How to make a tap dance floor

Even his house from a bird's eye view resembles an ultra-modern hangar, where you can “park” both Boeing and smaller planes at the entrance.

He is not arrogant

Despite his great financial resources, John Travolta still considers himself a middle-class man. “I definitely belong to the working class and still believe in these values. If I had lost everything, I would have experienced familiar sensations. I even wanted to make a film about it - about people who were born with money, and then have to adapt to poverty, about how it can break or make stronger.

He helps people

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in in 2005 John Travolta was one of the first to arrive at the disaster site. On his Boeing 707, he brought food and medicine to the victims. And in 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti Travolta delivered provisions, doctors and volunteers to the disaster site to provide assistance.

He is still in great shape

Although John is 62 years old, he is still in great shape. Travolta admitted that for this he plays tennis five times a week and lifts weights in the gym. The actor tries to keep up with his restless son and is an active supporter of fitness.

He is a good father

Everyone was convinced that John would make an excellent dad after the release of the film “Whoever said” where the hero Travolta , a taxi driver, falls in love with a single mother. John 25 years happily married to Kelly Preston (53). The couple had three children: Ella Blue (15), Benjamin (5) and Jett .

Unfortunately, Jett suffered from Kawasaki syndrome and died from a blow to the head during an epileptic seizure in 2009 at the age of 16. John then suffered a lot: "I can't imagine my life without Jett."

He knows how to live and love

Years after the tragedy of , John posted a heartbreaking letter to his son on his Facebook page. “They say the hardest thing is losing your parents. I can say with certainty that this is not the case. The hardest thing that can be in this world is to lose a child. Whom did you raise, whom did you watch, whom did you give love every day. My son was everything to me. In the 16 years that we were together, he taught me unconditional love. Life is short. Kids, spend time with your parents. Parents, spend time with your children. Because one day when you peek out from behind your phones, they may no longer be around. What I've really learned is to live and love like it's my last day. "

Delicious conversations with the Fox Fighter! — Lisoborye dance school in Moscow

Part one — Title....

- How the French fell in love with Russians, Russians fell in love with Frenchmen, and all together they fell in love with WCS;
- How and why should a partner kill a deer;
- What is more important technique or interaction.
We had a delicious talk about this and many other things with one of the most sought-after WCS teachers: Boris Borenko and Irina Avdeeva (Lisichka, author's note).

- Borya, if I'm not mistaken, before joining the WCS you were engaged in martial arts and were even fond of tap dancing. And how did you get into dancing?

Borya : Trite and simple. A colleague who needed a dance partner called:
- Shall we go?
- And let's go!
She took me to the hustle. We didn't have West Costa then. I realized that in principle I like to dance with beautiful women to rhythmic music, but what I was taught at the beginning was, of course, great, but not very logical. And then the same teachers, Anya Kondakova and Kerim Kulmakeev, began to teach West Coast, for which many thanks to them.
They honestly told us: “We tried a new dance style here - we like it. Let's try together with you in a group." Anya showed me a video with Jordon and Tanya. It was the "How to save a life" routine. I caught fire. I liked this routine so much, it was so beautiful, and I realized that this is what I want to try.
After studying for just a couple of months, I accidentally saw on Facebook that Katya Avlasevich was going to some kind of event. I had a visa open - why not go to an event in France?! I bought myself a plane ticket and left. Knowing no one, not warning anyone. Naturally, I did not know that you need to register for events. :)
I came to the event: "Hello, I'm a boy from Russia."
They said, “Cool. What do you need?"
Me: “I want to go to the third level, the highest.”
They said: “Sorry, everything is busy on the third, go to the first!”
Me: "Okay, I'll go to the first one. "
Then Katya Avlasevich appeared and said: “Yes, he’s dancing, it’s fine.”
In short, I was then taken to an event, it was called "Westie meeting 2009". And there I saw for the first time how multifaceted the West Coast is, how many people dance it, and I was really hooked. After that, I started to train. With Anya Kondakova, they set up a routine. We launched Westie disco for the first time - a disco that was in Moscow. Then Anya and I broke up, but we got along with Lisichka, and since then there has been no better partner for me.

- And how did you get along with Chanterelle?

Borya : At some point, we realized that we really wanted to do a routine, but something didn’t work out for everyone in their current couples. Ira's with Zhenya, I'm with Anya.
Contacted Chanterelle, they said:
- Let's try?
- Come on...
While we were setting up a routine, we realized that it was very comfortable for us to work with each other, that we understand each other, we don’t argue too much, we don’t swear. A year later we went to France. This was the first "French Open WCS". We took second place in routines. We were pleased with the result. In Russia, everything was just beginning, and it was very cool.

