Happy Birthday Dawn! Feel free to leave a comment with birthday wishes!

Many people’s resolutions this year includes getting fit and shedding some unwanted pounds. Rob and I are no different in this area. We too are suffering from the result of too much “joy” and “holiday cheer” enjoyed this past Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Aside from our clothes fitting a bit tighter than normal, our lowered fitness level became all too obvious to us when we danced a mid-tempo Collegiate Shag at this past Saturday’s dance.

While many people will be hitting a local gym to work off the extra weight, we are going to incorporate dancing into our weight loss plan (along with eating better). Even done without a partner, Collegiate Shag and Charleston make great dances to get the heart pumping. Moving your body to music you enjoy also makes getting the 30 minutes per day of suggested cardiovascular exercise easier and more fun. Not to mention all that practice will surely show on the dance floor with smoother, more relaxed footwork and body movement. Just remember to stretch your leg muscles before and after dancing to prevent any injuries and stay hydrated.

Don’t forget that our series classes are a great way to get a guaranteed 1.5 hours of movement per week while meeting other great people looking to learn dancing, move their bodies, and/or do something new. The 2nd and 4th Saturday swing dances at Whirl and Twirl are additional opportunities to get moving, hear great music, and have fun.

So no matter how you plan to drop those unwanted pounds, here’s to a slimmer, fitter, 2010

Rob and I love all things vintage (older than 1950’s) and have had the chance to go to Fantasy of Flight a few times. I receive their emailed newsletters and as I was reading one I received recently, I saw a great paragraph written about one of the airplane mechanics who also swing dances. What a great marriage of passions for Paul….the ability to restore and work on vintage aircraft while also enjoying music and dancing from the same era. The paragraph is located about halfway down in the newsletter.

In fact, Paul feels more at home in the ’30s and ’40s than in the present-and his enthusiasm for the period fills every corner of his life, from his huge collection of vintage neckties and American Flyer trains to the hours he and his wife Loraine spend swing-dancing.

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Some people have been asking us what happened to our retirement. At the end of last year, we announced we were retiring from the active dance business. Now all of the sudden, we are teaching classes more often again.

When we announced we were going to retire from the “active” dance business, we had full intentions of teaching classes on occasions. We enjoy teaching and wanted to continue to teach on our own schedule when we had time. However, situations have changed between then and now. As you may know, teaching dancing is not our full time jobs. Recently, Dawn’s job has become a victim of the economy and returning to teaching on a more regular basis seemed like the logical thing to do.

We still plan to remain retired from hosting the dances. Those are in good hands now, and after years of putting them on, it’s nice to relax. However, you may see us guest instructing and/or DJing there once in a while going forward. Likewise, our plan is not to return to as busy of a teaching schedule as we used to have. I guess you could say semi-retired is our current plan.

So what’s Dawn doing with the extra time? Well, if you have any freelance web development projects, be sure to contact her!