Anyway, as shown in a previous blog post, me and a couple of my friends decided to open up a Kpop workshop where everyone can come together to learn their favourite KPop routines! Because sometimes people don't want to learn on their own, or they find it difficult to watch the dance versions on YouTube and have no-one to ask how to do specific steps...we thought it was a great idea.
We held our first lesson on 5th September 2011 at the London School of Capoeira in Finsbury Park. We met our lovely students at the Finsbury Park tube station (one came from St. Albans, Hertfordshire and two other girls came from near Brighton!! Check out those troopers for getting up extra early!) and then we walked to the studios.
We started off with a nice, energetic warm up to get us pumped up (With Super Junior's song "Mr. Simple") and then we slowed it down with some stretching to TVXQ's "Before You Go". After everyone had something to drink, we started off our first Kpop Dance Lesson!
Before we taught the students any of the routine, we gave them a demonstration of what they were going to learn, so I danced to the first chorus of TVXQ's song "Keep Your Head Down". After that I got everyone up and started to teach them it! We probably taught the routines in the wrong order as I think this was the hardest dance for our students! Oopsies! They still did well in learning the routine considering the fact that none of them really had any dancing experience, and of course everyone picks things up at different rates. But still, I tried to teach it as best as I could! Usually I'm the dance student so it was interesting to view a dance class in a different light as a teacher. I had fun teaching it and hope my students had fun learning it in my lesson!
After that it was Tammy's turn to teach the chorus to SHINee's song "Replay". After performing it, she began to teach it to the class. Much easier than "Keep Your Head Down" I have to say! It was my first time learning the dance too, so it was good to mingle with the students and be in the same boat so we could learn together! Tammy was a great teacher who was very patient and bubbly, although a bit nervous when it became her turn to stand in front of the class!
We had an hour's lunch, so this was really the time to get to know my students more and just gush over KPop idols and listen to juicy gossip! I was so pleased that we attracted just a nice bunch of people who were enthusiastic about KPop and...well, not just a bunch of nutters really! I think I speak for everyone when I say it was so nice to converse with people who are on exactly the same level and "get" what you're into.
After that it was time for our third teacher, Jem, to teach Miss A's "Goodbye Baby". Everyone picked up the chorus quickly so Jem also taught everyone the floor bit at the beginning, which received a lot of giggles! The atmosphere was really positive and everyone got along, I think we all had a really good time! When Jem's set finished we had a good ol' recap to make sure all what we learned was still there, and then we said our goodbyes!
Me, Tammy, Jem and Christina (Tam and Christina are God-sisters) went to the outskirts of Chinatown to gorge on Korean food where Jem and I squealed in our chairs and danced to TVXQ's "Mirotic" when it came on over the speakers! Haha! (But it was in Japanese?! In a Korean cafe?! Why?!)
So overall, our first workshop was a success! Thank you to all who turned up!!! We hope to see you at our next lesson, and of course it would be great to see new faces too!! Here is a picture of the teachers and the students, and a video of our workshop so you can see what goes on!
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