Endeavour For A Healthy Partnership

Hey everyone and welcome to Embracing a Life of Dance. I'm your host Harmon and this is the first episode of Will Hopefully Be an ongoing long term series where I get to talk to dancers, teachers, other people, professionals of different areas in the scene of Melbourne and hopefully in the broader scene in the future and I just want to I guess share what our life has been like. I want to share what dancing means to us, why we dance and also what direction we're heading in. Hopefully to inspire people to teach them off directions they can take and I guess just give general lessons and advice on how to not be afraid of embracing this life on a deeper level. You don't have to just dip your toe in, I guess give it a chance and just go for a swim. Speaking of going for a swim, I guess that's exactly what I kind of did. Starting out dancing was not a long term or a planned approach. I think a lot of people have started a similar journey to me off. You have a night off or you're looking for a hobby or a way to socialize and it becomes a one-off thing that you try out and you discover how fantastic dancing is and I guess for me is specifically salsa. Even though I love fuchana, I have to give it to where my heart is and it's always going to be salsa but you know what, it's not going to be about salsa with fuchana, I just wanted to share that it doesn't always start with a plan in mind and you don't always have that direction of what you want to do whether this wants to be, whether you want this to be a career or whether you want to do this for the rest of your life. So don't feel scared or intimidated by how deep the scene goes and I guess just let yourself enjoy the process and hopefully the people I have on and myself included we can order share some of the steps we've taken, the difficulties we've had and the lessons we've learned along the way to inspire you and just teach you of how to enjoy it on a deeper level. That's enough about me, I really don't want to talk about myself, I want to talk about my wonderful guest, Tanvi, who's joining us for the first episode and before I get into who the hell is Tanvi and why she here, I think I'll answer some questions. Tanvi is here because I could not think of a more perfect person to have on the first episode to talk about what dancing has been like, personally it has changed a lot in the last few months I'd say and if one person has witnessed the change it's Tanvi and that's not just because she's been around it's because here's the big twist bomb, Tanvi is my current dance partner, we train regularly and we're trying train regularly, Tanvi, how's that going for you? Well, I don't know, it's just going somewhere I guess. It is, it's fine, we're all kind of figuring our way out and figuring out schedules and I guess part of answering that question on a more serious level will kind of address why we're here because it's not as simple as I'm too busy, there's a lot going on and even though we want to dedicate more of our lives to it and because it means so much to us it's not always you have to get your priorities straight and you have to figure out how you're going to manage all the aspects of your life because it's complicated shit right here. So Tanvi, since we are on the topic of you now, do you want to give us a quick little introduction of how you got into this scene, where did you start dancing? Well, I have been dancing since I was, I've been dancing since I was three years old, but back in India, I've been doing different styles, I've been doing through school, my uni, etc. I got into solsar and bichara, actually solsar back in India itself, I was doing some workshop which got me excited about it when I moved to Australia about four and a half, five years ago in 2017, I found about this school which was right next to my place where I was staying and I just wanted to give it a try, or not to get back into dancing, start again and when I went there, it just, I did not want it to leave. And it's been five years and I'm still dancing. I think that's super relatable for us right now because you jump in for a second and all of a sudden you can't, you just can't get yourself out. It's always like that. So you mentioned dancing in India. What I'm always curious about is people aren't always freshly drawn to the idea of dance, especially you mentioned you've been dancing since you were three, so where do you think that connection happened between being someone who's done? Well, what was the type of dancing you did when you were younger? Well, I started off with Polafood and then I chose to do Bharatna Tim which is a classical Indian dance. I've done Katak which is another classical dance, I've done hip-hop, I've done street dancing, all the different folk styles from India, from different states, but then Salsa, the music kept me going. So I started off at Salsa Bhatara, something which is also very close to Mahat because it's a different vibe, different music. I can do a lot of different styles and variations in it, but Salsa is something that takes my heart away because the music gives me the energy to actually keep on going. Absolutely, I think I just, I think I can't stay seated when Salsa song comes on, but the very least I can't stay still and you know when something has a hold on you like that, it's long term, it's for life. I can't sit still when there's music playing regardless of what music it is. Absolutely fair. Well I mean seeing as you've been dancing this whole time, how do you think your approach to dance and what it means to you has changed from your early childhood, different experience to when you entered this scene in Melbourne especially, like how do you think of dancing to you now? Well dancing has always been a passion to me, it was never to be having a career in it. It can potentially change in the future you never know, but it has always been a passion and something that I enjoy. It's my happy place I would say. Absolutely. Happy place is the thing we need right now. So how do you manage like, I guess how do you go about hitting that happy place or managing the exhaustion? Let's not talk about exhaustion for one. Topic for a while, it's just a difficult one isn't it? But my work can get a bit stressful at times because the role that I have at my workplace eats, it gets really stressful and really busy. But nowadays I literally just stop around like 4 30 or 5 o'clock, I'm out of my house straight to my studio, just listen to some music and dance it off. Absolutely. The moment I'm there, all the stress that I had from work, at least for a couple of hours, it's just gone. