Introduction To Better Connection and The Journey Of Teaching

Maybe you can offer something on this because I'm asking everyone. Wait, how do you actually start a fucking podcast without being like, hey, this is the start of a podcast. That's just what you do. Well, I have to do that. I'm not a podcast person. Says the podcast. Says the guy whose podcast it is. Hey, how do I start my podcast? I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just read the script of what the podcast is that I read every single week. And just say welcome to Harman's basement. This is. Welcome back to my dark dungeon of sounds of podcasts and people talking to nothing else. Cutting things from the podcast, I would never because the only thing I record here is quality. And that's why I brought along Matt with me today because we're going to have nothing but the best and just interesting conversations. Yeah, and the rest of the podcast is going to be time and talking because I just talked shit. It might just be me being awkward, which we've established well into the podcast is basically all I do. But anyway, aside from being a, a side from being an awkward host, I occasionally also dance and I run the podcast. Speaking of which, welcome back to Racing a Life of Dance and awkward and incredibly uncomfortable podcast all about a dancer's journey, the challenges we face and our growth along the way. All the while, hopefully sharing some unique experiences and inspiring you the list not. Take that next step. And as I like to say, brace everything that dances to off on a deeper level. Today, I've got the pleasure of having Matt with me on the podcast. Matt, what is your last name? Bono? Devreddo. Devreddo. If you had to pick one, you wouldn't pick one. No. I'm not going to give anyone the satisfaction. Was it just really hard to choose? Ah, I see what you did there. God, this is also a good start. It is. And you know what else was a really good start? How we met? You want to tell us about how we met Matt? That was such a smooth segue. You're so proud of that. I am proud of it, but you know what the worst part is? I don't remember how we met. Yeah, many of that. I remember the very early days of our relationship. That's cute. I don't remember the start. I don't remember when we first locked eyes. What's the early part for you? I think it's when you first joined the crew getting to know each other. We had a few little like not dance lessons, but like imparting knowledge to you and making you a better dancer. Ah, yeah. I gave some solid advice at a point where I guess I think we all have a little bit of the point where you've kind of just been focusing on one thing and someone's like, hey, have you tried this? You're like, holy shit, this is so uncomfortable. What am I doing? I guess that was body movement for me, especially like in songs. I didn't even have body movement for anything else anyway, but it was a nice little introduction to be like, hey, you know, you can like move your own body, not just your followers, but it. And I was like, you mean I can look better than this? I thought I looked amazing already. I can't. Thanks. I just just just don't break my ego more than it's been broken already. You're welcome. But speaking of like changes and doing something different, how did you start? I want fire to this is completely off the cuff. I love it. I want fire. I'm totally didn't sit down for an hour to go through it already, but this is brand new. He hasn't heard these segues, but so he's kind of reacting to him fresh. But how did you start and introduce this fantastic thing we call dancing into your life? For me, it was about eight or nine years ago. I've lost track of the exact eight. I saw, you mean you don't have it, listen to your diary and you celebrate every year? I did have it like last year or the year before. I forgot it or I missed it and now it's just gone. Yep. So my first experience was going to a showcase at uni and I saw my friends up there dancing and I thought, that's really cool. I want to do that. And here we are. And how did you, where did you go? How did you get started? So I started off in salsa with that for a little bit, dabbled in bachata and then took a little bit of a holiday from street Latin, tried Argentine tango, did some Latin ballroom for a while, came back to salsa and bachata because that's where I felt most at home, did somebody get thon. I tried hip hop for a couple of months and we shall not speak of that. So it was very much like a salsa and bachata journey for you for the most part. How did you find the Argentine tango? Yeah. How did you find the experience transitioning back and forth was vastly different? It was and it wasn't like at the end of the day, it's all music, it's all movement. They all have their own different rules, their own things that are correct or incorrect in quotes and a system out of adapting that to the different music. But all of it feeds into each other. Like I've moved things from Latin ballroom into salsa, I've moved things from bachata to Argentine tango or zook, everything informs each other. Yeah, there's always influences you can take and I covered a little bit of this with Jason last week as well, which is basically just a matter of how do you prioritize that and what do you actually want to get out of it? So nice to introduce something different into your dance style, I guess. That's also always a good factor. We always try to find our own identity and our own little space in the dance scene of like, hey, this is me, this is my dance style. Yeah, find your own personality as a dancer. Yeah, so it's a good, very explorative, I guess. While we're talking about exploring things and trying new stuff in between the dance, you have a had any major milestones or things that were shaping experiences, you'd say? Yeah, there's a couple I can remember the first time I ever performed alone, but I was a dance partner. My first solo, bachata performance, that was awesome. Was that a festival at uni? The first time I competed in a Jack and Jill. Where was this? It was at, I think it was bachata Kora's on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, way back in the day. Hey, now I've done that as well. That would be both competed there. Did you win? Sorry, now that I, my first competition in like international level, so I went to a world salsa solo, absolutely bombed it, but nah. The journey of training and actually doing it and getting up on stage, that was, that I'm proud of that I grew for it. Awesome. Did you find anything fundamentally changed or affect your personality when you came out of that competition? I think the biggest thing was fearing out what I like about dance or what I enjoy most. So part of the training was, so I did a kind of freestyle competition. But it wasn't social freestyle, it was like performance freestyle. So you could do whatever you wanted, but you had to show off at the same time. Yeah, so I had to, I'd been a