Gary's and Toni's Excellent Island Adventures

Shall We Dance?

“Dance to your heart’s content.” That’s how Gwen Spinks, one of Nanaimo’s many and wonderful dance instructors, ends her e-mails. Since beginning ballroom dance lessons last February, that’s become one of the underlying principals of my life. Seriously. Of course, in my own case, I find that other body parts like muscles, tendons, and joints usually become discontented before my heart becomes contented.

In Nanaimo and area, it seems that for adults who want to dance, there are options for dancing much of the night, practically every night of the week, with tea dances and salsa workshops on weekend afternoons.

Nanaimo's Dance Card

So far, practically all of our dance classes have been through the City of Nanaimo with Nelson Wong instructing. The City offers an excellent variety of courses for a good price. (Keep in mind that if you’re considering taking Jive or Latin, you might want to add some dollars to the budget for physio or chiropractic!). Nelson is an amazing instructor, and his name is synonymous with ballroom dancing in the region. Also through the City, we’ve just started West Coast Swing with Sara Raymond. Sara does a great job teaching more street style dancing, and has drop-in sessions for Salsa and other Latin dances at Vibe Studio. Sara was the North American Champion for Line Dancing at the age of sixteen, so she really knows her stuff! Gwen Spinks teaches Latin, West Coast Swing, and other styles, and is especially known for her Argentine Tango. This spring, she is heading off to – of all places – Argentina, for a month of further study. Gwen gives lessons in Nanaimo, on Gabriola Island, and now in Vancouver. (Yes, we have such an awesome dance product in Nanaimo that now we’re exporting to Vancouver!) In her spare time, Gwen maintains an on-line dance calendar, so you can always know where to find some dancing.

For more area instructors and for lots of other great dance links, check out the Nanaimo Ballroom Dance Society website. Besides holding bimonthly dances and workshops and weekly practice times throughout the year, the NBDS hosts two major dance events, the Island Fantasy Ball in May, and the Newcastle Island Dance Camp in July. The Island Fantasy Ball is the Dancesport championship for BC’s competitive amateur ballroom dancers. (My theory is that ballroom dance became a sport the first time a woman danced in high-heeled sandals.) If you want to go dance crazy in the summer, take the ferry to Newcastle Island for the weekend dance camp with workshops all day, and barbeques and dances in the evenings. Imagine dancing a summer night away on fir-sprung floors in a Big Band era pavilion open to the ocean breezes. Last year’s camp workshop offerings included Night Club Waltz, Cha Cha, International Waltz, Nite Club 2-Step, West Coast Swing, Merengue/Bachata, Swing, Salsa, Country 2-Step, line dances and more!

Our Personal Journey

We started dance classes as newbies last year in February 2006 with Latin Fever. Since then, we have done Ballroom and Latin Beginners, Ballroom and Latin Beginners Continuation, and Jive and Swing, and now we’re doing West Coast Swing and continuing in Continuation. (It’s not the destination but the journey that is important.)

Our first year of dance has been one of laughter and pain. (Dance Hint: For the wellbeing of the dance couple, your laughter should not be linked to your partner’s pain.) We have laughed through all our lessons, and our practice at home. Probably Nelson’s Swing/Jive class that we took in the spring evoked the most laughter in the most dancers. Actually, it was such a funny class that we took it again in the summer. (No, we did not fail the class – we just wanted to polish out technique – okay, we wanted to acquire some technique.) In the pain department, coincidentally, in that same Swing class, I discovered my hip flexors and got to know Carole, my physiotherapist, a lot better!

The darker side of the journey has featured obsession (“Seriously? Not everyone in this beginners waltz class has made a spreadsheet to look at linking figures according to man/lady, right foot/left foot/ going forwards/backwards?”) and addiction (“Yes, sweetheart, I know you had a sales meeting at 8:30 this morning and you worked all day  and now you have this Tourism Nanaimo do until 6:00 and an important client just e-mailed you that he’ll be in town tomorrow and wants to see several properties, but it’s our FIRST WEST COAST SWING CLASS TONIGHT AND WE HAVE TO GO TO IT!”).

