It was a quick trip to Lille…. I wish we could have stayed longer…. and maybe without me getting really sick!!  I’m sorry to everyone that I wasn’t able to dance at all at the party on Saturday night!!  I had a stomach problem and couldn’t keep anything down….. I won’t go into more details… hahaha But I am feeling much better now!

The workshops on both Saturday and Sunday were all very fun and I enjoyed getting to know the group dancers from the North 😉 I can’t wait until we are back in Lille in June so that I can hopefully dance with everyone and be a lot more social than I was this weekend!!!

Even though it wasn’t the best I could have done….. we did do a demo on Saturday night… and it was a special demo for us…. We danced on a song that was by Maxime’s cousin Charlie… All of her music is beautiful.. and we were very happy to dance to this song 😉

Thanks for being so understanding of me not feeling well…. I’m so sorry again!

Until next time Lille!!! 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Hamburg!  We had such a great weekend!!!!!  Really nice to be in a new city and meet a lot of new people!!!  Hamburg dancers are so nice and hard workers….  Thanks to Julian and Juliane for being the main teachers in Hamburg and helping to spread the dance to new regions!  It really helps when new communities have a great foundation and dedicated teachers to help them continue to grow!

Christian, Julian and Juliane did such great job with the event!  It had a small intimate feeling for the weekend, which is something we really love.  We taught along with Marc and Mejrem; we always have such a great time with these two and were so happy to have them with us for the weekend!  Marc was a great MC for the comps, and brought a fun energy to the room, as always!

There was a fun Jack n Jill on Friday night that mixed the levels together: higher level leaders with lower level followers, and the opposite. 😉  This is always a fun competition because it makes the competition equal for everyone, and the people seem to really enjoy the contest.  Of course there was also the normal Newcomer and Novice JnJ on Saturday night, which was great as well!  Something really great about the contests that we loved were the awards!!  The trophies were different for the mixed JnJ and the leveled JnJ…. very different and fitting for the event!  Both were “anchor” or “boat” themed…. and were very cute!  Everyone seemed to love them too!

Apart from our usual level 1 and level 2 classes, we also had a lady and men styling class!  These are always fun for us to get some one-on-one time with the guys and girls.  Maxime taught a fun line dance for the guys to do on their own, and also had the song played at the Saturday night party for everyone to get up and do.  I had a fun time with the ladies and did a little combination with them to work on variations within their basics.  I didn’t make them do the choreography at the dance because I promised them I wouldn’t 😉 hahaha

The only thing we regretted about the weekend is that we couldn’t visit the city of Hamburg that we hear is so beautiful!  It was way too cold for us to enjoy being outside.  Maybe next time, but only if it isn’t snowing!!!!!!

Thank you to the Anchor Festival team and to everyone who attended!  We had a great weekend, and can’t wait to see some of you again at Euro Dance Festival…. and the rest of you at D-Townswing!!!!

Take care friends… 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

This event is so amazing in so many ways!!!  It is crazy how many people attend this event, and how there is enough room for everyone to fit into a ballroom to watch competitions or dance!!  Adam, Rita, and Gabor… You worked so hard all weekend and I hope you know it paid off!!!  There are so many special and unique things about this event that no other event can have… And we were so happy to be a part of it!

The location!  So beautiful…. On the river…. And being able to see this view when you left the ballroom was just incredible!  The hotel was so nice too!  Great rooms and restaurants and everything!

The staff!  We had an awesome group of pro’s with us and had a lot of fun teaching, judging, dancing and just hanging out with all of them!  Gary & Susan, Maxence & Virginie, Ben & Victoria, and Jordan & Tatiana…. Chuck Brown was the head judge… And Nicolas Handschuh and Emeline were 2 of the awesome DJs…. and lastly Mr. Victor Loveira as the MC, you were so funny my friend and we love having you in Europe!  Thanks for the fun times guys!