good, you had to make it a good freestyle. Yeah. So within that I learned that, you know, I actually really like social dancing and being free, expressing myself for me and not really for the sake of winning or competition, anything. Yeah, just kind of figuring out what part of dance I enjoy most. Yeah. And I guess one thing about social dance compared to the competitive or choreographed scene is that you can completely tailor it to your preferences. It's about how you like to dance and how you like to connect rather than what the audience would like. Yeah. I guess a nice take on it. Yeah, again, it's your own personality and how you express that. Yeah. So how do you see dancing right now? What do you see with it? I would like to do more social dancing. It's obviously been hard with COVID and haven't quite got back into it yet. Yeah. Dancing isn't a big part of life at the moment. I do teach a little private and do a bit of mentoring and that kind of stuff. I would like to do more dancing is a part of who I am. You got to, it's just the thing isn't it? Like, we, we always, was it, were you always just like dancing is going to be where I am or is it more in the latest few years that it became this is me. Like, I'm fundamentally, I'm, I'm a dancer like I dancing is me. Yeah, good question. So when I was at high school, I was a musician, I always had, well, I have to say, what did you play? I was a trumpet player. Yeah. I love trumpet players. That second awkward high five in the studio. You're just sitting, we're sitting there tiny bit too far where it's like I can reach his fingertips, but I can't make that solid high five connection. Just a tip. So no high five rotate. So I was a trumpet player in high school. I played for 11 years and near the end of that is when I started to dance. So I had that musical training and this sort of understanding of music and how it works. When I started dancing, I was like, oh, I like this. Yeah. I like this whole new thing and very quickly realized that dancing and movement was really important and like where I belonged. Yeah. Connection that resonated a lot more with you than just being. I'm not, not, not shitting on musicians. So much respect and talent goes into that hard work, but that's just like that was more youth than being a musician. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. yourself, where you, where you're at currently with work and teaching, what kind of goals or directions would you want to work towards? Is there anything you would like to work towards or do you are working towards, Karli? Well, I've come to the reluctant conclusion that I'm not going to be like an international star or a festival teacher or anything like that. I don't have the time, I don't have the motivation to invest in that. But I love teaching, I love community, I love mentoring. So that's really my focus. The time that I can give to dance, I want it to be with other people giving them knowledge, encouragement, confidence, all that kind of stuff. Nice. Giving back to the community and trying to grow. Yeah. Passing perfectly. How do you approach your teaching in terms of inspiring new dancers or motivating dancers? I've been teaching for ten years or so, not just in dance, I used to teach at uni, I've lectured in like 400 people. Right. Huge halls. Okay. Yeah. Lots of people. Everything from private lessons up to hundreds of people. And for me, it's always about the atmosphere that you create. And encouraging people to ask questions and get involved in the lesson, the journey. A lot of people, a lot of teachers that I've found not dance specifically, it's about giving the information, writing up on a board, demonstrating whatever it might be, and then expecting the students to just absorb. Yeah. That's not how it works. It's a collaborative effort. So for me, it's always about give and take, to a conversation, how can I help you, what do you need from me? It really just requires that communication. Creating that safe space, I guess, for the students to also offer back. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the most important things that I value is saying I don't know. Yeah. Like if someone, if a student asked me to teach them this crazy turn pattern that they'd seen, I don't know, I've never seen it before. Let's go work it out together. Yeah. Yeah. Like you don't just have everything in your back pocket ready to go. Yeah. But, you know, you can accept the fact that you can take time and learn and figure it out together. Yeah. Um, while we're speaking of beginners and just teaching and stuff, do you find there's anything you have any like important things you'd like to impart to the general public who are dancers and are new-ish about it? Yeah. Ah. Especially as a lead, we go through this phase of, I don't have enough moves. I'm not confident enough. I'm not good enough to dance with this professional person. We go through that. And ride a passage, right? Yeah. Right a passage. When you come out the other side and realize, actually it's not about the moves. There's a whole lot more to dance and just throwing patterns at someone. So especially for younger or younger in terms of dance age, younger leads. Yeah. In here, we talk about age in terms of how long you've been dancing for nothing else. Yeah. But for younger leads, there's get through that hurdle of, you don't have too many moves. Just enjoy the dance, enjoy the journey. The younger follows and dances in general. It's not about what you can do now. About the conversations you have with people, the dance conversations, how does that dance go? What have you learnt from that dance? What can you take away? What's what's going to progress for you? Yeah. Even if nothing progresses, you're just enjoying the dance. That's it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Have you personally had any, I guess if you had to pick like one, I don't know if you can remember, like if you had to pick one social dance, that was like, I took away so much from that. And it could be someone who's really high level, could be someone who you would head for a lot, could it could just be like that one dance at that one social one? I don't know. What was it for you? Yeah. There's always a couple of dances that they just sticking your mind because they were just so good, they were so in the moment. And you think back and you get, I want to do that again. What was it? It's just the connection that you have with someone and the way that you both move together with the music and everything just kind of works. Yeah. Well, I like that you mentioned connection. Totally unplanned. Totally unplanned. Totally unplanned. It just kind of came out, didn't it? Who would have guessed? But the reason to make a big deal about it is because in a way, personally, connection is a huge, huge, huge, huge thing. I'm struggling with more than anything else right now. Incredibly so. And I'm going to make it a mission, not just for my