Ballroom Dancing , My Greatest Hobby
As I have told you, my most fascinated hobby is Ball-room Dancing. I began my dancing from the first year of my undergraduate study in Bratislava where I had been joining a Dancing Club at Culture Palace there for almost 4 years.
I began to have an interest in Ball room dancing after watching a TV program which shows an International Ball-room Dancing Competition, at Slovak Language Center for Foreigners in Herlany, Kosice (Eastern Metropolitan city of Slovakia). At that time, I was immediately attracted by how the dance music and elegant dance's movements could be combined so perfectly together in dances like Viennese Waltz, Tango, Roomba, Chacha and other. Then, I began to dream that I could have a chance to learn these dances during my student's years in Czechoslovakia. That's dream led me to joint the first dance class for the beginners at the Cultural Palace of Bratislava in 1980.
After having finished both beginners and advanced courses, I went to a concourse to joint the Dance Club and I had succeeded. Since then, my serious training for Ballroom Dancing had begun and continued until the last weeks of my stay in Bratislava. Can you imagine how much time and efforts I have devoted for Ballroom Dancing, perhaps, as much as I devoted for my undergraduate study.
After coming back home, early February 1984, I and a close friend of mine, Duong Trong Minh, who had been also joining the Dance Club in Bratislava and had won several Dance's Competitions in Slovakia, had begun to think of how to transfer our broad knowledge of Ballroom Dancing we gained from Bratislava to the young Hanoians. This idea was originated by both of us after visiting several dances Clubs in Hanoi. From these visits we had realized that people in Hanoi know very little about the Ballroom Dancing and there are very few folks who could do ballroom dancing properly at that time despite the fact that some old folks had learned from French few decades back and they now are teaching others so call "Classical Dances" in these Dance's Clubs.
Our mission for teaching dances had begun by a trip to the Hanoi Dance's School in Mai Dich, where we met and talked with dances professionals who were trained in Russia and Eastern Europe countries but they never had a chance to learn more about Ballroom Dancing. We had shown them what we could offer and they agreed to organize a course for us to voluntarily to teach Ballroom dances for them and their senior students. As the Dance's School is quite far from Hanoi downtown, it was very difficult for us to come there to teach them almost everyday during that summer holiday. However, we did it with our whole-hearted passion and the course was turned out to be successful one. That had lay the first foundation for us to establish our first Ballroom Dancing Club at the Cultural Palace of Russia-Vietnam Association in Hanoi.
The success of our very first Ballroom dancing course at the Hanoi Dance's School had enabled us to be invited to teach others courses at the Hanoi Labor Club at Tang Bat Ho street. I still remember that at that time we still did not have any girl who could assist us for the demonstration so I and Minh has to do it ourselves. It seemed to be very funny for many people at first sight, however, they later see it as only a temporary measure to build our classes.
Few month later, as soon as the Cultural Palace of Russia-Vietnam Association was inaugurated, we had been allowed to establish a Dance Club there. Our very first activity from this Club was to organize a 45 Minute's Ballroom Dancing Show in order to introduce various Ballrooms Dances to young people in Hanoi. We had invited several girls from Dance School who had been attended our very first class there to be our partners for the show and had been trained and prepared very hard for that. During that time, Viet Hung a friend of us who had been learning Ballroom Dancing in Kosice (Slovakia) has joined us for the show. The tickets for the show were distributed to many important Cultural organizations in Hanoi such as Youth Unions, Vietnamese Musical Association, Hanoi Department for Culture and Information, Dances Clubs et other places. The outcome of the show was really great and many people until now still remembers that show of ours and reminded me about it. Of course I am very happy to know about it because I was very happy during that days indeed.
Later, we had advertised our Club via Hanoians News and gradually had built it to be one of the best Ballroom Dancing Club in Hanoi. Many young people had joined our Club since then and many would remember it for its great activities for all seasons.
After I'd got a scholarship for my master course in AIT, I had resigned from the Club leadership and my students took over. A year later, when I came back home for a visit, I was very moved by very warm welcome of the Club members. However, I had realized that my career had been changed tremendously and I'll never be able to joint that Club again. But my passion for the Ballroom Dancing would never die.
You can have a look at some photos I took at the Sydney's Ballroom Dancing Show lately Here
Other Hobbies:
I'll write more about my other hobbies very soon.