Dear beginner 2,

Thank you all for trying out Kizomba with me. I've seen all of you go through many emotions and learning stages, from excited, to frustrated, from happy to hesitant. I'm so glad that you have stuck with it and are starting to get the results and enjoying your first social dance and really starting to feel the connected magic that Kizomba can be. Many of you have been dedicated, curious and eager to learn, as a teacher that warms my heart and makes me want to do the best I can. I think you will all be great additions to the scene. Don't be shy to join social dances, you have enough knowledge to do so and it will help to integrate the knowledge.

I hope to see you guys on Wednesdays in class again this winter and continue the learning journey with you guys. Open frame is really when thing start getting more interesting and fun... but it also has it's challenges, hope you are ready to take those on and become better more diversified dancers! I will also do a focus on musicality as well as keep working on combining your foundation moves, which will include the new ones we learn as well. By this summer you could really become a dancer that is fun, interesting and feels good to dance with. As always I can only show you the way, you have to take the steps to get there.

If you want to progress faster, I have arranged the schedule in a way for you guys to be able to take the first 1.5 hours of classes on Thursdays and you can always drop-in to repeat levels by taking the Friday class, this enforces more your foundation. It's up to you budget, time, passion and dedication. But I wanted to make sure I gave you guys lots of opportunities to learn ang grow as dancers.

Thursdays, the isolation class is always an amazing gift to yourself as it slowly traines your body not only to style and to do the isolation style dances, but it also builds your core and teaches you to do all these movements in a supported and healthy way that keep your body healthy and pain free. The ability to do isolations opens so many doors of new possibilities of movement.

The Tarraxo class will run from January to June (I recommend highly the Isolation class before it as a perfect companion as many of the moves we will learn in Tarraxo will include some of these isolations) This 6 month dive into Tarraxo will you the time to truly understand and practice the moves to actually feel like Tarraxo dancers. I'm excited to really get this dance leveling up in the community. It's such a fun dance, and it's definitly the fasters growing style world wide at the moment.

The Styles class is also great to gain more understanding, it will explore one style each month, starting with Semba. This will cover, the specific posture and walk for the style as well as which vocabulary you can use, musicality, and new vocabulary, footwork and styles specific to each style. Now this will only be an introduction, as each style is it's own dance that can be studies seperately for years. But what you will get out of this is the ability to recognise the music, and how to adapt your dancing to match it. Thus being able to give your partner a good dance that feels right to the music. So, hoping you will take the opportunity to take this class.

I have also found that training Semba and Tarraxo are excellent ways to improve your Urban Kiz dancing. Tarraxo works a lot on knww connection and allows many interesting foot slides that you can also use in Urban Kiz. For Semba, as both styles can be fast, some of the techniques in Semba can be used to help you both be quicker on your feet but also use for feet styling mostly. I have found over the years that each style you train in does help you get better at the other styles over time.

As I said above, I also always recommend repeating levels (this is why I make it affordable with a $5 drop-in and you can join anytime, you don't have to follow the whole session). Every time you take a class over again I find that you get more details that you missed the first time around. Even me, 15 years in my learning journey I still go to beginner classes when I travel. You do have to come in with the right attitude to enjoy it, I go to work on details, refine my moves and find variations I can do with basics. It's also a great way to connect with and encourage up and coming dancers that could become a great addition to the scene in the future.

Saying all that, we all have lives, starting with me, and it's not always possible to pay for classes or have the time or health to take classes. Always take care of yourself first. Also, not all of you may be as passionate about learning the dance and may be content and happy with what you already know. That is OK too, that is why there are lots of levels of what you can take, and just taking the Wednesday class is great too. I just would like to see the scene keep growing and getting better and keeping creating something special in Halifax! I can't do it without you! But also let's celebrate how far we have come, you have taken the time and energy to start learning a skill, you have invested in yourself and have made time for you and have stuck with it even if it wasn't always easy. It's already something to be proud of. Celebrate each step on your journey!

A few things coming up this Winter: in February a Konpa workshop (because many of you have been asking). Also, in March or April a workshop on Co-creative Kizomba, a style of kizomba I developped around 5 years ago, that I use to teach. It's basically dancing without starting with designated roles and constantly switching who is leading/following during the dance. It's a lot of fun and brings playfulness to the next level. I feel like you guys are getting ready for this, so I'm excited to bring it back!

Hope to see you all soon!

Best,

Brigitte