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's what I think that's what draws us in. Earlier on, it becomes that little relief, all I sorry release, I guess, from the daily life. I think we're all looking for a bit of variety and I think just a bit more movement activity fun in our lives. Like how would you describe like dancing salsa, like your style of dancing salsa? My style of dancing salsa. Well, there's still so much to learn, there's still so much to do. Salsa is any kind of dancing is a never ending style. There's something new every time. I have been dancing salsa for five years now. I'm teaching as well, but it's just been a constant journey of growth. And yeah, like I enjoy going out to meet people who love dancing at the same time because then we enjoy the same passion, we enjoy the same energy. And my style is like yeah, come getting them, trying to still find what would be the best perfect style or for me, I guess. Absolutely. I don't think we have to settle on one, do we? No, never. Absolutely not. Whether it's influenced by people in our lives or just what's happening in the scene, I think if you're someone who goes out, you see a lot of variety and unique flavors that every dancer brings. Yeah. And hopefully, I believe it's a fantastic mentality to take in as much as you can get and absorb and adapt it to your personal style to fit it in. Yeah. And you cannot have a certain set of style every time. You got to choose variations, you got to see different artists actually performing. Everyone has a different style. So you pick up different styles from different person. If you go and train with a certain individual or you learn something from them, they'll teach you their style. If you go to someone else, they'll teach you their style. You just need to find your own style eventually. Absolutely. Speaking of like I guess that development and change, you've been dancing for five years, as you said. Can you think of any like major turning points or just events that are really shaped either your mentality or just how you dance or what you dance? Yeah, definitely. In 2019, I took a decision to compete in World Salsa solo Australia, which happens generally. really in December of every year, not for the past two years since COVID, but before that. I did not know how to do this also on to at that point. I spent almost a whole year training myself with a professional dancer who I was competing with. That whole year, my style of dancing and my musicality changed a lot within that whole year after training with him. That's such a big commitment to make early on. I think a lot of people are scared. In especially the first two, three years, a lot of people would be hesitant to compete or even commit for a whole year to regular practice on a high degree, like a high level. What do you think made that push for you? Where did the drive come from? Well, back home, I have been competing in different styles and different competitions through school or uni. A lot of performances in everything. When I started doing salsa here, I just wanted to give it a try and wanted to see push myself a little more and more to learn a different stuff, to have a goal that I want to achieve. I said it as a goal that I want to achieve. To achieve that goal, the outcome that came through from that, I'm pretty happy with this. That's pretty much it. I can think of some different reasons to compete. I guess some people want to make a name for them in the scene. Some people want to challenge themselves, see how much they can push. What do you think is in it for you? You said you've achieved the goal that you set out for. Would you like to tell us more about that? Well, I always had this, not a dream, but an idea in my head that I want to compete against some really good, amazing dancers, back home, which I have been doing, but in a different style, in every different style. I definitely wanted to make a name of myself, which I'm not entirely sure if I have yet. I still need to work a lot more on my bichara and myself to actually make a name for myself. But, yeah, my goal was to compete once to see, and it's not that I'm not going to compete again. It might happen again. It might not, you never know. But it gave me a bit of satisfaction that I've done it. I've achieved something. Absolutely. I've competed against, I think in my category, I had about 15 other dancers who have been competing in that category for years. Right. I think against those professional dancers and some really good amateurs as well, it was a bit of a challenge for me and I love challenges. True. True. You know that. Oh, yeah. Dude, she just one does not back off. Like, you can, you're in a game of chicken and you're going to lose. You do not want to challenge me. You challenge me. I am going to win. Yeah, just be ready to have your heart destroy it. Just like all hopes and dreams crushed. Hey, come on. That means I think I think, I think, Tarnvay chooses when to really crush you. I think she's