One Man’s Walk through life

Andrew’s Micro Camp

I just finished spending a 4 day weekend packed into Andrew Sutton’s house in Sacramento with 13 amazing dancers and teachers. We had gathered to teach and learn from eachother in a new way.

Each of us taught at least one hour long class to everyone else. Many of the classes were about swing, but other classes included, Cuban Motion, Body Awareness, Contact Improv, Getting / Receiving Feedback, Stretching, and my own class Applying Tango to Lindy / Blues.

The classes were wonderful, and even better was the experience of coalescing into a real team, where people were concerned for each other, and pulling with eachother to achieve common goals. The goals we decided on for the weekend were Learning, Improving our teaching, Having fun, and Connecting. I feel we pretty much achieved them.

The whole thing was an experiment, and as such, I think it was a good first run. Everyone that went had a wonderful, hopefully transforming experience, and I think is going back to their scene with a lot more energy, enthusiasm, and a bit more knowledge. However, a lot of people who didn’t come felt excluded, and that is not cool. If this happens again, and talking to people, I think it will, inclusion has to be a goal from the start.

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Things I took out include——

• Icing on the Community – Mihai’s exercise where late in the weekend, everyone wrote down on 13 pieces of paper positive feedback about each of the other 13 people as people and dancers / teachers
• Splitting into small groups – as a way to make decisions more effectively and reduce group dissent / noise
• Arm leads are NOT evil – Andrew’s class talking about arm vs body leads as something else to play around with
• Tango – organizing my class taught me SO much about what I do, and what I might do with Tango in my swing
• I should teach – I really like teaching, it’s fun, I’m good at it, and can get a lot better by practicing
• Amazing new people – Amanda, Fiona, Marta, Michelle, Angelica, Clint, Harley
• Amazing old people – Tamar, Andrew, Kermit, Mihai, Solomon, Dan

These people made the weekend
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hopefully we’ll be putting more stuff out for public consumption soon, but whether or not we do, I think this weekend has put a mark on us all, and we will find ways to spread it.

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