I’ve only recently arrived. The truth is, I’ve been in Denver since mid-April, keeping a low profile as I work, train, and search for new restaurant gems. When you must wake up at 6am and insist on sleeping 8 hours a night, there’s not much opportunity for dance socializing. That’s my current world – the one where if you don’t dance, you’re invisible.

Big Finish

If you want to be highly visible, try team routines, partner choreographies, or bust out in a jam circle.  This picture illustrates Three Bones’ big finish at Beantown Bounce 2013.  I was happy when Alain and Gen asked Jesse and  I to perform with them, Jon Tigert, and Heather Ballew.

It’s been so long since I did any team performances. I quit 23 Skidoo back in late 2009 because parkour was awesome and Skidoo was sk-lame. Fortunately, Three Bones had prepared choreography, defined performance goals, and great dancers. So Jesse and I broke down their choreography from their teaching videos and their MWLF performance.  Thank goodness we were prepared upon arriving, because we had two days to ask questions, solidify problem areas, and practice with everyone. I was pleased with the result.

Since I had so much fun working with everyone, I decided to also do the Pink Track Performance at Beantown. It was great working with Mike & Casey. They purposefully kept the routine simple yet high energy because they wanted to focus on the performance aspect. We practice Charleston arms. We practiced mentally running through the routine while a metronome played. We practiced dancing our parts solo to said metronome. We practiced laying out our crazy legs. We practiced holding our lines. We practiced. Again, it was worth it.

Needless to say, I wanted to perform more. I missed it. 23 Skidoo had a good run, but eventually my goals didn’t align with their demonstrated ones. Fortunately, July continued being performance month.

A production company contacted Heather needing 6 swing dancers for several dance numbers and taxi dancing. Boom! Let’s deliver 6 badass Denver dancers in the form of Joe & Danielle Demers, Delilah Williams, Ceth Stifel, Heather Ballew and I. It was great working with all these dancers again. We easily collaborated as we threw aerials, jam sections, and reviewed Stops Part I and the California Routine.  The attending renewable water experts even approved.

Teams helped me arrive where I am now. And now I’m hoping for more future team opportunities as I continue traveling and teaching dance around the world and in Colorado.

Beantown Rejuvenation Spa

Beantown was rejuvenating. If you had personal dealings with me during the week leading into Beantown and Beantown’s first three days, rejuvenating would probably not be the word you would use. Frantic, hurried, busy, neurotic would have been much more fitting.

This was Beantown’s first year for auditions and the organizers asked me to be the Auditions Coordinator. Yes, I’m the guy you can blame for not getting into the level you wanted. On a more serious note, Aurelie, Tony and I spent many hours figuring out this process. We wanted it to be successful for the auditioning students, the instructors, and the organizers. While these processes can always be improved, I was pleased with my behind the scenes staff organizing the lines, volunteering to dance, scoring, refreshing the judges sheets, and checking people in. I’m also thankful for the judges scoring all 140+ people even when things got crazy with two circles.

Not only were the weekend hours spent with the regular auditions, I also ran morning late auditions, evaluated each track’s class level, talked to teachers, ran the appeals process, taught 4 classes, and finished learning a routine that I performed Sunday evening.

Sounds exhausting, right? That’s where Beantown Rejuvenation Spa comes into play. Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five along with Gordon Webster and Friends were what I needed. I needed music that demanded swingouts. I was tired of hot jazz and charleston sounding tunes. So I sweated through my clothes, dancing in front of the band with as many great dancers as possible. I was selfish. I needed this.

Since I returned to Denver three months ago, I went social dancing twice. There are several factor involved, but I would rather spend my hours fitness training, working, and brainstorming curriculum or making new YouTube videos. Traveling and teaching takes a toll, so it’s nice to take care of myself. Then Beantown’s final two bands arrived on stage for four nights and I could finally feed my dance soul. When it’s just you and the music, nothing else matters. You can temporarily forget your responsibilities and just let loose. All this thanks to two kickass swingoutable bands.

Beantown was a blast. I had a great time teaching with Heather Ballew and Jesse Hanus. Other great moments include a champagne picnic, a challenging plank, many bananas, Suite D, Feats of Strength, severe rain, the Track 6 performance, my psoas collapsing and the many Bulgarian lunges to keep me dancing, Elaine Silver and I assisting Javier Johnson during Beantown’s Got Talent. There’s probably more, but if I list any more, I’ll go bananas.

My Summer Goals

It seems that many people wonder where I am currently. I’m back in Denver, have been for 7 weeks and have nearly 7 weeks remaining. I’ve enjoyed my break from world traveling. It’s always nice returning to a familiar place. I get to see my friends, hike 14ers, discover new restaurants, and attend US events like Midwest Lindyfest, Stompology, and the upcoming Beantown Camp.

