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DATE NIGHT

Dance the Night Away BY PADEN HUGHES

hat girl hasn’t heard the line, “No one puts Baby in a corner” and hasn’t dreamt of dancing spontaneously with a romantic partner and never missing a step? Unfortunately there aren’t too many men aspiring to become the next Patrick Swayze, so I had my work cut out for me when I tried to convince my husband to take ballroom dancing lessons for our date night recently. Don’t get me wrong, he can dance, but usually it’s among friends as he busts out his moves to Michael Jackson. So trying to redirect his passion for dancing away from moonwalking and into the Madonna Inn for a ballroom partner dance session took some persuading. We researched online where to take lessons and narrowed our choices down to two: Cal Poly’s Ballroom Team and SLO Dance. Both offer a range of ballroom dance instruction from salsa, to tango, to foxtrot. I have had the pleasure of trying both and enjoy them on various occasions. Cal Poly Ballroom Team is less expensive and offers free open dance for an hour after lessons. They offer a range of ballroom lesson series, switching every few weeks to different dance styles. I’ve taken Salsa there and seen huge improvements in my skills. They walk you through just enough steps to feel like you have a couple of new tricks up your sleeve, and they have you change partners in a circle to help you improve by learning with other dancers. The instructors are all ballroom dancers who perform at state and even national competitions. SLO Dance is similar in format, but it is more expensive. Linda Drake, a renowned local dancer, is the exclusive instructor for these classes. She offers less styles of dance, but her series lasts more

Wthan three weeks. If your intention is to truly master a style of dance and attend lessons more consistently this is perhaps a better option. We tried Salsa, which is my favorite ballroom style. Once we got the basic step down, we soon learned some new moves, which made us feel elegant and successful. And it turns out that many first-timers, especially couples, come away with this same feeling. According to one of our instructors, Christopher Ellwood, “Dancing is a great activity to do together because it allows couples to have fun while strengthening their relationship. It is a very basic human trait to want to move to music. Practically every culture has some form of dance.”

PADEN HUGHES co-owns Gymnazo and enjoys exploring all the Central Coast has to offer.

SLO LIFE

SLO Dance with Linda Drake Single class: $15; 7-class card: $70; 20-class card: $180 Odd Fellows Hall 520 Dana Street, San Luis Obispo slodance.com

SLO Swing $3 per lesson Sunday, 1pm-2pm Intermediate and 2pm-3pm Beginner Cal Poly Room 5-225 sloswing.com

Cal Poly Ballroom Team $5 for one or $7 for both Thursday, 7pm-8pm and 8pm-9pm Social Dancing 9pm-10pm Cal Poly Room 5-225 calpolyballroom.org

To practice outside of dance lessons, check out West Coast Swing Dancing at the Madonna Inn on Monday evenings 7pm-10pm.

Graham’s Community Outreach

San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce Community Development Committee San Luis Obispo County Habitat for Humanity Public Relations Committee Chairperson, SLO Association of Realtors Local Government Relations & Grievance Committees, SLO Association of Realtors California Association of Realtors and National Association of Realtors

Graham Updegrove Broker Associate

CalBRE #01873454

Why Choose Graham?

“Graham is extremely professional and provided an amazing amount of information on each property we toured. His paperwork was impeccable and he was able to refer high quality vendors, which was a huge plus since we are new to the area. Our purchase would not have been possible without him and I would recommend him to anyone who is interested in buying or selling!” – Adrienne, Steven & Amelie Layne