DTW 2011 Sunday

A little stiff and some couples with quite small eyes after last night salsa party, everyone slowly entered the hall in Hilversum for the third and last day of the already very inspirational training weekend. The last two days were great, but everyone was of course looking forward to the guest lecture from the famous mr. Augusto Schiavo himself later on that day. We started the day with a warm up and the announcement of two new additions to the TeAm; Alexander and Iryna and Kristjan and Anri will be the new TeAm couples, both of them are very successful professional dance couples.

With a fabulous introduction Tony invited the first lecturer of the day to the floor, who was Amanda herself. The lecture connected some technical dance exercises focusing on the hip joint with the special role the ladies play in the partnership. Amanda spoke about the two triangles and how to become a great and 'responsive' lady, showing this herself by dancing with different boys. Her lecture was very inspirational and a real eye-opener, especially for the ladies. Amanda finished the lecture by showing us some beautiful solo-dancing. This fabulous performance was rewarded with the biggest applause of the weekend so far!

After the lecture there was the usual practise time which was divided into two parts; one before lunch and one after the lunch break, in which all the couples had the chance to work out some parts of the lectures. Tony played some new tunes that made us very aware of the music during this practise.

The second lecture -and already the last lecture of the Dokman Training Weekend 2011- was from Augusto Schiavo from Italy. We where all very excited about him coming to Holland for the training weekend, and now we finally got to hear him speak. Augusto is the first very successful Italian dancer with victories in all big international competitions in the Amateurs and Professional field. We where very excited to learn from such a big champion. His lecture was about one of the most basic actions of dancing; walking. This actually sounds easier than it was! Augusto had a fresh approach to dancing and that made his lecture very interesting. After doing some exercises there was time to ask questions. Augusto's 1.5 hour lecture went by way too fast, and so the rest of the training weekend did.

We are looking back to 3 very inspirational, educational days with great teachers and experts on different sides of competitive ballroom dancing. It was also great to see so many top class foreign couples attend, that made the weekend even more special and fun!

We are already looking forward to next years' edition, and hope to see you all again next year!