Merry Christmas y'all! The holidays are a great time to get together with family and count your blessings. After all, we all have things to be grateful for - and for an aging dancer, focusing on what you have can be the fuel and keeps you going and growing.
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Moises and Micheline, two students at the Joy of Dance Centre who've danced through much of their lives with enthusiasm and humour. Join us as we talk about age, dancing, and how more of one doesn't have to mean less of the other.
Transcript:
Ian: Hi folks! My name is Ian Crewe. I'm an instructor at the Joy of Dance Center in Toronto, Ontario, and the creator of Social Ballroom Dance: Where you can learn your dance, at your place, on your schedule.
I'm joined here today at the Joy of Dance Centre by Moises and Micheline, these are two students at the Joy of Dance Centre - You've been dancing here for a fair while, haven't you?
Moises: Three years?
Micheline: No, I think it's more, ha ha!
Ian: (Mishearing) Thirty years? Thirty years?! That's a long time!
Micheline: No, more like 6-7 years. How time flies!
Ian: That's definitely worthy of veteran status. I asked you earlier if you were comfortable talking about your age. Could you tell me the response you gave?
Micheline: My answer was "you are as young as you feel", and I don't like attaching a number to how old we are, I don't think people should peg you as being a certain number. We're not 20, as people will see.
Ian: Forty, right?
Micheline: Ha ha!
Moisin: I'm 25, ha ha! A lot of people put you on a shelf, you know, whatever bracket of age you are, in this case...
Ian: A lot of assumptions that people make, right. You do you get out social dancing at all, or do you just do lessons?
Micheline: We dance socially. We we don't get as much chance as we would like to - there's not that many great places around to dance. But we've gone on a few cruises, and they always have dancing every night. We always take advantage of that.
Ian: And do you dance primarily with each other, or you dance with other people as well?
Micheline: I would say primarily with each other. Sometimes with others, but mostly, yeah.
Moises: So when we turn, we always find each other.
Ian: That's how you know when to stop; you want to finish facing each other, you don't want to be back to front. Ha ha! Any challenges, any health issues, for example, that you have encountered now, that you didn't before? And anything that you do to sort of make that a non-issue so you can keep on enjoying dancing?
Micheline: I had a car accident few years ago, and I had a bit of a sore neck, so I was very careful not to do any wild turns or anything. My cousin and his wife danced - they were here at the last social - and she had cancer two years ago, and she had half a lung removed.
Ian: Wow.
Micheline: So I guess that's a pretty amazing example of somebody that didn't let it slow her down, so she she still does everything she used to do before.
Ian: I know you were saying how you've been you've been learning for six seven years but in actual progress, it feels more like three years.
Micheline: Three weeks, ha ha!
Ian: Do you do you find that a little frustrating, because of the slower learning, or do you find that you stay philosophical about it?
Micheline: You know what? It's not about being the best on the dance floor. Although you know, I have to say, the last time we came to a social here, I thought we did really good. Like I felt like that we could dance with everybody else and we were okay.
There been times when I thought: "Oh my God, we're pretty crummy compared to the other people on the dance floor here." But by the same token, we've gone away on cruises, and people would come to us the next day and say: "oh, you're the dancers!"
Ian: That's why I always believe it doesn't help you to compare yourself to other people, unless you're using them for inspiration. Otherwise, it's always, you can always find somebody who's better than you.
Some of my students talked about having the sense of becoming obsolete, as they get older. And you were saying how sometimes there's assumptions that get placed on you as you you know get "longer in the tooth" so to speak. Do you find that you sympathize with that way of thinking, or do you have any advice for people who have concerns about that?
Micheline: I think that's a ridiculous way to think. I mean, honestly, we're lucky, we're healthy, we're active, and I think that you just have to carry on enjoying life and to stop thinking about "oh I'm old." I know I have people in my life; my sister, and other friends, that every other word that comes out of their mouth is "at our age", I think it's a ridiculous way to think.
Ian: It's easy to get trapped I guess in that kind of thinking. It almost becomes like an - I don't want to say"excuse", because for those people the issue seems very real, but it becomes something that really stops you from trying to succeed, because you believe a certain way. It becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Was there ever times where when you had to set any boundaries on how to lead or follow in more of a safe way? Even if it was just tactfully: "my head's a little stiff, so can you be a little lighter on the turn?"
Moises: No pirouettes, ha ha!
Ian: Ha ha! That's the line right there. I love your humor guys, I just love it.
Micheline: It may have been a couple of wild turns or something, and I'm like: "Okay, take it easy." But nothing major.
Ian: Okay, so you just speak up and it's generally fine.
Micheline: Yeah. We kind of know each other's boundaries, and we're comfortable.
Ian: Do you have any final words of advice for any students who have concerns about growing older and having more difficulty with dancing?
Micheline: I think dancing is one of the best remedies for not growing old. I think it's good exercise, it's good for the soul, it makes you happy, and the Joy of Dance is a wonderful name, because it really is a joyful thing. I think it keeps your mind sharp, because you have to remember steps, you have to remember different routines, so absolutely: Dancing is one of the very best remedies for "becoming long in the tooth", ha ha!
Ian: Okay, well, thank you so much for joining me today guys, I really appreciate it, it was a pleasure. And thank you for watching viewers. If you had any questions or comments about today's video you can message me on my Facebook fan page: Ballroom Dancers Anonymous. Or you can email me at ian@socialballroom.dance.
And if you'd like to learn more you can subscribe to my youtube channel, or you can visit the website, there's a lot of great material there that can help you on your own dancing journey. So once more thank you very much for watching, and until next time, happy dancing!