sake, but for other people I listen to, to learn more about connection in dance and where that comes from. So would you like to share? How would you describe that connection in that specific dance example? I think in general, there's this progression that everyone has where not to be like rude or anything. You move from being a selfish dancer to being an accepting dancer. So focusing less on yourself in the dance. What am I doing? How good do I look? What moves am I doing? And more, what are we doing as a partnership? How is this working together? One of the best things that I've learned about connection is three people involved. A self-yaparna. A connection triangle? A connection triangle, yeah. Yeah, nice. Yeah. So when you get out of that selfish phase, you start to connect with the music a bit more, connect with your partner a bit more, let them connect with the music. And then it becomes this really beautiful triangle and the dance just is it more magical? Yeah. For me, I guess connecting with the music isn't easy. But it's the more logical, straightforward connection because it just requires you to listen to the music. And what do you think about it? How does it make you feel? What do you want to, how do you want to make you want to move? Yeah. Now connecting with the partner. And again, this is that that selfish phase where you're just looking at yourself, you're not taking information from your partner because it should be a two-way conversation. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever got was from Chloe, Carlos and Chloe. She said to me, something like, you're a great dancer, whatever. The next thing you need to do is start listening to what your partner is trying to do. So whether it's they want to style at this point or they want to have a bit of freedom to do their own interpretation of the music. Yeah. Little things like that where you're taking cues from your partner and responding to them rather than, I am the lead, you are the follow. This conversation goes one way and that's transformative. It completely changes the way that you dance. It's interesting because the way where you approach connection to begin with is it's in such a literal sense of the word connection. Where are your hands touching? Are you touching their shoulder or are you touching their hips or are you touching their hand? And then it's like physical intimacy and close, especially with bachato. It's like, hey, you want to connect with your partner? Make sure you're all up in this space. No, that's not true connection. If anything, to me, if anything, that's just like, if you're not judging the other person correctly, you're just invading someone's personal space that doesn't want to be invaded. I'm finding out slowly that as you get a social dancing, that is a comfort level. Most people have accepted. I guess you can probably tell me more about this, but it's like my experience around finding an appropriate distance with someone to connect with. Because if you're trying to dance sensual with someone, especially with bachato sensual, you're not going to get a good connection holding their forearm. It's possible you can lead from there, but that wouldn't be the most optimal, or even the nicest way of connecting through that. So my first step has been, all right, so great. Now you're telling me you're going to come in close. One of the obvious but unexpected answers that I've kind of learnt is, hey, if a girl didn't want to connect like that, they have more than enough controls to stop you. What's your approach? Have you had anything like that where you've kind of learnt different levels of connection in the social dancing? Yeah. So what you're saying is the physical part of the connection? Yeah. The only part of connection, I feel like for me and for most people, it's a good way to start. Yeah. But even within every example of physical connection, there's different levels. As you're saying, with being super close up in someone's face, if you're dancing bachato kizomba, like that or zook, you can be really uncomfortable and not have that connection. You can be super into it and have that connection, but you can have that same mindset, that same mentality being far apart. If your eyes locked, you're really connected with the way the other person's moving. It doesn't have to be a physical connection to achieve that mental, emotional connection. It does facilitate it sometimes, but it's not like a prerequisite. What would you say is that core goal of connection? It's the two way communication. Yeah. About being able to communicate better than. Yeah. For me, being connected with someone in a dance is the two of us are working together. It's really wanky working together in harmony. We're both dancing the same dance and sort of building each other up. It's like a positive feedback loop. I feel good. You feel good. We feel good together. This is more and more amazing. Yeah. It's just about cracking jokes and about like just laughing. Yeah. I mean, like those are great dances. That's an example of a really good dance. Yeah, it just shows that if that's happening, you're definitely got a good connection. Yeah. It's not the only way. It's not about how funny you are on the dance floor. Oh, that's a plus. Some of us don't have the skills. Not looking at anyone in particular. I see you looking right at me. It's easier for me to have like that fun jockey connection with salsa. Yep. And it's easier to have that somewhat more romantic intimate connection in Bacchata. Yeah. Not that they're exclusive. That's just what I find easier. And for me, being a very emotional, sensitive person in quotes, I prefer Bacchata for that reason. Yeah. One of many reasons. It just facilitates different emotions and connections. How do you establish a newly found connection with someone you had never danced with? How does that go down for you? Is there, like, for example, I've talked to someone who, not to be repetitive and like structured, but he has this thing about when he dances with new dances, he had not knew in the terms of beginners, but like someone he hasn't danced with. He has this thing of like a test in a way, not to be also not to be rinky, but like he has a test in a way of like he likes these specific moves that he uses to check their responsiveness to his lead and their connection to kind of judge where they're at. Do you have something like that? Do you find there's a there's like a plan for how to test it at first. So do you just like jump into it and how would you kind of salsa out someone is new? Yeah, I think that approach of evaluating less than testing. Yeah, it's probably a little bit away. I think that's a good way to start with someone because you get a feel for their level and sort of set a baseline for the communication. I don't do that. I just go in, pre-form, try some stuff and oh, okay, that didn't work. Let's style it back a little bit. Obviously if you have a higher expectation, I don't like