End of summer '23 update - teaching, more teaching and a little travel
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Hey there! First off, if you're a new reader - welcome.
Here is a youtube playlist of me teaching - mostly group lesson recaps but some other educational stuff as well. Follower technique, thoughts on emotional health while working on your dance, and solo practice advice, among other things.
If you want to get in touch with me, either IG or FB messenger works or you can send me an email: arisdemarco@gmail.com
Recently I went to two events, Desert City Swing (my old hometown event) and Swingtime (my new one, as it turns out). I loved the venue, the music and social dancing, and how efficiently all the comps were run. It really was a very well done event, my favorite of the few I've been to since before the break. https://swingtimewcs.com/
At swingtime, I made finals in both allstar Jack & Jill and allstar strictly. They recalled 10 leaders from I think 28 or 29, and 10 couples from 23 in the strictly. I ended up placing 6th in both. The field was decently strong and I didn't really draw anyone I was super familiar with, which always makes competitive success a little more gratifying for me.
I also had several regulars among my local students do very well - one lead and one follow made intermediate finals for the first time, another follow placed, and one leader pointed out of novice. This was fantastic when both novice and intermediate divisions were plenty large and competitive.
J&J
strictly
At DCS I had less personal success, I did a strictly with Maggie again and we were first alternate out of a slightly larger field (26 couples, I think?) oddly, they needed the alternate but didn't end up calling us up. It's DCS - what can you do.
While in Phoenix that weekend I taught over 6 hours of private lessons. A few newer people, but mostly intermediate and advanced level competitors. Many of them are going to keep taking from me, which I'm looking forward to. Several local students did well again, one leader not only making intermediate finals for the first time but also placing top 5; and a follow making intermediate finals for the second time in a row. This follower has been taking from me pretty regularly and working very hard for about six months, and I'm really proud of her. She hadn't yet made a novice JJ final when we began so that's quite a bit of tangible competition progress! More importantly, I think that she really feels like she's part of the community now, and is always growing as a social dancer.
Coming soon to either this blog or maybe a separate page, I'm going to have something for testimonials and maybe a tool to ease scheduling both for local students and people learning with me over distance, so keep an eye out for that!
Next up is Bridgetown swing, which I'm attending on a whim. I've never been before but lots of my friends are going and I love the PNW scene. Don't hesitate to reach out if you want to take a lesson there :)
On a local level, I'm currently teaching Derek and Lauren's Level 3 class on Mondays in Denver and might have a team-up project with Olya for them later on this fall. I'm going to be teaching at Avalon in Boulder on Thursdays semi frequently as well, at least once in October. Maggie is visiting and we have an intensive coming up this next Saturday the 16th. Here's the facebook event.
When summer began, I decided to try and teach more or less full time. That is, get as close as I could to paying the bills just with dance. For me, this occurs via group classes, small group intensives/competition prep, lots of private or semi-private lessons, and video critiques and feedback for distance coaching.
Right now, there's definite potential. I'm not quite there yet but this summer has made it clear that this is a potential path for me regardless of competitive level/success, ambitions of travel, etc. I'm still digesting this, but suffice to say it's something to be thankful for. Thank you all for being a part of it.
As always - love your dance, and be good to each other.
I’ve been doing west coast swing for eight years. Other than about two months early in 2020, I haven’t stopped dancing at least a few times each week since June 2015. During that time, I’ve lived in three different cities, and tried to grow and give back to each of these local communities. I’ve learned from the very best in the world, traveled to learn and teach and practice, and spent some time on the competition floor, too. I’ve had plenty of ups and downs in my dance – in practice, in comps, in my partnerships, and just in raw skill development. This is the longest I’ve done anything in my life without stopping or wavering. I didn’t start when I was a little kid or anything, but I did recently pass the 1/4 mark of my life… which was sobering. I turned 30 just about the same time that I’d been dancing for seven and a half years. My first novice final! Here are some lessons that have been valuable to me. 1. Don’t keep doing it if you hate it If you don't li
"I don't know why Billy made finals when I didn't! I'm just so much better at [xyz miniscule aspect of technique] than he is!" With sloppy feet, bad posture, lack of phrasing, a stiff upper body, etc. how could someone make finals in a jack & jill? Everyone has a confirmation bias toward technical elements that they're either working hard on, care a lot about and value in themselves, or both. And this tends to show up when we're judging quality of dance and general dance ability in other people. The typical response to these complaints is something like "well, were your worst moments better than their best ones" or something similarly unhelpful. I think that a great lesson to take away from 'who makes it' is to think about why they did rather than trying to think of reasons why they shouldn't or why they don't deserve to . More about growth mindset: dance image neutrality how to get better at getting better whose fault
Something that a lot of people struggle with when dancing is, simply, applying what they’ve learned while actually dancing. It’s often easy enough to access a new skill in an isolated drill or during a practice with an instructor, to a very slow song or no music at all. But out in the wild on the social floor, or even during a practice wherein you’re actually improv dancing, things just… fall apart. I think that this is largely thanks to trying to do too much. Maybe the 'too much' is simply in terms of information overload. Maybe it's too many differing and maybe diametrically opposed instructor points of view. Maybe it's highly qualified instructors giving tips that are more of a technical analysis than actionable cues, I talk about that a little bit here. ----- The first antidote to trying to do too much is... focusing more, on fewer things. As with many other aspects of how I think about west coast swing, the initial idea came from Fae Ashley. Essentially, she wou
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