being really nice to me right now. I'm trying to. Real quick, back on topic. Because there's actually something. How did you discover the thing? Well, what is competing really? Like in a salsa and well, just let's just say salsa for now, because that's your experience. And what is like competing? You mentioned there's different tiers or levels that people compete in. Like, for example, amateur level and. And just give us a little walkthrough of what is what goes into competing. Yeah. So it was a really amazing experience. It was like a beautiful experience to be there. What are there were different categories for amateur professionals, semi pros. So the categories goes amateur female with the professional male or amateur male with the professional female. Two professionals. Then two amateurs and so on. Right. Some combinations. Different combinations. And then there's kind of like a Jack and Jill or a freestyle as well, which goes it. So they play. So three different rounds. They play a song you got to just dance with your partner. And then they play another different song. Let's say let's say, let's say, Bhachara. There's a Bhachara sensual. There's Bhachara Dominican. Right. There's Bhachara traditional or urban like something of the difference. So they'll play three different songs. Then from there, they'll choose who goes to the next round, which is the semi finals of the finals round. Yeah. And then same thing goes three different songs. So you got to change positions. You got to dance. When you're doing amateur and professional category, like an amateur female with the professional male or vice versa, your name is just called you walk in, perform, you walk out at the end. They decide there's only one round for that. Yeah. Cool. But it's very nerve wracking. But I got to say, I think I've seen some of your videos from people who are in the crowd. The atmosphere must be intense and like electrifying, right? Just the cheering, the tension. The best part about what that was, everyone in the crowd, even if they're competitors or people backstage, they were all supportive. They were cheering. I could hear cheering for myself from the backstage, from my competitors, from the other professionals and at the moment we finished dancing, we went backstage, everyone just cheered and they were like, you did really amazing. Yeah. Because the musicality was there, your technique and everything was there. And I went, I had a chat with the judges later on as well and they were like, no, you were actually really good for your first time. Yeah. And everyone in the crowd was just very supportive, constant cheering. And I can hear every single person trying to avoid them to not get too excited or just stop dancing with, but I think that was my best run to be honest. I would say. Yeah. I think it's just so memorable, right? Speaking of memorable. Oh my god. Oh, look, I think Kringi Segway's are an incredible talent that I will bring to this podcast on a regular basis. Well, I'm very sure of this. I think you know this 100%. But yeah, so that was 2019 and then assuming lockdown early 2020, what changed? Was it locked down that changed? Were you right right now? Or was it once you completed, you were done for a while? I took a break after the competition because it was really stressful for that whole year. And I had a lot going on and it just became, so I just wanted to take a break because as I said, dancing for me is a passion. I don't want it to be stressful. That's where that's what I do to release and release all my stress. True. After that dance, after that competition, I took like about two months off. I was still doing a bit of dancing between that like either classes or just going out social dancing, but I wasn't training myself. And then bam, what would happen? So my two months break became like a massive break. However, we kept trying to do some trainings, like doing some bit of it at home. Yeah, of course. Just to keep myself still enjoying dancing, training myself a little bit, but because I did not have a partner to train with, it was more of a solo dancing. Yeah, I think there is a lot to train ourselves on our own. Definitely. But I think some people starting out are hesitant to, like I have personal reasons. I think I can think of some reasons why for the first two, maybe two years off that I've been dancing, I had never really trained on my own. Polly because the reason I started dancing was to dance with someone or with people. It didn't really hit me that too further how much I can enjoy that or what I can get out of part in the dancing. There was a time and place to train myself. And I found that effort put into what I can achieve on my own translates back out to what I can communicate through dance with someone else. Anything you'd recommend for people to get over that humble of like, oh, I'm not dancing in a class. I'm not dancing at a social right now. But should I still train? Should I still do something at home? Well, it depends on person to person right. Depending on what exactly the aim is from that dance. Is it more to socialize, more to just learn something so that they can go out, impress people or just have a boogie or they actually want to make something out of it. Yeah. So something like for me and for yourself, we want to get somewhere right? Sure. That's why we train. That's why we have been training together as well. So it depends on that. So for people who really want to train and actually want to do something more out of it, it's always beneficial to train yourself by yourself. Yeah. rather than having it to be trained with someone else. Because if you can't work on yourself, you won't be able to do it with the other person. And your techniques can only be done when you're dancing by yourself. Absolutely. I think we all get a get out