Wednesday 11 April 2007

Easter Funday

We love teaching in Newcastle!
Trisha and I were back up to Salsa Amor at the Black Swan (www.salsanewcastle.co.uk) on Good Friday. What an amazing crowd! Having taught there previously in February, we were welcomed back with open arms not only by our hosts David and Margaret but also by the dancers there gathered. We ran two lessons (Beginners, and Improver/Intermediate) and both went really well. And the feedback we got was fantastic. So many people coming up to us individually afterwards and telling us how much they'd enjoyed our lesson. We felt all warm inside on the way home. In fact I still do.
We also both had some lovely dances, probably most notably with Tony Mee (yep, both of us, though not at the same time!) - up from London for the weekend. Cheers Tony. Cheers everyone...

Last night was Easter Monday so we weren't expecting many at our York Clubnight, and as expected, numbers were well down on usual. We didn't care though and those of us there had a brilliant rueda session with some hilarious results. Our friend Ashley was taking pictures for our website and she had no problem finding happy smiling faces to photograph. Trisha generally hates Rueda as she was tortured with week after week of beginners rueda during her first months of salsa, but even she enjoyed herself last night. More to come tomorrow and next week.

The biggest news for us though, was last Wednesday's move to our new Wetherby venue. Our previous haunt, The Grantham Arms in Boroughbridge was just no longer big enough for us after it lost some dancefloor space during the refurbishment so we've had to not only move 15 miles but we've had to switch to Wednesdays too. Our first Wednesday was last week and we set off with a fantastic night. We've inherited some dancers from Ces' club that was there previously and we were pleased to find that we were able to welcome most of them into our Improvers class, with the rest not far behind. Also a milestone was that we probably had our largest improvers class yet which is lovely to see as it means that our dancers are not only sticking with us, but improving as well. (For those that don't come to our club - we control the level of dancers in each of our classes quite carefully in order to maintain our teaching standard.)

And then my Mum and Dad were up for the weekend, to spend some time with our son Luca. Mum and Dad live in Wales and don't see as much of Luca as they (or we) would like, so it's great when we all get to spend quality time together. We had a couple of days out and the weather was fantastic. Blue skies and sunshine all the way.

One last mention to Nick who dances with us. Mate - you're an inspiration! Watching you struggle at first, then eventually crack it and enjoy it, is something I will never tire of. And the way you think of everything differently to me is so funny but really keeps me on my toes. Long may you continue with us.

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