that word, and then you dial it back as you learn more about your partner as opposed to starting from nothing, building it up with that evaluation. Yeah, so how would you start off from like a higher expectation versus starting from basics and just ramping it up and up and up. Yeah, yeah. To be honest, I reckon the evaluation approach is probably better. Like you build up that connection until you find the most comfortable point with someone. I'm not that disciplined or that skilled or I don't know that mindset. So that's something for me to work on. When you walk into a social room, you kind of have this idea of this is how everybody's dancing, I will assume I can do this much. Yeah, you can almost see, right? If you just stop for a second and you watch, you'll see roughly. Yeah. So you have that baseline from the room and then you go from there rather than going from zero with everyone and obviously it doesn't work all the time. You might find someone that's ridiculously better than you thought. You might find someone that's really inexperienced. So you have to dial it all back. Every new dance is that journey of this is where I am. Where are you? Let's work it out together. Yeah. Yeah, we connect. Yeah. Well, don't. Oh, don't connect. I think that's like a big under acknowledged part, which is, hey, you're just not connected with some people. Yeah. Because everyone hears music differently. Everyone's body moves and wants to move at different ways. Yeah. And it's just like if someone just doesn't Joe with you, you just got to accept the fact that this is not a hit. You can, that isn't mean you don't dance with them. Absolutely. They ask you for a dance and you want to dance. Or if you want to give it another shot, like have a dance, but you just, sometimes it's not going to be that kind of a dance. Yeah. And that's actually a really important point. Like I've danced with professional level people, objectively amazing dancers. Yep. And the way that I dance doesn't mesh with the way they dance. So it didn't feel great. It might have looked great, but the connection wasn't there because we just didn't work together. That doesn't say anything about either of our dance abilities. It's communication breakdown. It didn't work together. Yeah. So while we were at it and talking about beginners and kind of the experience of being a newer person, or maybe just the experience of being on the social dance floor and connecting, because I think a big part of where we go with connection is connecting with as many people, like the goal of connection isn't just to have one really good dance with this person. You know really well. Or I think it's about being for me connection, the big goal with connection is to be able to go and just stay. I just went to Sydney and it was an incredibly huge test of how I connect with people because over there, they haven't taken the classes I've taken. So some of the moves I do, they do differently or some of their style, the teachers differently. So a big part of the only method of communication we have is no longer through footwork. It's no longer through my lead of specific moves the way I know. It's connection. That is the only actual communication method I have that we can both relate to to get a dance happening better. And I guess the most important thing with that is the way that works applicable, the way that works applied socially is you not going to always have an amazing dance so I can connect with you. You're going to have beginners and newer people and I guess this stuff that you can offer on that in terms of dancing with new people and beginners and stuff, especially. Yeah. And it's definitely something that I struggle with. It's still a challenge to this day after eight years of dancing. A lot of people, especially when they're starting, they see international artists and whatnot and they think, I want to be good enough to dance with that person, which is a perfectly fine goal. What they forget is that dancing with the beginner is its own challenge. It's not like you grow out of dancing with beginners or you're too good for beginners or whatever mentality it is. Dancing with the beginner is its own challenge and you have to be so self aware. And that's where that whole selfish mindset gets in the way. You can't dance with the beginner and focus on yourself. You have to be understanding of where they are, what they can do. And you can't ever think that what you're doing is just about you. Yeah. Like. If you're trying to impress yourself, impress the person you're dancing with, impress the crowd, whatever. With the beginner, that person is going to suffer. You need to be aware of that communication again. 100%. Like, especially realizing, oh shit, what I'm doing, they are not getting. They are having a bad time. If they feel like they can't keep up with you or they're not good enough. A lot of this is coming from a lead. It's a bad dance. Yeah. It's just a bad dance. A lot of this is from a lead's perspective of doing it advanced stuff with a beginner follow. I don't have the experience of the reverse. You know, someone else about that. But definitely if you're trying to lead crazy stuff with the beginner and they're like, oh shit, I don't know what's happening. You're creating a bad experience for them. So you need to be really conscious of what you're doing, how they're feeling. And really it's your job, your role to bring them up. It is. And look, as a, I think you'd agree. But like, a part of our responsibility towards the community as an experience and all the dancer is to give back and let beginners experience good dances and experience stuff. They wouldn't experience in class with other beginners. And that doesn't mean you were copar to someone who's just learned how to spot turn. It just means give them a good solid dance and learn what connection is and learn what they can do and make sure you do that really well for them, I guess. Yeah. And it's definitely, it's a struggle. It's a challenge. It is like you get into a social room or, you know, after a class and you think, there's my friend, this is my favorite song, I just want to have the best time. Yeah, I love this one. I'm going to do all the cool stuff I know. Yeah. And then, uh oh, someone else has got them, okay, you look around the room, you dance to be the beginner. And you have to change your expectations, change your mindset and be okay with that. Yeah. And it's hard. I struggle with that all the time. Yeah. It's not just about an experienced dancer dancing with a beginner. This applies to a beginner dancing with anyone else. Like, on the flip side of an advanced person needing to learn to be a bit less selfish in their dance, you have a beginner who needs to learn that they have a lot more to offer than they think. You know, you're 100%. 