- Ira, how did you get into dancing, how did your history in WCS begin?

Ira : My parents sent me to ballroom dancing. I loved to dance very much, but the partners were constantly changing. The coach didn't pay much attention to us. It took a lot of money to move to the next class. And a new partner was needed, because mine disappeared again. The boys were in trouble then. Boys aged 10-11 did not want to dance...

Borya : Do you appreciate me? How many years have I been with you...

Irina : Did I interrupt you?

Borya : Yes.

Irina : Nooo… (laughs) The partner disappeared, there was no money…

Borya : “The partner disappeared, there was no money . .. (pretends to cry)

Irina : Continue...

Borya : Chanterelle said: “Enough pair dances, I’ll go to solo ...”

Irina : It wasn't like that (smiles). When my parents took me away from ballroom dancing, I didn’t dance for several years. But the body demanded - I found solo ones. Tried one thing and another.
Like Borya, a colleague took her to the dance - hustle. I came to the party,
I realized that yes, this is what I want and .... did not go to work. I went immediately to parties, as I had dancing experience. There was no special preparation required.
She danced hustle for seven years. Has grown to A-class. My partner and I started to take some places and realized that there was nowhere to grow further. There was a stupor. We started watching YouTube and saw West Coast Swing. We thought: “It looks like we need to dig chips.” But since it is quite difficult to do this with video, we decided to look for someone to learn from. We started digging. And then I was paired with Zhenya Danilov, he digs very well. Found Katya Avlasevich, found in St. Petersburg. Nine years ago, this was the only person in Russia who danced the West Coast. They invited her with master classes. There was a group of us, probably five or six couples. We tried. Liked. We thought: "We need to call Katya again." A couple of weeks later they called again.
And so, Katya came to us for a year. At first, once a month, then more often, then almost every weekend. As a result, Katya got tired, and she moved to Moscow. By this time, I was already teaching hustle and realized that I liked the West Coast more.
Three or four months after training, we went to France, danced with the same incompetent French. We were sure that we were dancing West Coast Swing amazingly. They were sure of the same. We fell in love with the French, the French fell in love with us. We all fell in love with West Coast Swing and since then, everyone…
The first event was a beacon for us. We realized that we want to deal with West Coast in depth.
At the moment when Katya taught us, she did not know much of what she knows now, of what we know.

Borya : What we taught then and what we danced then is very different from what we dance today, like heaven and earth. These are two different dances.

Ira : The base is the same, the base is the same, but that was enough for us to light up. And since then we started studying, I started teaching with Zhenya Koltsov, then we did a routine with Borey and six months after that we started teaching. And now it's been six years.

Borya : Six and a half.

Ira : Yes, we have been teaching together for more than six years.

- Drive through cities and towns ...

Irina : Yes.

- And you kill some deer ?

Irina : Yes, there are deer too.

- And what kind of deer is this? Why should he be killed?

Borya : The deer is not our idea. This is an analogy. This is what we heard from our dear friend and head judge Chuck Brown, who explains this topic in a cool way. We liked it and we took it with his permission.
In America, this is a common story. You are driving along some deserted road, and a deer jumps out of the forest. And a deer is such a beast that cannot run backwards. He can only run forward. He, hearing the danger, jumps out onto the road, freezes in the headlights, and something unpleasant happens.
So, the partner on the dance floor acts as this same deer: when the partner starts doing something unexpected for her, and she suddenly freezes frightened instead of continuing to move. Gets up as if rooted to the spot. On this, in principle, the dance ends. If the partner is good, he will pick up and correct this situation, but this does not always happen, so we regularly try to kill the deer in the partners so that the dance does not stop, so that the girls are not afraid to keep moving and so that they are not afraid and do not stop if the partner does what something they didn't expect.

- And what is this new beast - contempo?

Irina : Contempo is music. Initially, West Coast Swing was danced to the blues, and until the 2000s, it lived almost exclusively to the blues.

Borya : West coast swing is good because it absorbs different musical and dance directions. This has been very pronounced lately. But if you look at the history of dance, you can always trace two musical directions, to which swing is danced. This is modern music for a certain period. For example, in the nineties: disco, plus blues. 2000s: hip-hop plus blues. Two thousand and ten: dub step plus blues. Now: zouk, kizomba, something that is slightly different in rhythm, but very similar in interaction, just as cool. West Coast absorbs it all. Therefore, we conditionally divide all the music that exists into blues - our basis - and into contempo - a modern musical style, what is popular at the moment. The division is very simple. But the blues is always there, the blues is the foundation. That is why we learn how to dance it.