Strictly Ballroom

So, in our first year, here’s what I’ve learned. (Do not blame Nelson for any of these conclusions. I’ve had other reputable sources like Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing and TV shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars.)

Ballroom dancing, which includes Latin or rhythm dances like Samba and Rumba, and Standard or smooth dances like Waltz and Tango, has strict rules (as anyone who watched Joey and Mario compete on Dancing with the Stars knows), and no talking. Social dancing, I believe, involves moving however you want on the dance floor to any music, whilst chatting with your partner. We’re hoping to be able to ease into that kind of dancing after another year or so of ballroom instruction, but we’re obviously not ready for that kind of freedom yet.

In learning to ballroom dance, however, it is very helpful to talk to oneself. As a former grade one teacher, I think the talk/dance process is like learning to read. You talk out loud to start with, then in more of a whisper, then just lips moving, and finally everything is internalized and silent. As with reading, expression is everything!

We started out with Latin dancing doing the Cha Cha, in which you can repeat “cha-cha-cha-two-three, cha-cha-cha-two-three”. Use a cheeky, teasing voice. Rumba has similar figures (a dance figure being a series of steps) but one counts “fourone-two-three, fourone-two-three”. Count more slowly and use a huskier, sexier voice. Samba is a whole new ballgame (naturally, as it comes from Brazil while the former two dances come from Cuba). In Samba, you get to count all the way to eight, and you add the word “a”, so it’s “one-a-two, three-a-four, five-a-six, seven-a-eight”. Use a slightly breathless voice for Samba as this is a highly aerobic dance! For Mambo (from which Salsa is derived), count “two-three-four, six-seven-eight”. Don’t worry about one and five. There’s no time to fit them in. Jive is a bit different. Repeat to yourself “rock step, triple step, triple step”. When you come to a figure that requires instead that you count to eight, be very, very careful! These figures are usually meant for much younger dancers and/or involve significant risk of back injury!

The Standard or smooth ballroom dances include Waltz,Tango, Foxtrot and Quickstep. Waltz sounds pretty easy with “one-two-three, one-two-three”. Actually, it’s more “one-twooo-three, one-twooo-three”. Occasionally you add “four-five-six” and sometimes the word “and” as in “one-and-twooo-three”, “one-twooo-and-three” or the dreaded “one-twooo-three-and”. We’ve been working on a “one-twooo-three-and” figure for a month now, and we still can’t do it! (Dance Hint: Do not confuse “a” with “and” as in “one-a-two” with “one-and-two”. These are completely different dances with totally different moods and you’ll probably want to be wearing different shoes for them as well!) In Tango, you skulk arrogantly around the floor exhibiting sudden dramatic, staccato spasms (no one said ballroom was easy!) using various strings of “quicks” and “slows”. For example, “slow, slow” followed by “quick,quick” followed by “slow, quick, quick, slow” and ending “quick, quick, slow”, unless of course you got stuck in a corner in which case you would end with “slow, quick, quick, slow”. Clearly you can see how the pattern goes. Foxtrot also uses combinations of “quicks” and “slows”, but it is a much more difficult dance. (The various figures for ballroom dances are broken into levels, starting with beginner, then pre-bronze, bronze, silver and finally gold. Ominously, there are no beginner figures in foxtrot.)  Another clue that this is a toughie, is that when a “Slow Fox” is announced at the Nanaimo Ballroom Dance Society dances, the floor clears considerably. As we’ve been dancing only a year, we have yet to encounter Foxtrot in a lesson, so I cannot comment further on it. (Dance Hint: Foxtrot is named after a man whose last name was Fox – it is not an attempt to mimic an animal preying on chickens.) Quickstep, on the other hand, is not named after a person. You really do have to be fast for this one. Once again, it is a combination of “quicks” and “slows”. In reality, it should be “quicks” and “extremely quicks”, but you cannot say “extremely quick” on one beat, especially when you are running across the dance floor endeavoring to stay totally in sync with your partner while not bowling over any other couples!

Well, now you know a little bit about the Nanaimo dance scene, and a lot more than you ever wanted to about our involvement in it.

Gotta go now. Dance.

Toni (and Gary who also enjoys dance but is not obsessed)