100%. Any beginner, if they work on some of the basics a bit more, work on their rhythm, work on their timing, and have such a great dance beyond just those cool tricks that everyone else doing. So if you're listening in your beginner and you feel intimidated going to a dance floor feeling like you're going to just completely get outshined and not do anything great. Just remember, no one's comparing. We're not trying to compare that you're not good enough compared to someone else. It's more just you have, if you can work on some of the foundations, you can work on some of that stuff that would make your connection and dance better. You'll be so much better dancer than if you just spent weeks learning tone patterns and shines. If I were to distill this all down, you do not need fancy moves to have a great connection. Yeah, such an important core message, right? One of my favorite messages from Take the Lead, Antonio Banderas, and we've seen it. I'll fix him, don't worry. He's to educate me. So he comes in and is teaching this tango class with his bunch of ruffians from my community of ruffians. Ruffians. Really ages this movie instantly. And one of the girls said, no way I'm going to let this guy drag me around the floor because that was their perception of lead and follow. Right. What his response was, the lead's job is to invite movement. It's the follows job to accept or deny. That's the conversation. That is, yeah. You invite the follow to do something. You prepare the move you show them what you're asking for. If they choose to, they do it. If they want to do styling, do their own thing, that's the choice, but you're not forcing them into anything. It is a conversation. Dance is not a one way communication. Exactly. And I love that message. Looks like I have to watch this movie. Absolutely. Every one should be. I think a lot of people, especially like not to shit on beginners because no one, like no one actually should be your wants to shit on beginners. But when you come into a different dance or something completely different, the idea of something like connection is so far secondary sometimes to learning the basic steps in the movement. So I think it'll be good to open that up, idea up to people who are moving beyond the steps and moving beyond trying to learn how to style to add something else to the style dance. Thank you. It'll be good. I hope I can also apply some of this knowledge. If you dance to me lately, you realize how much of an issue it is and how much I'm working on it. So I'll give myself credit for one thing, which is that I'm actively trying to do something about it. And to be clear, that selfish mindset focusing on yourself in a dance, that's not a bad thing. It's a stage in the progression. So if you're still in that stage, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. Yeah. You have no judging you or anything. Yeah. You haven't quite got to the stage of opening yourself up to the world around you. Yeah. So let give yourself that time and space and let yourself grow more. Exactly. You'll get there. We'll all get there. Hopefully. Anyway, you've kind of mentioned some of the your dance activities. You've mentioned competing. You've mentioned and then teaching and stuff. You want to I guess summarize and explore explain and share what those pathways are I guess have been for you where you've kind of gone through and what you see are the available pathways. Yeah. In my experience, they all kind of fit into three umbrellas. There's the dancing part, teaching part and for some people, there's the business part. Right. I'm not terribly interested in the business part, like running a school or anything like that. That's for some people. In the teaching part, there's private group classes, there's choreography, all sorts of things like that. And then in the dancing part, social dancing, competing, performing, there's a whole spectrum of things. But I've tried pretty much all of them. I love dancing. I love performing. I would like to do more of it. But with the time I have, I enjoy teaching and giving back to people. Yeah. I guess it's a performing, not to say teaching doesn't take a lot of time, but teaching is something you've already worked yourself on. You've spent the years working yourself on being a better teacher and how to teach. So you can now continue teaching with the limited time you have and make more of an impact and be more effective. Yeah. You don't have those two hours a day for three weeks to just smash out of performance, which is fair. Not everyone has those times. Not even everyone has those goals, I guess, not everyone wants to take those pathways. So nice to explore. And certainly I've kind of juggled those goals throughout my dance journey. I've wanted to be more of a performer, more of a, quote unquote, professional dancer. Yep. And yeah, I had to balance those out, decide what's best for me and what's not. I've been teaching for so long. It's just part of who I am. So that's where I tend to sit most of the time. Yeah. And anything else on that is a bonus when I get to perform or compete or anything. Yeah. So while we're talking about performances and how it's kind of shaped us, do you have anything that kind of stuck out any night or venue or event that you feel like was this with a good performance? The 10th anniversary for the Salis Foundation. We performed at Deakin Edge. I can't remember if it's still called that. It's like that space you can kind of see into from feds like a ton of fed square, right? Like some of the areas. Yeah. It was such a good night. It was the first time that I kind of had my own team. So there were six of us at the time, quite close friends. We all choreographed together. Oh, yes. Okay. Well, we made it all ourselves and it was amazing. The first time I did a zoo routine with my then dance partner, just the two of us. And it was really beautiful. We choreographed it ourselves and the feedback from people was amazing. It was just a really good experience as a dancer, as a choreographer. We have that. I guess to have reached that stage and then to finally share that with people as well, I guess that's a big part of it. I think I was really excited. I was definitely keen to be on stage and be the center of attention and all that. And it was amazing to train and learn. But I was just like, oh, I can't wait to share with people like to just like, hey, this is my life. I'm not saying I'm amazing, but like, this is my life. Yeah. I had so much fun. Yeah, it's like you invest so much time into this performance and learning and developing and you finally get to that point of, well, shit. This is what I did. Yeah. What I can do now. It's also just a real self reflection, right? It's just like you finished the performance or you do the performance in your own stage and you go, you made it, baby. We are here. We survived. We survived a lot of the feeling, a lot of the feeling, especially right after as you're holding like that position that you ended in. You're like, okay. Yeah, I can imagine how the girls feel like being in a dip for 10, 15 seconds while the crowd up