of our comfort zone around it. One step that helps in figuring out why you're here and why you want to stay here is just an internal search, some questioning and some time to figure out what aspects of the dance you're liking, what parts you're not liking. And I guess what you want to change or improve for yourself is a big thing. A lot of people listening might not really differentiate between practice, taking a class, learning something and training. And they're all their own element and they have their place in terms of importance. And I think people often will skip one or the other and won't really think about it, especially differentiating between practice and training. Maybe you can get into this a little better, but what do you think really makes that difference between you? Like some people will say they're practicing, some people will say they're training what's being achieved, what's the difference there? For me, practice means that I've learned something. And I just want to keep on doing more repetitions of it, more practice to get it into my muscle memory. So I can go and not have to think what exactly I want to do on any kind of music. Training is something that I want to make myself better at. So as in I want to make my technique better, I want to make sure my feet are pointing in the right direction. My arms are straight, it's not looking cringed or making sure that every turn that I'm doing is clean. It's not making me dizzy or making me fall. I can try and do multiple turns. I'm on music, I'm on counts. And those techniques, those techniques, if I'm working on those techniques, that's what training is. Yeah. So I guess if I've understood this correctly, I kind of see it as the difference between ripping things out, dancing to music, going through the motions versus spending detail-oriented time to analyzing how things are actually going and how efficiently or accurately you're doing the techniques, I guess. Well, I think that's a great way to get into why I restarted training together. One of the things that's a big sigh because you're like, "Oh, why have I put myself in this situation?" That's how topic. Where things went wrong. You ended up here. What, why did I do this to myself? Tarnry, look how far we've come. We're on a podcast talking about how much we're torturing each other. Wait, hold on. We're torturing each other? I think Tarnry knows she's torturing me. Yeah, look. I think I knew what I signed up for. I'll do this. I think a lot of the benefits out there, the cons, don't ask me what the cons are. I'm going to lead that there. That's not going to get into it. No cons at all. Tarnry is an absolutely fantastic human being. She's incredibly patient. I'm kind of impatient. I said incredibly patient. No, what I have nothing bad to say on record. How do we end up? Where did this start? I feel like I didn't even know you before all of a sudden someone was like training partner. I feel like we'd barely talked. Maybe I'm wrong. We have a different memory of it. Well, I have a few memories of knowing you while you were in the classes when you used to be there. I've seen you around probably dense with a couple of times as well. I was already crew and I was already like assisting on the floor with two different students and everything. And I did come across you. I think we also did catch up. Went for a bubble tea. I think one of the dice. Friday nights when we went for ice cream or something. I got up there and a couple of times maybe here and there just like high hello order like basic conversation. And the whole because I haven't had a training partner for a while and then COVID and everything was happening. Was just trying to figure out if there is someone to train with. Your name came up in my head because I saw you actually progressing really fast in. So dense with you couple of times as well in social and I was like, okay, cool. And then I had a chat with my peers and they realized that okay, yeah, maybe. And then I had like you joined the crew as well. We started talking in on crew nights. And then it just became that I should be trained together. Should we do want to train. It's just an idea for now. We'll figure out if we actually want to take this further. And then time we totally did not get my hopes up for months and then just leave me hanging that totally did not happen. That definitely never happened. That's not familiar at all. We've been training. What are you talking about? Yeah, so much training. Just last week being coming back after a few days off. There's lots of training going on, but actually like why do I think a lot of people are like me in terms of I my progression in terms of looking for a training partner was not looking for a training partner just wanting to dance with people. And then all of a sudden people around me are getting training partners and I'm like, what does this mean? Like why one thing I had to kind of get my head on was like, what does it mean to have a training partner? Like get into what that is like outside of the specifics of we covered this we trained like this. What do you think? What do you think having a dedicated regular training partner provides to your dance ability and growth? It's a consistent journey as I mentioned before. Dancing is never something that are you virtue something in the new stop. It's always something new. Having a consistent training partner helps both of us learn new moves, clean up techniques, learn or train to be more receptive of the other person's dancing capabilities and their movements. Be be it a lead or a follow. So it goes both ways and yeah, and just to enjoy if you both want to grow together, that's definitely very helpful. Yeah, absolutely question to you. I don't know. I didn't expect to have the tables turned on me so quick. Very quick, right? What