DTW 2011 Friday

This years Dokman Training Weekend was an anniversary year. It was the fifth year the weekend was organised by Tony & Amanda. The past editions saw some fantastic guest lectureres coming to Holland: Ruud Vermey, Marcus Hilton MBE, Andrew Sinkinson, Ashley Frohlick and Richard Gleave.

All of them are well-known and well-respected in the dancing world. It shows Tony & Amanda do not only strive for the best of the best when they bring in guest lectureres to their Training Weekend, they also succeed! Where in the first editions only 1 guest lecturer was invited, we had 2 guest lectureres last year and 3 guest lectureres at this years edition! Not only the number of guest teachers increases over the years, also the amount of nationalities visiting the DTW goes up every year. Where we started 5 years ago with only Dutch and Belgian couples, we now had over 55 couples from 16 different nationalities. The couple that had to make the longest journey came all the way from Vietnam.

The first day of the weekend was kicked off by a lecture of Tony & Amanda about the 3 Planes of Motion (the frontal plane, the horizontal plane and the vertical plane) and how these should be applied in your dancing. It was a very instrutive lecture with many excersises to make sure this subject could be put immediately into practise. After the lecture there was a guided practise in 4 heats, followed by lunch time. After the lunch, the first guest lecturer of the weekend took the stage. Dr. Rico Schuijers is a very well-known Sports Psychologist that works with multiple Olympic gold medallists, such as the Dutch ladies hockey team and the Dutch ladies waterpolo team. His lecture was all about Psychology, dealing with pressure and what difficulties we face when we compete. It was a good and fun lecture, which was ended with a big applaus from all couples. The first day was finished with a (stamina) practise. All couples went home with a lot to think about.

By Dennis & Samantha