loads and people take photos. Oh, I knew exactly how it feels. I had to alley tapping my shoulder trying to pull me up. I was just like, I'll remember all like the, for some reason, all that's talking my head was now, I'm in because like my position with our formation was the front right corner. So everyone that else was positioned could see me, but being there, I couldn't see anyone else. And I was always the only remembered was now, I'm in when you do the dip, hold it long enough for the applause and then pull up so everyone else can, everyone else can also realize it's time to leave. And I'm just holding the dip, listen to the cut flaws going, how long do I hold this for when she got it? And then how he pour out his like in this dip holding his stuff in a plank really low with my support with her hand of my back. She's going tap tap tap, how long do you call it to me? I'm like, it was so bad for God. I'm like, God, there's a hole in the pit. I'm like on my knee, like I'm like on one knee. She's comfortable leaning. I'm kind of just like, eh, then she was like, pooping up. It does get like that though. Like you finished the routine. You're like, yes, the finally finished. Oh shit, this is still on stage. But definitely memorable performances, huh? I think one of my, one of the things I learned about and haven't experienced yet is that showcase. So I'm really keen to see something like that comes back because I was just amazed by the idea. There's like a hundred people who are performing. And most of them, this might be their first performance. Some of them are choreographing for the first time. Some of them are not being on stage before ever. And some of them are just new dancers. So that environment and to be a part of such a full. formative and new experience and exciting experience is super special. So I'm hoping to see some of that come back showcases as some of my always prominent memories and some of the best experiences I've had. Yeah. If you had to pick one, you obviously mentioned the 10th showcase. Yeah. That was obviously quite the highlight. Do you remember much of your first showcase as well or like the first showcase you went to? Oh, yeah. I think my first showcase, first showcase that I saw is what got me into dance, first showcase. I participated in at uni. That was a long time ago. I remember the costume. I remember the songs. I think I did a salsa and the chat to routine. No, first showcase. Yeah. It imprints on you. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. That makes sense. It's a, it's just special and it's nice to. I'm really hoping to invite more people to get involved in that. It's such a good experience. Um, and while we talk about newer people and kind of giving them new experiences and shaping things, I don't love it. I'm trying. I almost got through that seriously. I almost got through that segue super seriously. Like, yeah, like, you're the segue. It was good. That was good. It was pretty forced. But, um, just in case you were wondering if this was scripted and all live. Yes. Yes, the both. Did I script this? Yes. Did I, uh, fuck my script over? Yes. Is it the same thing every podcast? Hell yes. Boy, do I fuck myself over by scripting things and then running away with it? Um, anyway, forward beginning of dancing stuff. One thing I'm really interested in is how do you help them consolidate and how do you help them prioritize some of the stuff that they need to stop focusing on beyond just giving them the classic in class. Knowledge, like every student has a goal, whether they know it or not. Yep. Every student is working towards something, whether that's as simple as, how do I do a basic step? Yep. Or as complex as I don't feel confident as a dancer. So my job, whether it's a private or in a group class or whatever is to figure out what you need and help you get there. Yep. So as that student, your job is to not be afraid to ask for what you need. Yep. If you're struggling with the steps, talk about it. If you're struggling with confidence or connection or a particular thing in the class doesn't feel right to you, you have the power to talk about it. Yeah. And there will be people around you who will help you with that. So yeah, for any beginner dancer, any beginner student, anything, just feel comfortable, not knowing and feeling uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah, you just have to expect, accept that space of, I'm in an unfamiliar zone. I mean, uncharted territory. This is going to be, it's going to be a little awkward. It's going to be a little uncomfortable when you start, right? Yeah. And that's one of the biggest things that I try to do when I am teaching is to allow that discomfort, but also make it not quite uncomfortable. Yeah. We're all learning, we're all having a good time. Maybe you're not having the best time, but we'll have a good time together. Yeah. At least we were trying to. Yeah. And that's the beauty of our beginner classes is we know people are doing this for the first time. And they're like, the fuck have I done? What am I in? Why did I walk through those doors? Why is this person so close to me? Whatever. But we embrace it. We make fun of it. We make light of it. Make jokes. We kind of break down that discomfort and get people through it. It is. Yeah. One of the things we say in every beginner's class is if you're not having fun, you're not doing dance right. And like I've had experience of choreographing with a dance partner and both of us fighting heads for an hour or two hours, trying to practice with a partner, practicing in a group and it's just this really negative atmosphere. Because we have an objective. We're trying to achieve something. Yeah. And whenever there's an objective or an achievement, it sucks fun away. So you have to consciously bring that fun back and remember, I am doing this because I love dance. Yep. Like when I was training for salsa solo, I was in that mindset of, I am training to compete. Yep. And how to keep telling myself, I just love dance. I'm not expecting to win. I'm going to give it my best and I have fun. Didn't win. But I love everything about it. Yeah. Have you had times like, like, not just like an event or something that's specifically a course, but have you had times where you just, ah, dancing. Should I stop? Yeah. Definitely in like not because of anything in particular, but sometimes you just go through those phases in the social scene of, you know, I don't feel great dancing. I see other people dancing going, oh, they've danced so much better than me. Or I don't feel like I can bring my whole self to this social and just, I can go home. Yeah, you definitely have periods like that. And you work through it. You just got off. Yeah, it might be that you dance once, take three songs off. To recuperate whatever, whatever you need to do to, I guess, regenerate yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Have you found things that work long term to keep you