did it mean to you when you when we decided to be training partners? I guess early on I had a very specific idea in my head right. Having talked to more people, I realized this is more of a common situation than originally thought, but one of the way I perceive the dynamic for a long time and still kind of do it's still very true. Is that we have years of experience on me has had very extensive training and focus on technique and has had that professional help compared to me who just learn some moves in a class weekend, week out to the point where I felt like I'd hit a plateau and I'd kind of stagnated. Yes, I was learning new moves one week, but whether any of it was sticking, whether any of it was being done and being translated to my partner properly, all of that stuff was like it wasn't even stuff you think about, I think like a lot of people in my boat are kind of just having so much fun with it. But they haven't really cared about the quality of what they're putting across in the dance. It doesn't really matter. Like you having fun, you're doing the same few moves or maybe you don't even know that you're doing the same few moves, but I was someone who was always very tuned into what I'm actually doing in that moment. So I would become very aware if I'm doing repeating myself a lot or whether, ah, shit, that thing I just learned, what was it, what was it, why can't I do it or I'd be trying something new and going, it's not working and I have no idea why. So I paid it doesn't work with you. Sorry, I had to say it. I've just been very aware of the fact that I want to grow and then I felt like I wasn't growing and then I started asking questions about why things I was lacking. For example, I had never done any technique training. There's a lot to get into in terms of salsa technique. It's a massive world that I'm learning about slowly at a time. But even like for someone who's been dancing for two years, I'd never heard of spotting or at the very least I'd never tried spotting and training myself to spot it's something I'm still fresh at. So like for me, those little things and techniques that some people might know from other dance forms or might have just had brought up to I was like this is this is this is like basic stuff to me. Like I don't need to learn a complicated 10 pattern. I just want to make sure that I look hello good and that I have confidence in exactly what I'm doing on my own. And so I was just introduced because people around me, as I said, words. suddenly pairing up and I was like, what do you mean? You're pairing up. Are you guys going out? Suddenly two people start catching up once a week and people start noticing and going, oh, it's gone on here. It's a very, the scene is very gossipy, isn't it? - Very gossipy. But just going back to something that you said about you wanting to make it look good, doesn't matter how many moves you do it or how many different turns and patterns you do, you want it to look good. And you've hit the nail in the head completely over there. That's what technique is, right? You learn if you have your foundations and your techniques sorted and you have them very cleaned up, you can do a thousand different moves or more than that, right? And it will still look good. But if your foundations and techniques are shit, sorry for the language, but if it is shit, you would not be, your dance moves, your dance would not look clean. It will look messy, it will look unorganized, it will make it difficult for the person to follow you at the same time. So foundations and techniques are the few things that you need to learn to do from scratch or work hard on and then turns and patterns is something that you can come up with, your footwork, few steps, few footwork, but your arm movements are 10,000 plus. Like sometimes when I still train, it's just massive. You can do this too. You can do this too. Shit, it's just exciting to see that there are so many movements, but I would not be able to do them or follow them if I don't have my technique sorted. That's it, right? I was going to say, like, I've had a conversation with people about this. I'm sure you have had conversations about it, but it's like, I don't want to spend two hours a week extra training and then you have to kind of get into this sales mentality of, hey, look what we've achieved by doing that little bit of extra time in our own schedule to train. And I think that that is your nail in the head. Is that it is exciting. I recently discovered this thing. It's fresh in my mind because I just went to a social last night and I've had this experience, but it's like of that fresh, like imaginative in a state of like creative exploration of like, okay, cool. I know the basics of how all these moves work. I can now start screwing with them. I can start ending, finding myself in all good positions or positions I weren't expecting and then see how they connect. Keep going. You sure? (laughing) Keep going. But yeah, you end up, you're, you're, you're, (laughing) you just find yourself being like, oh shit, I didn't know that connected to that. And I think that doesn't happen organically without you putting some effort in. And if you're looking for a reason, I'd say that is my reason why I dance and why I dance is social dancing. And all the stuff that I want to share with the guests I have on will hopefully give those people like me more of a reason to explore the other avenues to see how it all ties back to their reason of staying. So I want to learn more about competing and I want to learn more about high level of training, teaching and all that. But in my head, I'm just like, how can this benefit me and my, the benefit I'm looking for is how can you benefit my social dance. So if you're looking to train with a partner or if you're looking to work on techniques, maybe