DanceHop: Dance Events, Dance News, Dance Videos, Seattle Dance
Dancehop blog: events, news, lifestyle, lessons, video, and more

I'm pleased to announce the beta release of DanceHop.com, a place for dancers to:

• Find out about the hottest events in town
• Find out what their friends are up to
• Find info about teachers
• Find great gear

To help spread the word, check out our Facebook fan page. In the coming weeks, we'll be adding:

• +Multiple cities, so you can find national level events, and events when you travel
• +Facebook… Read More

When I look at the best social dance blogs, I have to pick an amazing salsa blog called addicted2salsa.com.  On top of good design, the blog regularly posts original dance content, such as this video on how to improve your spins.   I think addicted2salsa fits one really good genre of blogs that I'm interested in for dance, which is about the technical and fun aspects of the dance.  The other is la vida… Read More

I'd like to thank everyone who has helped alpha test DanceHop so far, you guys are great!  We've been gradually incorporating feedback and ideas, and are getting a lot closer to sharing this with everyone.
A lot of bugs that bog down the user experience have been cleaned up.  We have a few more to take care of, and some great features coming up before we move to an open beta.  It's my hope that within a week or two we'll be able to help you find events in your city, and make it easy to share with your friends. In the mean time, get in touch to have your voice heard. Read More

Here's the start of something interesting: what happens when you take months of planning, code up some of it, and release it? That's up to you.
DanceHop is an attempt to service the US dance community by creating a full listing of social dance events in all genres, and making communication with friends about events seamless. In order to do this, we need your help in this exclusive limited release. If you're interested in shaping this project, contact me via e-mail (tangosource(at)gmail(dot)com), through Facebook, or the blog. I'll give you login details, and you can mention what you like, dislike, want added or removed.
When I first… Read More

I was practicing at Dance Underground yesterday with a friend of mine who has rock solid technique, and she noticed that I wasn't moving as a single unit. During my trip to Buenos Aires, I took 3 private lessons in 3 weeks, which can be seen as ambitious. I think my dance will make a quantum leap, and yours can too, provided we follow these rules:
1. Record yourself Often times we have no real idea what our bodies are doing, and how our thoughts translate to real world movement.  It's a lot easier looking at someone else and deconstructing their dance.  If we take a step back and put our egos aside, we can improve quickly… Read More

The BBC has this article about psychology experiments, showing the correlation between atractive males and dance style.
To paraphrase: Apparently women like small to medium size movements, with some degree of complexity including random movements. They're stil lstudying this and can use your help, check out their wacky video. Read More

[wpyt_profile1]QvbFieQ9kXE[/wpyt_profile1]
Eugenia Parrilla and Ezequiel Farfaro, dancing an alternative style tango, with non traditional music. I took a private with Ezequiel this last trip, and 3 with Eugenia the previous trip. Read More

I leave tomorrow morning, and looking back on this experience, I feel like I pretty much accomplished everything I wanted, without trying too hard after setting the goals. It reminds me of my experience of Burning Man.
I'll be going out tonight, as a means of bidding farewell to the city and the dance as I've experienced it here. Hera are the latest photos of the trip. [gallery]
I feel like it's a lot easier to be one's authentic self while traveling, since one doesn't have a self image to try to prop up as much. New places and faces mean one is out of the grind, and more into the current experience.… Read More

Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Workweek blog gets some amazing guest posts, including one by Leo Babauta, on how to change your habits systematically. One key idea was that of changing only one habit per month, until you get the hang of it. For January, I will incorporate writing in a journal daily, and including my 3 most important tasks.
Often we try to take on too much at once, get stymied, and give up. By slowly but surely gaining traction in changing our lives, the result can be profound.… Read More

I've been having pretty interesting talk with cabbies in Buenos Aires. For starters, most of the older men that are driving have come out of retirement after the economic crisis, where a LOT of assets were frozen. I just found out that most cabbies rent their cabs for about 180 pesos a day, and happen to make about 50k a year, which is the minimum for a family of 4 to have a decent quality of life. In essence, half of their cost comes from the rental of cabs and the license. Licences are limited to something like 75,000 in… Read More