not falling out of love with dance? Oh, I've definitely fallen out of love. Um, I've had to come back to it several times. Well, brought it back. Sometimes you just need a break. Okay. Like, however, it was probably shit. But one of the benefits was taking time away from dance, or at least from social dancing. And we had online classes or whatnot, but taking time away from that atmosphere where there can be a little bit of pressure of having to do well and be good. And, you know, being that protection builds up. Yeah. But when you come away from it for a while, you take a break and you come back and you're like, oh, I just love dancing. Yeah. Wherever you be on my life, you remind it of it. Yeah. The little bit of absence just has such an impact right now. Thanks for that. Bye. Hollins brain just had a little bit of a holiday. I think I just shut down for a second. Have you tried turning it off and on? Give me a say. I can't wait to see how you edit this. In questionable ways. While we're at like managing our life and how things affect us outside of life and how it kind of plays in, how do you find dancing kind of seeps into whether it's your work or just home life and stuff like with family friends, work colleagues. Yeah. I mean, I love dance. I live dance. Yeah. Like if a song comes on, even if I'm driving, I'll be like tapping my foot and thinking of dance moves in the back of my mind, trying not to die. But it just comes out everywhere. Like the number of times I've suggested it where, hey, I could run a dance workshop for you. I was actually going to do that a few weeks ago. We had a big work trip. We all went down to lawn. I got COVID. So I wasn't there. But through that discovered that some of my colleagues dance and we've got this little thing going. One of my colleagues and I were going to run workshops at work. Yeah, I just kind of I'm used everywhere because it's a part of who I am. It kind of starts. It just makes it just makes other parts of life a better. Yeah. I can improve like friendships with people. It can destroy friendship with people. Don't tell people that part. And again, I can't. Yeah, it's the same with me at work. I guess I have that similar experience of like the fact that I'm a dancer and the fact that it's a big part of my life just makes it a little bit fun. I have this space, the desk where I'm at at work has this space in front of it. And because I get to play my own music all day, you're occasionally catching me. You're dancing by myself in front of the desk. It's something that's part of you that's really easy to share with someone. It is. Yeah. And I think a big part of what makes the sharing part easy is the love for it because it's easy to talk about what you love. Like it's just like that. And I think I said this earlier, but it's like you we have we have this in ourselves of wanting to share that. And it's like for me, me talking about dance, me having the podcast is every single time. It's not like I'm losing it, but I'm sharing out a part of my heart because like. Yeah, like if you wanted to do like like a pie chart of my heart. Off-skirts again. Where's this guy? No, I'm just saying like, you know, like you'd look inside and you'd find like 90% of it has to do with dancing. Yeah. And then work and my friendships and everything. But like, yeah, that's that's that's it for me. Like, you know, like it's such a big part of my heart. And it's easy to kind of bring it out and be like. here check out some of this yeah yeah I guess it's like if you have a cake and it's a really big cake you're more than happy to give someone a slice okay I'm working on my metaphors right my metaphors aren't that great right now another slice of your cake depends on flavor you want anyway anyway because I invited you here to talk about teaching and your experience with beginners and all kinds of levels I guess one step that's interesting to share is how did you get into teaching I don't think I even really know myself where did that journey let's I guess I want two answers here just so you know I guess how did you start teaching overall and how did you segue into teaching as a pathway in dance okay my first I guess introduction to teaching was first year of uni right and one of my friends who's in year 12 and she said hey can you help me out cool right just like that yeah I will help you with maths methods probably couldn't do that right now uh maths methods don't take me back um so then I did a bit of that started tutoring at uni so actually in the classroom 20 30 kids and then got into lecturing for 100 people how did the progression happen is a more of an opportunity coming your way or did you require yourself actively reaching out and expressing uh I've been tutoring for three four however you many years and one of the lecturers was going on leave and the department didn't have a backup plan so I was like oh I'll do it yeah they said cool go for it I did that for I think three or four semesters maybe five you need to have any training or anything you just they just had faith that I was capable right and how was that first time teaching a group instead of just one of one um well I taught groups smaller groups like right 20 30 kids in the tutorial but speaking to hundreds of people in a lecture theater was relatively new yeah but it was exhilarating exciting not to tube my own horn I was a very good lecturer um I take pride in my teaching ability and what I can create in a classroom yeah so with all that experience I started helping out with the uni classes helping out the teacher with beginners being the guinea pig or the warm body to throw around got a bit of confidence with being a part of the dance class and sort of forcibly inserted myself that sounds wrong yeah so I yeah so you kind of I got involved myself into classrooms and and kind of did the same at T.S.F. and um you know made myself known said hey I'm around happy to help out and eventually welcomed into the family and then kind of just snowballed from there I got burned at a private lesson randomly yeah yeah yeah and yeah you take some initiatives along the way is like hey I would like to um teach this class or are there any opportunities to do this can I teach this group can I choreograph but yeah it's a way of doing it but like you can take a little bit initiative yeah yeah it all started with hey you want to teach this person for an hour okay I guess I think I know I think I know what the stuff is there's a difference between knowing the content and knowing how to teach yeah so with your experience you at least have the teaching part down and I'm sure like by the time you did have the opportunity come your way you knew enough dance to know both parts but the part that I I'm currently like is the part that like hey how do you actually be a teacher yeah how do you manage the atmosphere and where your students are at and how do you talk and how do you express and how do you keep your energy up and yeah a whole