you don't know what fundamentals to start on. Other than just starting and finding someone who can give you some pointers of what to train, I think the biggest thing is having that mentality, building in some discipline and having the reasons and like there's a drive, knowing what's driving you to stay 'cause you can spend an hour, once, like one week, you can spend an hour on training something, but if you don't do it consistently, what was the point? So you guys figure out why you want to do this long term. - True, very true. And if you stick around with me for a little longer, you'll get there. - I don't know, I think I'm hitting my, I think I'm hitting my cap off like, putting up with you. - Oh really? (laughing) - Actually, seeing as like we've got this going, one of the conversations I really stuck in my head was, I don't know if you probably remember this vividly is, what is dance, you know, you want to just really quickly talk about what dancing bachata was like with me and like a year ago? You only talk about me as a bachata dancer. I hope you guys appreciate this. I'm just putting myself on the line here for you. - This is a tough question. - Where do I start? - Fear of connection, awkwardness, no closeness. Where would you like to start? - I feel it's all of those are still somewhere there. It's getting better from where we first started dancing. My first training that we did when I did bachata with you, I'm like, what the hell? He knows what to do, but there's no connection. It's just like, oh, there's music, I want to dance. I know the move, I'm gonna do it and I'm done. - Pretty much. - That's what you were. You somewhere still are like that a little bit. It's getting there, but knowing you after actually talking to more deeply around what exactly is stopping you from having that connection or what is actually driving you to do bachata the way you're doing it. I found out that you're a bit of a shy person. - Me? - No. - A bit, that's why I said a bit. - I can't take it seriously. Absolutely, I think. - You were a shy person when it comes to bachata dancing. When it comes to salsa, you're more open because that's something that you feel comfortable because you don't have to get close to the person. It's the closeness or the intimate connection. It's not like people take the intimate connection to very wrong, but for you, it was okay, dancing with someone up close and being super close to that person and dancing something which essential bachata was a little bit harder for you to understand. - You were literally, I had to pull you closer. - Literally, yeah, literally, handle my back, pulling me in to be like, you can't dance like that. - He was dancing bachata like he was dancing salsa, like that distance. And my head was like, what the hell? That doesn't work this way, no. And knowing myself, I can be shameless in that sense. I just grabbed his back, pulled him close, I'm like, come closer. And he's like, no, I can't. And it took me a few sessions to get him comfortable to dance with me. I had to, like we had to go out, sit, have conversations to get to know each other a bit more, understand how each of us work, bit about our personal lives to have that. So I guess it also, when you're dancing with a training partner, like when you have a training or a dancing partner, it's always good to know each other a little bit more in detail, understand what their background is, what where they're coming from, maybe a bit of their challenges that they're faced, what they do, etc, and where they want to go, because that gives you a sense of comfort with that person. - Yeah. - But however, you can't have that when it comes to social dancing. Like you're not gonna take every person out that you're gonna be social dancing and trying to understand where they are. Like they'll run away straight up. - Yeah. - But yeah, with you, it took me a bit of time. It's still getting, it's better, at least now you're comfortable dancing with me. You still get sometimes a bit awkward and you just shy away. You feel a thing that you feel a bit embarrassed about the way you dance or the way you might look and which stops you. Like for example, you were ashamed to do a body roll which you were not confident in doing in front of me as your training partner, what? And even after me trying to push you to do it right there, you still did not do it. - Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know, that's a whole lot about me that I wasn't thinking I'd get into, but. - But it has been a great journey to be honest. - Yeah. - Like training with you, Haman has been a good journey. You've come really far and I can actually see that you have been putting yourself on spots and trying to train yourself when I'm not around or when no one else is around as well. Like training by yourself, that's good. - Absolutely, to my best, what can I say? I guess the one thing that I will talk with George about is I guess that idea of being kind to ourselves. - I actually really like the fact that you brought up like spending that time to connect and talk and get to know the other person because as a training partner, you're gonna kind of lay yourself in front of them, your mistakes, your insecurities, you know, they know your therapist, but like dang, are they gonna know a lot about you and they're gonna? - Am I not? - Okay, that's really, she might not be qualified, but I think it's fair to say just out of respect that she has helped me through a lot of stuff. And I guess that's another additional benefit having a training partner is you have another friend. who's close and knows you're on a much more real level. Taking that step and opening yourself up on a deeper level friendship with someone that you want to train with and not think of it as like a professional relationship, are you