The multiple workshop levels!  Not only did this event have levels 2, 3, 4, & 5…… There were so many people signed up for levels 3 & 4 that they had to break them into 3 different groups…. who all learned the same material at different times!  It was pretty nice for everyone because they now had the space they needed to move and learn the workshops without hitting each other and being miserable!  We loved all of our levels and felt like we wish we had more time with each level by the end of it! 😉

The Pro-Winner JnJ!  This is such a great concept that we both really loved!  Each of the JnJ winners of Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced all getting to dance with a pro for the final show of the weekend!  There were too many pros for all of us to dance, so we drew ahead of time which pros would dance in it… and we were lucky enough to both get picked!  🙂  I got to dance with the Adv winner (Jakub Jakoubek)… Thank you so much for this dance… it was so wonderful!!  And Maxime danced with the Inter winner (Maina Cobarsi)… I know he enjoyed this dance so much as well 😉

Sunday night boat ride!  This was just such an amazing way to end the weekend!!  So unique and really a lot of fun!  Last year they also did this boat ride, but one ship wasn’t enough!  So how did they solve this problem…?  Well by connecting another boat of course!!!  I would have loved to see this image from the outside as well…. two boats connected and going down the river and back up again!  We had such a good time dancing, drinking with friends, and just enjoying the views of the boat!

This was honestly one of the best events in Europe…. Everything about it was amazing!!  This is definitely an event that shouldn’t be missed!  Next year….. make it happen!!!!!

Thanks everyone for all the dances and we will see you all soon!!  Next up…. Hamburg for Anchor Festival!!  See you there our German friends 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Jingle bells, jingle bells……

JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!

Hahahaha Sweden…. we had such a wonderful weekend with you in Falkoping (for all my American friends…its pronounced like Fall-Shopping….therefore I loved the place haha)  Honestly, we really had a great time with everyone.  The people are so nice and quick learners when it came to class time!  We saw a few familiar faces, but for the most part met a lot of new people!  We taught along with Dennis (from Sweden) and Oksana (from Russia)… both incredibly sweet people and a lot of fun to dance with as well!!!  Caroline, Sandra, and Arvid took care of us all weekend and made sure we had anything we needed!

Like I said… everyone was so nice!!  It made for a really great atmosphere for the weekend!

We loved our intensive on Saturday… It was cut off to only 12 couples, so it was nice to be able to look at every single dancer and give them personalized feedback.  Thank you to those 12 couples who attended and made it a fun 3 hours… even if by the end we were pretty much all wearing no shoes because it was so slippery on that floor!

A Swedish word I will never ever forget…. Fika!!!  The swedish people love their fika (aka coffee break) hahaha it felt like we had one every hour 🙂 Another thing that will help me never forget Sweden… My present from Dennis and Caroline…. that alligator bottle opener that I fell in love with over the weekend!!

Sweden, you really left your mark on us…. and during a very sad time in France, you made us smile when it was really needed.  We really hope we will see you again next year…. take care until then!

Thank you everyone!

-Maxime and Torri 🙂

Sorry this post is coming a little late!!!  We haven’t had wifi for a couple days, but we are good now!!

Annecy…. First of all….. what a beautiful city!!!!  I can’t wait to go back and hopefully visit more!  It was another quick weekend for us, but really nice.  When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we had a competition workshop for those who wanted to learn how to improve their JnJ dances.  It was a small group which made it easy to focus on each person individually.  After that class we had 3 more workshops with each of the levels: Intermediate 1, Intermediate 2, and Advanced.  Annecy really has a great group of dancers, and we loved each of the workshops on both days!

The party on Saturday night was certainly something neither of us will ever forget!!  A lot of dancers from nearby cities came by to dance and we all had a great time.  We did a demo in the pro show, along with Olivier and Virginie Massart (& baby who is almost here!!)  But the best part of all was the fun Jack n Jill….. We had all been brainstorming all day to figure out what we could do with the JnJ to make it crazy and fun and bring a lot of laughter to the party…. Of course Maxime brought up the idea of blindfolding the followers…. But then we decided that wouldn’t be enough…. So another idea came up about playing “Musical Hats”….. So in the end, the leaders were blindfolded, the followers all had hats on…. and the goal was to pass the hat to the girl to their left and whoever didn’t have one at the end was out….. But everyone was being too nice!!  So we changed the rules from PASS the hate to STEAL the hat……. and man it got pretty ugly!!!!!  Those girls were pretty vicious at times to make sure they had a hat!!!!  Some girls even had 2 or 3 hats at a time!!  We were all laughing so hard during this whole fun contest.  Especially watching the leaders end up being dragged around by their follower because she needed a hat!  Hahahaha

Thank you Annecy for all the wonderful memories and great dances we shared!  We hope to be back soon!

As for now, I (Torri) am headed back to the U.S. for Boogie by the Bay, while Maxime heads off to Dusseldorf this weekend….

Thanks for reading and we will see you soon hopefully!

-Maxime and Torri 🙂