- Guys, since the interview with you takes place immediately after the contest, I can't help but ask. What are the main selection criteria for you as judges?

Irina : There are standard three Ts. These are technique, timing and teamwork (interaction). They also came to us from the States, like the whole base.
Timing is very important. This is the most important thing for people to get into the rhythm.

Borya : If a person dances past the rhythm, we don't have to look at him. He doesn't go any further.

Irina : The next very important parameter is technique. Does he do triple steps, for example.

Borya : Does the partner lead back one time.

Irina : Triple steps are the foundation of West Coast Swing. By skipping the triplet step, you are dancing in a different direction, a different dance. There is no “motor” in the legs, which should be.
Technique for a girl is how much she waits to be led. Or she moves herself, redirects herself, does everything herself.
How smoothly a person moves, no matter who is the partner, the partner. West Coast Swing is a very smooth dance, it is about smooth movements in space.
And a teamwork is an interaction, as far as partners dance with each other or everyone dances solo, holding hands. For me, a rather important criterion after timing is the teamwork. Even if the technique suffers a little, it is very important for me that people dance together.

Borya : Each judge has the right to weigh the creteria differently. That is, timing is always the first. If a person dances past the rhythm, no judge will lead him further.

Irina : Unless everyone is dancing past the rhythm in the same way)).

Borya : Everyone is dancing past the rhythm at the same time, well, ok, we choose the best of the worst. But if everyone dances to the rhythm, then each judge can choose a more priority criterion for himself. For me it will be technique. For Chanterelle, this will be an interaction - a teamwork. Someone, perhaps, will put musicality in second place, but this will probably not be very correct. We always weigh what is most needed at the moment, and at the same time, the weight of the criterion depends on which nomination we are judging.
For example, if we judge jack-n-gill, when we judge a partner and a partner separately in the selection, then technique is more important for us than interaction. Until the final.
In the end, interaction is more important than technique. That is, we already know that technically correct people who know how to dance technically well got into the final. Then we look at how well they can interact with each other.
If we judge the category of streaktli, for example, then in strictli it is more important to pair dances than technique. There, we are already looking first at the teamwork, then at the technique, and in the finale, at the musicality, how much the couple basically hears what they are dancing.

Irina : Yes, that's right.

— Does age, weight, having a difficult dancing past in childhood matter for someone who wants/dreams of dancing, but for some reason is embarrassed to fulfill his dream? Can a person come from scratch and become a dance floor star?

Borya : Any person is able to achieve anything. In general, a person is such an interesting little animal that, with proper internal motivation, he can move mountains.
If a person has an internal motivation to engage, grow, train, he is able to achieve this.
There are no restrictions in West Coast. Age is not a limitation. Weight is not a limitation. The only limitation is your own motivation and desire to do something.
Dance, like any art, probably, requires several things. I would formulate them like this: in addition to the fact that you have to hear and somehow transform what you hear in motion, you also need to do it technically correctly. That is, if you want to achieve some success in contests, become an advance, all star, etc., you need to develop a technical base. All of this takes effort and practice.

Irina : All this requires a certain number of hours spent in the gym.

Borya : Such a raid.

Irina : Yes. For some, this is easier, for those who have data from nature. It is more difficult for someone, and it cannot be said that if you are engaged, then in two years you will achieve such and such a level.

Borya : There is no such definite, fixed time scale. Everything is very individual. Someone is a native. We know such people in Russia. They reach the highest level in just a couple of years, in a year, thanks to their abilities and willingness to work. Ready to plow.
Someone spends more time on it. But what we see is clear: any perseverance is rewarded. Even those people who crawl to higher categories, after three years, after four, are people who deserve it. In the West Coast, which is cool, if you really try to work on yourself, you will definitely swim to the top. This is not such a difficult dance that it is impossible to rise in it. If you danced your base, and you are very danceable, very paired, then they will definitely see it. And maybe you don’t straighten your knees, as more technically advanced guys do, but you do everything in music, you do it together with your partner, you are able as a partner to explain to her exactly what you want from her ...

Irina : Then there will be judges who will take you to the final and to high places.

Part two - Dessert....

— Burnout and motivation;
- What is more important in dance: the social component or competitions;
— WCS as a role-playing simulation.
Already interested? Then we read further interviews with Boris Borenko and Irina Avdeeva (Lisichka, author's note).

- Have you ever had depression on the topic: stopped enjoying dancing, did not take a prize in competitions?
When you almost completed the renovation at the new school, your upstairs neighbors caught fire and flooded you. How did you cope with such stresses, where did you find the strength and inspiration to move on?