absolutely can? Maybe you are with a training partner that you have very direct goals that you're trying to achieve and it is purely about achieving those goals. But I think a lot of people who don't have that really hard mindset off exactly where they want to be and where they're trying to go will train just for the sake of having generally getting better improving their dance and getting the benefits out of it. And I think that's where we personally started. We weren't trying to do a career. It was a talk. There was stuff about it. We're like training pandemics. We can work on careers. We have it not talked about competing together. We both teach and we both found benefits of the lead and follow relationship between each other and just teaching in a way. I guess provides benefits to us of how we can assist each other. She understands how to lead and can help me fix my mistakes. I understand how to follow and we can catch stuff up about each other. But that's more about the actual dance. But like having that connection and knowing that trust in each other means you can actually begin to really grow, like truly grow and take larger steps to change. Plenty of ways that I think she knows is like without getting to know that other person who's going to be training with you, who's going to watch you fail and who's going to fail in front of you, you're not going to fail. And I don't think you learn and grow without failing. So if you're afraid to fail in front of this person, maybe they're not the right person. Yeah. If you are training with the other person, you both need to be confident enough to fail in front of each other. And not feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. The other person is not judging you. The other person is their support to support you, to guide you, help you and vice versa. Yeah. So it's always going to be a back and forth relationship. It should not be that it's not that you are my private, you're like my student and I'm helping you out to grow. That's a different situation because I'm teaching you something. But as a training partner, it's a whole different situation because we both, there are some careers that we have been learning, which we both don't know. Yeah. Learning from scratch, it's not that I'm teaching you anything. I'm helping you fix things. We work together. But until unless you fail in front of me or I fail in front of you, we're not going to grow together. Yeah. That's like you just got to pay your heart open and love it. And with me, he has no other option. He's going to get told off so badly after that. Roast are constantly inbound. I'm not saying I'm not trying to scare anyone off. I'm not saying expect to be roasted for the rest of your training partner, relationship with whoever this person is. I think not everyone is as mean as time we can be. I'm just trying to dig a deeper hole for myself. Yeah, keep going. Our training is coming up in the next couple of days. Good luck. You love testing my patients and you know I'm incredibly patient. Yeah, earlier you mentioned how the dynamic we have isn't just a training and student kind of dynamic. Yes, I'm often learning and having techniques and issues fixed around my dance. But again, we learn together and things together. We both have stuff to grow on. So we both open to that. And I think that's one of the biggest conversations that need to be had with people is you have your personal goals. The stuff that you are either training or working on. The stuff that you want to be training on or just which direction you're heading in. You know, as like as I said, some people want to compete. So you might start peering up at someone and that person is peering up because they want to level themselves up. They want to skill themselves up for a competing purpose. And it's incredibly important to not just have a training partner who you connect with, who's a good dance. But you want them to be someone genuinely invested in growing and taking their direction in a similar level to you. So you have your personal growth and direction. And then you have your growth as a team as a pair. And what you're working on together because you can't be clashing in those two areas too much. I think it's going to be beneficial and difficult. Like you need to train with someone who has similar goals or at least going in the similar direction. It might not be the same goal as yours. You might have a different goal than what I have in mind. But at least as long as it's going in the similar direction and the same direction, you can work together well. If it's in two different opposite directions, it's going to be clashing all the time because you would be wanting to grow in a certain way. But the other person wants to do something different. For example, just to let's say I wanted to do more training around learning new careers or doing more footwork or just keep on doing different partner work. But the other person just wants to do their own careers so they can go and compete or perform somewhere. I might not want to perform. And they just want to perform two different directions. We will be training in different ways because we'll be constantly clashing during training. We don't want that. I guess we both have the similar side goals. So which and a personality is much really well to when it comes to stop giving me that expression. But what expression? No one can see what look I just gave you regardless of that. No one has. No one will ever know what I know. And I know I think Townrey has a lot to say. She's trying not to. I'm going to hold off to do that off record. Anyway, I just like a direction we both take together is our growth as teachers. Before I get into that, what do you think makes a good teacher? I think it's always interesting to hear. For me, it's more around how I