Pictures from the June 04, 2010 blues dance :)

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

Stop what you are doing right now and watch this clip. Don’t worry, I’ll wait until you’re finished watching. ;-)

So if you did not know, this is a clip of the “spotlights” for the BluesShout 2010 Ballroomin’ division. It’s kind of a big deal. Ballroomin’ competitions are usually danced to new orleans style or big band jazz bands playing blues tunes. In this particular competition, you are able to choose your own partner but the song played is not known until you are actually on the dance floor.

Watching this live and then watching it on video gives me the CHILLS. My mind races with possibilities and ideas of how to “incorporate” what each of those dance couples bring to the competition into my own dancing. At the end of the day, that is the reason why I spend the moolah and time to get to events like BluesShout – to be INSPIRED and continue on with my own dancing.

Hey, check this out…

deeply humbled and honored to be considered on this list

WHAT THE???

I was just a sliver away from being in that clip? What no way! Seeing that list was probably one of the highlights of my weekend. I know that I personally do not have enough blues experience to be anywhere near the level that those dance couples are but I’m learning and sweatin’ away. Slowly but surely! To be acknowledged by my peers and instructors to be even remotely close to that top echelon group of blues dancers makes my heart FAT. <3 <3 <3.

Special kudos goes out to my wonderful dance partner Shannon Woods whom I met through a discussion thread for those needing competition partners. This weekend was the first time we have ever danced together and honestly it could not have gone any better.

This quarter was the first time I have actually taught a continuous set of blues lessons in my life. There I’ve said it. The cat is out of the bag! I mean I have always been trying to figure out moves with my friends even before I even knew it was called “blues dancing”. I remember finding a page on Apple’s .mac webpages of “dance moves” and trying to copy it at school. Last night marks the end of the first quarter of 2010 and the end of drop-in beginner blues class hosted by Bees Knees Dance. It will soon be replaced in April by a progressive series (wow!) beginner blues class. Here a few things that I’ve learned along the way (please note I am no expert in teaching or teaching methodologies).

Working with the “I already dance blues” scene aura

To be honest, the greatest challenge I have encountered so far (and biggest learning growth) in Toronto is trying to figure out when I get the “I already dance blues” attitude when trying to convince others I think would be good candidates for the beginner blues class.

“Why would I need to take dance classes in a dance that I already do at the bar and [the weekly swing dance venue]?”

You know, from one point of view they are completely right. There is no “right” and “wrong” way to dance blues (ed. see Bryn’s comments after the post though) as there is a right and wrong way to dance other dances such as ballroom or the local flavor of lindy hop. So why even bother with a class?

So my strategy – instead of trying to convince them that what “they” are doing is not what the rest of the blues dance community in North America are doing, I am simply going out and dancing blues that I know as much as I can, wherever I can. Then when others ask me what kind of “styling” I am doing, I point them to awesome workshop events (and consequently youtube dance clips ie. bluesshout) that I have learned from, and if they want to learn but a small piece of that, “hey by the way I’m trying to unload all my knowledge to the dance scene as fast as possible so we can grow”.

Dispelling the “blues is dirty” mentality

Yes, I get it. You went to a blues house party one time and all you saw were people grinding all up on each other and getting drunk. Yes, that’s a part of the blues dance scene here but it doesn’t have to be like that all the time. In my opinion, blues dancing is a very classy dance. Let me show you why… [proceed to show dance clips online].

As an added learning benefit of my crusade to make blues dancing in Toronto a more “legitimate” dance, I’ve started actually reading more about the history of blues music, culture, and dancing. Win-win.

Get people interested in the music (and the rest will become easier)

The music is super important to a dance.

If your students are not into the music, they won’t be into the dance. During the classes I try to introduce as many great blues tracks as possible and I always send a track list to anyone that asks. I have found that by doing this, students are more likely to come back and take additional classes.

It’s a bit more effort to do this on a weekly basis but…

Teaching is hard work

Teaching does not make me a lot of money, when compared to the amount of time spent doing it. Between renting out studio space, emailing interested dancers and answering their questions, constantly printing promotional materials, lesson planning, and going out social dancing as much as possible, I probably would make more money working at Starbucks (which conveniently is underneath where we hold classes). But you know what? I would do it all for FREE because I love every single moment of it.

It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of hard work. But each and every time I end a dance class, I feel reinvigorated about the dance myself which means I want to work even harder to make the next class better. The personal growth for myself clearly outweighs the time spent prepping and teaching.

