Heartland Swing Festival 2014 – BBQ, Snow, Spinning, Babies

Are We Having Fun Yet? So asks the cutout people at the Des Moines Social Club, one of this year’s Heartland Swing Festival’s venues. Based on the crowd’s enthusiasm and cheer, I would say “yes”.

Heartland Swing Festival is a rare event that places great emphasis on the amateurs. Many amateur events typically nod to the professionals in a special J&J or similar competition, but at HSF we dance with the novice finalists for their finals. That’s it and it’s nice. Also, with some of the team and showcase routines, it feels like these amateurs serve more unique pieces as if they’re untouched by frequent YouTube watching. It’s refreshing.

Heather Ballew and I had a full schedule with 8.5 teaching hours including our special team workshop where we analyze and critique their performances. This year, with a full 90 minutes, we also included swingout technique and aerial coaching where we discussed jumping, landing, and timing. It was productive and fun. My other duties included DJing the Amateur J&J and AnySwing Goes prelims Friday evening. Even with the extra teaching hours, it was a pretty fun weekend mainly focused on teaching.

In between the dancing, there were random interesting moments. Like the time someone told me I might swarmed by pregnant women in the future. Needless to say, I impressed her last year with the care I showed her on the dance floor. Sunday night I was fireman carried down a hall and spun around. Then I hoisted Evan Borst and spun him around. One of these days, there might even be video. And did you know that Des Moines has really good barbecue? Fact check me at Jethro’s and The Flying Mango. Before I leave, check out the winning team routine and a fun class recap:

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.

WichitAwesome – AiR, Teacher Thoughts

Currently, I’m enjoying my last day in Wichita before I return to Denver. After 4 workshop hours, 1 group class, 1 team training, 10 private lesson hours, 2 dances, and multiple times chasing a 3 year old, I’m nearly finished. This was Wichita’s first Artist in Residence and it was very successful from my perspective. I had great hosts, full classes, many private lesson hours, invested students, a good teaching partner, and I met the Engineer’s Guide to Cats’ guy. A winning week!

This Wichita weekend marked my third straight 2013 weekend with a good teaching partner. It started with Nadja Gross and Elissa Gutterman in Zurich (recap here). Then I taught with Carla Saz in Valencia, Spain (she of the quick translation, student reading ability, and rotation reminders). Finally, here in Wichita, I had Chelsea Rothschild who, along with Evan Borst, brought me out for this AiR.

I often teach by myself or as the principle instructor. This means I often arrive early into a dance scene to prepare classes with the local instructor and/or organizer. Classes and the material will be planned, but prep work must still take place. I want my teaching partner to be confident with the material.

Fortunately, I’ve worked with really engaged teachers recently. They’re invested into making the weekend a success and you can tell. It helps that they are strong and capable without me. It’s like a good social dance. We have our roles and for those 3-4 minutes we choose to coexist. This was most noticeable when I asked Chelsea several times to demonstrate specific bad and good examples. She was able to immediately understand what I was asking and provided the appropriate examples each time. That is a handy skill, the ability to decipher your partner’s verbal request through active listening.

Thanks for the good times, Wichita. Good luck with your next AiR!

More is Less is More – thoughts from Zurich

The familiar adage begins “less is more”. My recent Zurich west coast swing teaching experience speaks differently – more is less then is more. Confusing? Allow me to explain.

I taught west coast swing workshops with Elissa Gutterman from Tel Aviv this past weekend. We were both excited to teach with a partner because we mainly teach alone. She teaches 4 different west coast swing level classes for Dance Tel Aviv. I specialize in teaching workshops and classes with local instructors and am often hired to be the principle teacher. It’s tough explaining both roles with, oftentimes, limited resources.

When you get two teachers that intimately understand both roles, leader and follower, two things can happen. One, you can get the never ending talkers. I witnessed this once at a Denver Intermediate workshop. At one point, the instructors had talked for at least 10 minutes, most students were sitting down. Fibonacci sequencers. This is more is more. Two, is where the two teachers complement each other and are content with the other teacher’s explanation. As each is a capable leader, they take turns leading. This is more is less.

As we were complimented on our ability to rarely talk while giving concise instructions and technique hints, you can guess we were the latter. This allowed the students more repetition and practice to music. We were able to focus on individual needs after giving group instructions. Then we could return to the center and remark on what we saw without always consulting the other. More solo teaching experience equaled less time talking equaled more students’ doing. More is less is more.

I would like to thank Nicola Fiaschi for organizing this workshop, Nadja Gross for hosting me and organizing the Bluesli workshops, Elissa for teaching with me, and the many others that made this weekend successful, including all the students and Saturday night’s social dancers.

Atlanta Varsity Showdown – Gangnam Style

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with Ali Taghavi in Heidelberg, Germany this past March. The primary reason I met Ali and Katja was because I saw this YouTube video. I knew of Ali and Katja before, but never had an opportunity to introduce myself. At dinner, Ali and I were talking about marketing. One of those ideas centered around me embracing my inappropriate move fame and offering similar classes based around having more fun with the dance. In the words of the Atlanta Varsity Showdown organizers: “We handpicked the teachers based not only on their killer dancing and teaching experience, but mostly on their ability to get cray cray at a dance weekend.” It’s working.

I was paired with Delilah Williams and Lindsay Longstreth. I think we brought the fun and crazy into the classes exceedingly well. For more proof, look no further than Delilah and I going Gangnam Style in class.

Wait! You need more proof? Fine! Have some animal dancing.

Anyway, AVS was a lot of fun. I met a lot of new people from the East Coast and the eastern Midwest parts. It’s really cool experiencing this young crowd and what they’re delivering on the social and competition floor. Compliments to the organizers for the rides, lunches, amenable schedule, the iPad beta testing for level tryouts, judging preparedness, and more. The DJs and live band, the Low-Down Sires, were great. I have a few days more here.

Oh, be sure to try Double Zero Napoletana, the Iberian Pig, Mac McGee, Cakes & Ale while you’re here.