can use my training and my knowledge of dancing. Be it salsa, be it bachata, or beat anything else. I've done reggaeton as well. Like body isolations and different. Anything that any of my knowledge that I am aware of regarding dancing, how I can transfer that to someone else to another student who actually wants to do something. Be it whether they want to do it socially or they want to actually do something out of it. Like have something out of it. So for me, more around teaching for myself, I don't think that's the case with me. I am more for the other person. What do you think grew you to teaching in the first place then? Like you obviously, as you mentioned, you competed at the time of. Where did teaching start playing all into this? So, very interesting. This was the same time while I was training for my competition. During a class, I was helping out to certain students, guiding them what they were doing and how they can get better at what the move that was. One of the students came up to me or someone else later on after the class saying, "Oh, just 10, we does private lessons." Private lesson is like one-on-one or one-two, a couple or one-two a group. They're like, "Oh, instead of group cluster, can I have a private lesson with 10? We, because I want to, she helped me with the technique really well and she explained it really well. I want to do private lesson. The student ended up paying for three lessons. I did three lessons and that's how it actually started. And from there, I was doing a lot more private lessons, one-on-one lessons. And then eventually just became that I started teaching more and more and more. It doesn't have to be a choice you made a while ago and then took steps to you can sometimes just come up. It just happens. Like, it wasn't my end goal to start with but it just happened and I'm very happy where I am at right now. I'm able to help students or guide them or embark my knowledge about Salsa and Bichata to them and see them grow. The best part is that I actually see them happy and I actually see them grow. Yeah, absolutely. And that what makes me happy because every time after a certain batch when I see people dancing or they come up to me saying that, "Oh, that was an amazing class. We actually enjoyed it. We learned quite a bit." It makes me just happy. All it does is all I did was just cut them or help them out with the moves. That's it. I'm all about helping people and making them smile. Yeah, I think that's one of the really crutch little personality traits or reasons to teach that actually make you a real teacher. Like the genuine joy and enjoyment you get out of seeing the growth in your student. Like that being your reason to teach is just amazing. That respect. Thank you. I think having that just because you'll, I think as we go around, you go into your journey, you get to fast. festivals you go to different classes in schools, you'll find all kinds of different teachers not just in the way they teach or the content, but their personalities and their reasons for teaching, whether it's financial reasons or the bigger one that you have to be careful with is the eager. So people just like being a teacher because look at the credit that comes with it. So I think it's, I think we're coming from a healthy perspective of doing it for the student, which is I think the perfect reason to do it. Definitely. Yeah, as you mentioned, there are multiple reasons people teach and multiple reasons they are in this industry. Like most of them, I would say, are there for the best reasons, but there are some definitely who are there for different reason. Yeah. Like, nothing is wrong. Nothing is right or wrong. It's everyone's personality and everyone's way or the direction that they want to be. Yeah. It's pretty fantastic. This has been really fun, actually. I mean, I've got this up and running. Thanks for joining me on the first one. Thanks for having me. I could have done the first one the way we did it without you. So super grateful. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to do it. Awesome. Before you leave, anything you'd like to plug or share in regards to how do we find you? I mean, you post videos and stuff of your dancing. You do stuff online. You're not a hidden, you know, you know, hidden away somewhere lurking around. Have a little bit of, when we find you, if you want to hear more about you or see more of your journey. Instagram or Facebook preferably. Instagram would be ideal as you have mentioned it clearly that it's not hidden for sure. I'm more of an open book. I am who I am. I am doing what I want to do. And it's open to everyone. My Instagram handle is I am underscore, uh, Tanvi Matal, like T N V I M I W D A L. Yeah. Just follow me, send me a message if you want to have more chat. Talk to me anytime. If you, yeah, like I'm just around in I'm here in Melbourne around. Yeah. Anywhere in every dancing. Yeah. We're trying to come grab me for a dance if I'm at a social. I would love to have a boogie. She's not as scary as she looks, at least to other people. Come on. I'm lovely to you as well at times. But yeah, I'll leave that. I'll leave that in a bit. Also, if you don't find me at a dancing scene, you'll find me out there somewhere eating food. Yeah. Massive food. Other benefits for hitting us up is to know about our lives, because more than just people you'll find one off of the dancing. But yeah, I think I'll leave the rest for there and I kind of wrap it up. If you've listened to this point and you've put up with our rambling and nonsense and all over the place, chaos, I guess I'd really appreciate if you leave a comment or a review or anything to let us know where your thoughts are or maybe just the fact that you listen. So yeah. Thank you so much for listening. and I'll catch you next time for episode two.