Actually care!

I’ve also learned that you actually have to really care about your students. Like actually. For reals. Otherwise, it will show through in your teaching and in the class. You cannot fake sincerely wanting another human being to succeed in something that you love doing yourself.

Admittedly, during the course of this year, I came to class one time just not being motivated or interested at all. It was a blizzard outside, I had a long day at work, and I’m pretty sure hills were being perpetually created wherever I started walking towards. Never again.

If things were getting a little stale, I changed something up, anything really to get me amped up again. For example, maybe the warm-up is just a bit longer or with a more jaunty song, or perhaps I’ll try to put a more “intermediate” move in just to see if I can break it down for everybody. The lesson for me really was to not let external factors negatively spill onto my students, who have taken time out of their evening to come to class.

I cannot stress how much actually caring has been beneficial to the success of the blues dance class.

Have a great teaching partner who will compliment your strengths

Kathleen has been a great teaching partner this year and keeps my craziness in check. She’s also the same height as me.

One of the ways to “legitimize” the blues scene that is rapidly growing in Toronto is to have blues-centric dances as opposed to having “blues” music (and I use that loosely) at end of a swing night. Luckily for us, Toronto is going buck-wild like a prodigy child about blues dancing and there is a bunch of opportunities for dancing! (Please Note: these photos were not taken in Toronto)

Yonge & Bloor Blues

Although we do not have a regular schedule yet (for example the first friday of the month), we are having our second event this upcoming Friday. We had a GREAT turn out for the first event and like I said in my previous blog post, it’s mostly new people which is encouraging in developing an actual blues scene.

• Friday March 5 – Yonge & Bloor Blues featuring DJ’s Kevin Temple (Kingston), Joe Lim (Waterloo), and Adi Ze (Toronto). 765B Yonge Street (above Starbucks).

After our successful first blues dance event, “The Mooche”, Yonge & Bloor Blues presents our second event on March 05, 2010. Going back to the roots, “The Juke Joint”, will focus on of what makes blues dancing great: more hot blues DJs playing great tracks and more great feeling blues dancing with new and experienced dancers.

Dovercourt House Blues

Friday Night Live Band Blues at the Dovercourt House. There are some upcoming great blues bands that will be playing for us dancers at the Dovercourt House. I am especially excited about the Douglas Watson R & B Review (I heard them last year in Ottawa, great stuff).

• Friday March 12 – Tyler Yarema Trio (vocals, keyboard, drums, upright bass)! Dovercourt House.
• Friday March 26 – Johnny Max Band! Dovercourt House.
• Saturday April 10 – Douglas Watson R & B Review!

Friday Night Live Band Blues & Swing happens most second, fourth and fifth Fridays at Dovercourt House starting in March, and featuring excellent live bands and blues dance lessons! Friday Night Yonge and Bloor Blues starting in March happens most first and third Fridays featuring an excellent blues dance class and a DJ’d Dance!

Sunday “Swing and Blues” at the Imperial Pub

It’s a bit on the low turnout side (don’t shoot me I’m just writing what I saw) but there is DJ’d blues and swing music every Sunday night at the Imperial Pub @ 54 Dundas St. E. Free cover = win win.

There’s a new weekly dance in town! Every Sunday night come out to The Imperial Pub and Library to dance to the best DJ’d blues and swing music in Toronto. Brought to you by The Swing and Tap Academy of Toronto, the inaugural night of “Swing and Blues Sundays” is this Sunday, January 10th, 2010! Cheap drinks, great music, good food and best of all – the dance is FREE!

Had a great turn out at the first Yonge and Bloor Blues event and you could say it was a bit of success. We had about sixty to seventy people throughout the course of the event. This by itself is not a lot of people compared to our local lindy hop saturday night dance (which tops over a hundred guests) but we were pleasantly surprised by the turn out.

What I was really most ecstatic about was the fact that the majority of people came out to Kevin and Brooke’s drop-in beginner blues class and stuck around for the dancing. New people being introduced to blues dancing from the beginning instead of being an after band dance at Dovercourt or at the pubs. Wowzee crazee?

A couple quick thoughts I had about the event though:

1. Organizing is hard work. Lots of work goes behind the scenes just to put on a very “simple social”.
2. Getting the right mood with the music selection is a lot harder than it seems (need to find/grow more blues DJs in our scene).
3. People will ask a lot of questions about blues dancing and about the event. Be prepared to spend time chatting with new dancers and doing a bit of educating.