I’m most happy because I get to regularly train at Apex Movement again. Being a traveling dance teachers takes a toll on your body. I sleep in unfamiliar beds, teach aerials with unfamiliar people, have an irregular training schedule, and miss my wonderful chiropractors as I gradually wreck my body. Every time I return, my chiropractor asks “where’s your muscle mass?” or says “ohhhhhh” as he feels my back.

Fitness training equals greater dance longevity. Swing dancers love recounting their injuries or war stories, so here are some of mine: 1. Mild scoliosis 2. Flew off an innertube behind a boat and hit a wave wrong, thus hyperextending my back. Continued dancing and doing aerials until my lower back locked up. I’m susceptible to lower back rotation now. 3. Couple mild concussions thanks to soccer and a pullup challenge 4. Torn meniscus chasing down purse thieves. 5. Ankle sprain thanks to a poor lache to precision 6. Rotator cuff issues due to asymmetrical muscle up technique and calling out “lindy flip!” too late for my partner to react well. 7. Wrist issues thanks to poor swingout technique and repetitive swingout tossouts. Stuff happens. Best learn how to heal and improve yourself.

Needless to say, 4 months off in Denver will do me some good. While I’m here, I’ve made some training goals with Cosmo Dudley’s help.  He runs the Apex Movement Englewood location. He suggested two pulling goals, two pushing goals, two leg goals, and 1-2 full body goals.

Pulling: Dead Hang Symmetrical Muscle Up, .75 BW Pull Up
Pushing: .5BW Ring Dip, 1 Handstand Pushup
Legs: Back Squats 2.0BW, Advanced Level Shrimp Squats on both legs
Whole Body: 5 Climb Ups for time in sub 17 seconds, 3 sec hold on Flag – both sides

Thanks to my current training, I’ve achieved a symmetrical kipping muscle up. I never had a symmetrical muscle up since I started parkour training. I had an asymmetrical muscle up where I flared my left arm first. This eventually sort of wrecked my shoulders. They are still less mobile than where they were 2.5 years ago. My shoulder mobility also limits my full range of motion for handstand pushups, so I’m training negatives, shoulder presses, and different kinds of dips. Legs are fun and climb ups are a beast.

Stay tuned. I hope to achieve these goals by summer’s end.

Tracking Aerials

I hope people find this document to be a valuable resource. This is a comprehensive spreadsheet of aerials I’ve learned, hope to learn, taught, been enamored by, and whose name I know (or think I do). Aerial names vary by location and person. There are also many more airsteps and tricks out there invented by creative individuals. If you want an aerial listed in this sheet, contact me, and please provide the name, video link, and time marker. Otherwise, scroll down to click the Expanded View or Google Doc with video links.

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Expanded View

Google Doc Spreadsheet with Aerial Links

Sofia Underground Swing

This photo nicely illustrates this post about the Sofia Swing Dance scene. It exists, it’s been going on for a while, but until you dig, you may not know it exists. While this picture shows Roman ruins, Sofia swing scene has not been happening since the days of yore, but it is slightly underground. Several people were surprised I was teaching in Bulgaria, not knowing there was a swing scene. There is and let me tell you more.

Sofia is a unique city. Everywhere you turn, you’ll see a church, mosque or other religious center. Turn around some more and you’ll find the fifth place of worship, McDonald’s. There are so many McDonald’s here! There’s great Bulgarian food, but that’s another post, another blog.

I met the organizer, Yavor Kunchev, via a Facebook friend request in mid-June, 2012. This may have been spurred from a comment I made on a video posted on a Bulgarian swing dance group wall. Who knows? Facebook and YouTube bring people together in unusual ways. We kept in touch and I landed in Bulgaria for a week in late March.

First things first. Yavor knows how to take care of his instructors. I was set in two nice apartments with a great wireless connection (so important), two grocery stores nearby, and the city center within walking distance. Also, I was introduced to so much Bulgarian food. More and more organizers are realizing that I’m a food tourist. I appreciate this very much.

Along with finding the Sofia swing scene very friendly and helpful, they’re also crazy for swing dancing. The Smugglers Collective swing party was packed Saturday night. This is a very cool underground venue. They have so much happening below the streets here. I don’t know how the dancers stayed up so late. (Aside: Porto, Portugal might have competition. I’ll let the Sofia dancers attending the Porto Swing Jam Exchange decide that). I went home much earlier than the hardcore party people. Aerials were on my mind.

That weekend, I worked with two different follows, Stela for lindy and Valentina for aerials. They were great to easy to work with and dedicated to give me two extra hours of their time for training purposes. I even used Yavor for some in-class demonstrations. As a solo teacher, you must be prepared to lead, follow, and switch at any moment. The solo to partner class kept me really busy. There were definite points where I was footwork confused.

If you’re ever in this part of Europe, take the train or plane to Sofia. The airport is close to the city, the food is great, the city is lovely (free English speaking tour), and the dancers enthusiastic. Check it out.