Borya : Let's share. There is a desire to dance, and it is not tied to any criteria. Neither to fires, nor to what is happening. It's just a thrill from the fact that you are moving into music, dancing (in my case, with beautiful girls). This is an inner need to move beautifully to beautiful music.

Ira : This is when you can't help but dance. You dance because you can't not. Although, it also happened when the pleasure became less, when I felt that I was burning out. Then you take a break, get distracted by something else, meet non-dancing friends, go to the theater, go on vacation (without dancing). And very soon it starts to pull back, because dance is movement, it's life, it's harmony with your body

Borya : This is the motivation for dancing in principle. Everyone has their own motivation for some kind of achievement. Someone likes the honor and respect that he gets by taking some place. We have such students, this is completely normal. It's normal in human nature to try to achieve something and get rewarded for it.

Irina : I always really like the feeling of adrenaline, but not from a competition where you are evaluated by specific 5-7 people, but after setting up routines. When you know exactly at what moment what you will have in the dance. There is no moment of surprise. I like to speak in public, I love to give, I love to share what I enjoy without working for places.
I emotionally open up very much. I am very open at the time of the performance and for me this is probably the biggest buzz. And the same thing works inside at a party, when you catch the same wave with a partner, when you share the feeling of music with him, when he shares with you and you are on the same wavelength, this is the maximum pleasure for me.
Contests are a slightly different feeling for me, of course, I like to win, but when I enter competitions, I don’t count on any places. I know for sure that if I count on prizes and do not win, I will be very upset. Therefore, I immediately set myself up: I just dance to the maximum as much as I can.
Naturally, when you enter a competition, you start to get nervous, you dance worse than you can, well, not that natural, but for the majority it works like that and usually you are not very pleased with yourself, in most cases. And every time you try to dance better than you can. This is also a kind of motivation. Dance better than you ever danced. Show that you can do more. This is how it works for me.

Borya : I don't care about contests at all. I have already gone through that stage when I was thinking about competitions and performances. For me now the buzz is in dancing. At parties, when you can dance, try to show what you hear through movement, do it in pairs. The thrill is in teaching, but not in the very fact of teaching people, but in what we get from them in return.
When you teach people to move and see how much they like it, how much they start to get high from what they do on the dance floor. When you see their burning eyes, when you understand that people have come to you who know absolutely nothing, who are not familiar with their bodies, who in their lives have never touched other people like this, in a closed position, God forbid...
When you see how people, overcoming themselves with your help, begin to feel differently, when many people's lives begin to change after that, for me this is a buzz. And what we are doing now is the most valuable thing for me. We are changing the lives of many people for the better.

Irina : I would say that we make people a little happier. For me, this is the purpose of life. I was looking for her for a very long time, half the life I lived until I started teaching, I saw those burning eyes. I didn’t see that I was helping students to become happier even a little bit. And I realized that most likely I, yes, came here for this.

Borya : This is probably the only reason why we still teach. Because at some point, we, like everyone else, burn out. Yes, and I once got upset: “Whoa, the competition, again, it didn’t take any place.” In my life, there was no such thing that I took first place in the competition, not once. I participated in them in order to crawl to these very advances, not because I need it, but because it is necessary for conditional prestige, for show, because in Russia, unfortunately, they look at regalia. In other countries, you can be a cool teacher without confirmation of this in terms of competitions.
How it happens in salsa. If you are a cool teacher, then everyone knows you. And we, unfortunately, are looking at this. For points, for ratings. We are trying to get rid of it, but so far, it's hard. I came to advances solely for these reasons. Therefore, I am not speaking further now, other things are more important for me. I have some earned level, I feel comfortable on it. But the thrill is, of course, in a different way, the thrill is in helping people become happier.

Irina : And in terms of the school. .. You say: "Fires, floods..." This is precisely the motivation. To make people happier, to give them something.

Borya : Actually, we have never been a dance school in the usual sense. We are more like a family. People who get into the Fox Forest do not feel like students of some dance school, they feel like part of the family, part of the Fox Fight. They tell us about it and write. Perhaps this is our main difference from the rest. We don't just teach dance. We give people a family, we give communication with others, some kind of community.

Irina : hugs…

Borya : We feed, after all, and they feed us themselves (smiles).
At a certain point, the educational process develops into a social phenomenon, and we must not forget about it, we dance social dances that were invented so that people could communicate at parties. This is not something that should be shown in the competition.
The original original idea of ​​social dancing is that people can come to some nice place, chat, dance, get high from it without straining, relax, spend free time. What they make of social dances is window dressing, they make competitions out of it, this is fundamentally wrong. This is a motivation to grow for some, but the main idea here is different.