Overall, I’m glad the first event was “successful”. However, success is a double edged sword. If the event had not gone well or if nobody showed up, we could have just dusted off our hands and said, “well at least we tried, time to move on to something else” (like dancing). Now we actually have to follow-up and host another one.

More to come later.

• http://hamfats.ca/toronto/rebuilding-blues-part-1
• http://hamfats.ca/toronto/rebuilding-blues-part-0

Toronto Blues Website

I started a blogroll (mainly for myself), to keep track of the new blues events/happenings going around in Toronto. Semi useful information and a few songs now and then.

Check it out: http://torontobluesdance.com

Toronto’s blues dance for blues dancers holds its first event on Jan. 29, 2010. Epic. Website: http://yongebloorblues.com/

Remember when I said that there were plans in motion to (re)build the blues dance scene in Toronto? Well let me tell you all about it…

Things are getting exciting here in Toronto. And I’m not talking just about the Reservoir Lounge comment fest from my last blog post (although very interesting). There are dances specifically for blues dances that are going to take place in our city as well as various opportunities to learn to dance to blues music.

Third Friday Swing & Blues Dance Party (Dovercourt House)

The first event I should mention is the one that will be put on by Simon (Swing Toronto) at the Dovercourt House (“DCH”). According to Simon, the plan is to have a monthly blues dance at DCH every third friday of the month. This will be a band based event and the band this month will feature the excellent Tyler Yarema Trio. Tyler actually participated in the blues “musicality” workshop a while back when Steven and Virginie came to Toronto to teach. It was by far my favourite class of the weekend and it definitely helped me understand just *that* much more about the music and dancing.

When: Friday December 18
Who: Swing Toronto

The lesson will also be taught by Waterloo’s own, Jeff Benoit, and he will be teaching two classes, “The Essence of Blues Dance” (@7pm) and “Let the Music Move You(@8pm).

Make sure you come take those classes because Jeff has really keen insights about blues connection and feeling. One of the first weekends I was in Toronto, I jumped on over to Waterloo, for their blues exchange, and was very impressed with Jeff’s foundation classes.

Yonge & Bloor Blues (Dirt Cheap!)

The second event that I want to mention to you guys is the one that will start up in 2010 called “Yonge & Bloor Blues”. If you have not been to the Yonge and Bloor studio (“The Ultimate Lindy Hop Studio”), check it out at:

765B Yonge Street – upstairs from Starbucks, the door is nestled between the Starbucks and Tim Horton’s on the East side of Yonge Street, just North of Bloor. Steps from Yonge & Bloor subway station.

Not only does BEES KNEES DANCE bases its Toronto dance lessons there, the studio is also owned by Toronto local lindy hoppers Kevin and NaYoung. They are great people and even though they not intend to start up a dance studio when they opened up their business, it is the best studio for our community in all of Toronto.

Where/Who: Yonge & Bloor Blues Facebook Group Page

The first dance is set for January 29, 2010 so it’s still a bit away.

Bees Knees Monday Night Blues Classes

Speaking of Bees Knees Dance, Mandi is hosting blues dance classes in Toronto with Randy (yep, that’s me) and Kathleen. The will be every Monday night from 8:30pm-9:30pm, directly after my friends’ Shannon and Jasper’s beginner swing classes. Check out http://www.beeskneesdance.com for more information.

I am really pumped up about these classes because it will be the first time, at least in my knowledge, that a regular weekly blues dance class will be offered in Toronto (correct me if I am wrong). It’s exciting to think of all the potential blues dance babies that can come out of it.

When: Every Monday Night 8:30-9:30pm, starting January 4th.
Who: Bees Knees Dance; Randy and Kathleen
Where: 765B Yonge Street

Workshop w. Shannon

Last Saturday, in conjunction with the University of Toronto Swing Club, Shannon and I taught a blues mini-workshop. We wanted to keep it a bit low key. Truthfully, it was a bit low key just in case we did not get the turn out we wanted. However, we were BLOWN AWAY by the reception and we actually filled out all the available spots for the workshop and even had extras coming in on the day of.

There were a few first workshop jitters admittedly but once Shannon and I settled in, it was amazing to see students go from not knowing anything about blues dancing to actually respecting their dance partners and moving around comfortably. Shannon is a phenomenal teacher and the university swing babies are very lucky to have her as one of the primary teachers.

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Well that’s it, those are the updates in regards to the development of blues dancing in Toronto. Stay tuned in the new year for more info :)