Learning To Dance The Mambo

Lani and I think that we connected well with our students in the Mambo dance class last night at the Palladium. Putting aside the Basic Steps that Dean and Jennifer reviewed last Monday during our absence, we got into the Crossover Breaks with Quick UAT ending, and Open Break with Slow UAT ending. It was great that the students picked up the patterns quickly and were able to execute them first without music and then with music. But the learning had just begun when it came to dancing with passion. As with all our previous dance classes, Lani and I always emphasize that the dancer is a live person and all dance movements has to show with life of the whole body in order to taste the flavor and feel the passion of the dance. There's a saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words".  Compare the two couples in the pictures dancing the same figure and you'll know what I mean.  

Broken Watermain, Horrendous Traffic Gridlock, and A Big Mahalo

It was Monday night and Lani and I were looking forward to continue sharing our knowledge of the Mambo with our students at the IBDI dance class. It was a long stretch since we last met because of the Memorial Day holiday last Monday. On the way, we hit smack into a wall of cars heading west on K Highway. It was almost like deja vu back in the '80s  when the K Highway was in construction from a two lane to four lanes and the H-One was being built. So it wasn't likely that Lani and I were going to make it in time for our dance class at the Palladium. Fortunately, our son Dean is in our dance class and our assistants Kathy Uehara and Beverly Mau, and our music player Harold Kaneshiro have been very reliable. So this is not about the broken watermain on the K Highway at Aina Haina and the horrendous traffic gridlock. It's about appreciating our corp of dance assistants and music player that helped keeping the dance class going during our absence. Our special thank you to all of you and especially to our son Dean and his dance partner Jennifer Ryan who took hold of the class and led the class in the review of the Mambo steps.