The Wandering Monkey

So today is Monday. Yesterday we had the class with divided responsibilities. It went off OK, with a little friction between myself and my dance partner. Really, when you boil down the difference in our styles it sounds completely trivial to an outside observer. It has to do with a different point of balance on the first count of the eight-count step. If I heard about this and I had not been dancing for a long time, I would just shake my head.

But in the long run I think this is really necessary. The difference is enough to affect the actual dance move. And as teachers we must adopt a single style and teach that. We cannot teach beginning students conflicting moves.

I believe that this will work out well. This is a needed adjustment in the way we manage our class. I think in the future we will probably end up teaching separate classes, each with our own style. And this is fine. It would have been better if we could have come to an agreement and together agreed on the same method, but we are both adults and have some disagreemens on that.

This week in China is Spring Festival. It has all of the importance of Christmas and New Years. Everyone takes a full week off of work. Businesses close. Even our dance studio is closing, so we will have to move our class to another place on Sunday. I am going to try to find something to do this week. You can't even interview for jobs during this time.

Some good news. The New York-based band Georgie Gee has expressed interest in coming to China to play. I posted a little announcement on the swing-dance news website, Yehoodi. Within a day George Gee himself posted something saying he wanted to come to China and play, timeframe around September. This is really big news. If he came, that would be a big enough thing to begin planning for the first real Shanghai Lindy Exchange. He's a really big name in the swing dance world, and I believe he is Chinese, too, which explains in part his interest in travel here.

So this week I will hang out with people and work on some things like advertising and publicity. Overall, I am content in our direction.

-J