range of stuff like I don't know if you have this but with teaching consistent classes one of my biggest concern is I fluct I don't have like a very good control over my level overall right now so I'm someone who fluctuates very strongly up and down so coming into classes in a way terrifying for me especially that last like a little like a day before I'm extremely nervous because I'm like I don't know when I walk through those doors if I'm gonna have the energy to be that front person to be that person who was looking at so far I'd like to say I've managed it but I've definitely like walked into the room and not been there and it's that's just like a personal how do you manage that like do you for me teaching is its own kind of performance yep you put on a persona I mean depending on your kind of teaching style for me I have a slightly different persona you come in with all that energy and you you put it on yeah in case you have to yeah and you're sick or feeling shit you just put it under the rug put on that persona and become that teacher like seeing 20 30 people in a room going teach me or wise one give me that information and it's I think one thing that just stuck out to me is like it's the face they're excited to be there yeah exactly like they they are there for you or for the knowledge or for whatever yeah and it is your role you're being paid or not is your role to give them that information same if you're like teaching at a festival yeah your local community thing like it is your role to do this so you put that persona on and you get through it raising yeah it's it's a teaching is such a whole different thing and there's so many pathways like we all have to explore I guess one of my things is I want people to try it try it all like people I have a friend who's not gonna name any names I think no I'm not gonna name it obviously I'm gonna name any names as this is java I can figure it out yeah I just have a friend who doesn't doesn't really believe that things are certain things are for them and it's interesting because I'm like whether it came to teaching to performance to making my own choreo once with Tanvi to all the other stuff to like some little business things that might come out when the future or whether it's anything else to do with social dancing I'm currently I'm gonna try it once and I won't say no but it's interesting like people are afraid I guess is it afraid or just uncomfortable or not willing to get out of it that's comfort zone of experience and knowledge there's so many things to hunt so many things we can talk about just this for hours of course yeah I just mean like yeah like there's obviously a misconception that having skill a translates to teaching skill a yep that is not the case you can be an amazing dancer and have fuck all teaching ability yep that's well known on the flip side you can not feel confident teaching or public speaking or anything but be really good at it so it's a matter of getting over that discomfort in that hurdle yeah that's something I've seen a lot of times and what you're saying about your friend not feeling like it's right for them while it's a skill yeah and you have to learn and practice that skill to be good at it you can't just say it's not for me you might not want to do it that's a different thing but you have to give it a go to find out absolutely I think it's I'm just a strong believer that like you know I won't I won't have a force someone to do something they don't like twice but I might force them to try it at least once those raised eyebrows do not fucking have eyebrows eyebrows hey bros mat and I are bros mat and I bros sorry that's it I'm not gonna I'm done with that I'm done with that I can't I can't that's I can't be bringing this into the podcast if you know me personally you deal with more than enough of this on a daily basis for me to start injecting it into my podcast blame that for it yeah yeah all the good stuff that came from me yeah the bad stuff comes from me too so just thanks for providing so much for the podcast it's it's always a good time chatting back I feel like we've got a bit of that silly nonsense going on that's like just makes it fun to hang out with and it's a comfortable podcast um there was a lot I wanted to address in terms of connection and the experience of teaching and trying new pathways so if I've got this right if I want to summarize where you've been at Matt has been teaching forever it's the daughter time it's the daughter of time he actually taught the caveman how to like the fire he was like rock a rock b hit and that's how it all started you know how they say that god created the universe did you teach god how do you do that that's it amazing well here we have god's um god's tutor god's tutor right here well Matt if you want to follow you or check out some of your stuff are you currently posting any dance related content is all about your dog actually you know what if you do want to follow something Matt does just follow him to check out his dog because Penny is incredibly cute yeah I'm so jealous you can't follow me on uh dance and robots on instagram I don't post a lot but I share a lot of stories there um you can follow my dog She's much more interesting. Penelope.roes.colle. Yeah, you know what? This is Matt, you know, if you want to check out who this person is, the best place to check out is his dog. Yeah, she's my life at the moment. She's my main focus, you know, keeping a creature alive is apparently a full-time job. Tell that to every parent, obviously. I think they don't know that already. Oh, it's awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Matt. I hope you enjoyed it, but just I definitely hope that the people listening enjoy it. Yeah. Well, goodbye. No, I weren't doing it all goodbye. Thank you so much for listening. As you guys know by now, it's a bi-weekly podcast. I'm always trying to have new guests on. Sometimes I'll bring all the people, all the people, previous guests on again to either explore something different or just explore something in a different way. Maybe with multiple people instead of just a one-on-one, I think it's a very different dynamic. So this is a bit of a blabbering on about the actual logistics of the podcast. So you can skip this if you know interested. But yeah, I love having one-on-one podcasts because I get to really explore someone's personal journeys. But I think it'll be a nice fun change of pace to have two, maybe three people on and look for. I hope you guys look forward to it as much as I do. It'll install a comment. It's all in the works. We've got so many topics planned. We've got lots coming. And I'm not downplaying anything that I've had so far because I've enjoyed every single episode. I'm enjoying this one so much. So keep listening and please do talk to me if you listen to it and you think you're a shit. I think it was great. Either way, thank you so much for listening. I will see you guys on the dance floor.