Irina : We rented a hall for five and a half years, until we realized that we needed our own house. The hall is good, we liked it, it’s cozy, but it’s not the same, it’s still a rental, a few hours a week, but we wanted our own home, our own corner.

Borya : Where any dancer at any time can come to work out, hang out. Eat or sit, chat with people, chat. We made such a house for our students. Therefore, Lisoborye is a very open place in this regard.

- Borya, on your Vkontakte page, you somehow wrote: “They say that you can endlessly look at three things: fire, water and how Chanterelle dances! There is simply no better partner than her in dancing for me (may everyone else forgive me).”
Tell me, please, what exactly makes Chanterelle so special? What should other partners learn from her?

Borya : You know, it's very hard to find a person who doesn't bore you after so many years. And with whom you get along so well in character and - plus - get along with some kind of inner feeling. For me, Lisa is the perfect partner. I love her very much, such a good dancing love. But dance is always a romance between us, because if there is no this inner feeling of the game, constant flirting, then it is not interesting.
Lisa is very feminine, very beautiful. The way she moves in the dance is ideal for me. She doesn't do too much herself, she hears her partner, she knows how to decorate the dance with her own styling. There are partners who can do crazy things and do it regardless of what the partner wants from them. There are many, yes. But for me, as a man, this is too much. Still, in social dances, in pairs, I lead, I demand something from my partner, or at least I want ... If she obeys me, then we will succeed. She can be beautiful, I will give her an opportunity for this, I will expect from her that she will be beautiful .... If she doesn't listen, we're in trouble.

- As in relations ...

Borya : And dancing is about life in general. This is an absolute role-playing simulation. I set the general vector, the partner decorates and remakes it in the way that suits her. Lisa is very good at this. No other partner can do it like this. Feminine, soft, but persistent.

Irina : Borya was just talking, and I was trying to formulate for myself what I like about him as a partner, why I have been putting up with him for six years (smiles). And while I was thinking, I realized that I appreciate human qualities in him. What is characteristic of a person in life is very evident in the dance. For me, Borya is a good support. What in the dance plan, what in life. I feel safe and free next to him. He clearly knows what he wants and within the framework of what he wants, and provides a lot of opportunities for his partner...

Borya : As long as she does what I want)))

Irina : At the same time, he adapts very well if I offer something else. And it works well in the classroom. We discuss the topic with him. We work with this and this. Come, I'm doing a warm-up. The first part of our lesson is usually devoted to technology. And I see that the guys now need this, I can clearly see it, and I start, without discussing with Borey, to talk with them on some topic. “Now we are practicing weight transfer, it should be such and such ....” Borya instantly picks up, as if we were discussing this topic, continues, flows in and leads very harmoniously. In terms of adjustment - within reason, of course - he is the perfect partner for me.

Borya : I think it works within a couple as well, because we have a lot of trust in each other. That is, we both know that each of us is doing everything right, and we understand that even if we disagree somewhere in the comments, we adapt to each other because we listen. If I see that the Fox is leading somewhere, then she needs it, I will always support her in this. So she knows what she's doing. We have this trust.

Irina : In dancing, as in life.

- If you look at dance as a relationship, what are yours based on? On what three main pillars?

Borya : Trust comes first. When there is confidence that a person is with you. The feeling that he does something not because he wants to do it, and he does not care about everything else. But because he wants the best, and you know that he wants the best, and you trust him in this. And even if you don’t agree with him (“What the hell is going on?”), you still think: “Okay, if he does it, then he knows what he wants, and I believe him, so he does it like necessary". And from that moment on, everything is fine.

- It turns out that the main thing in a pair is trust, security, respect?

Irina : Yes, probably, yes.

Borya : Nooo….

Ira : No?

Borya : Sex ... if there is no sex in a couple, then what is there to dance about?

Irina : I saw different couples, but this particular scheme works in our couple. ..

Borya : Sex?

Irina : Flyirt.

Borya : Six and a half years….

Irina : Borya is not just a partner for me, for me he is a man, and I perceive him precisely from this point of view, not just as a man-machine that leads me to good movements and who speaks correctly ...

Borya : You probably saw it in the classroom as well. We have a dialogue going on all the time, and Chanterelle is the feminine, this is softness, this is beauty ...

Irina : If you don't piss me off with the wrong triple step...

Borya : It's better not to piss off Chanterelle. Chanterelle is a dangerous forest predator. My task is very simple. My task is to accumulate the process as a whole. See that everything goes as planned, give love when you need it. Or vice versa.

Irina : I would say you are positive and you are not exactly entertaining people.

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