I took up Line Dancing in 1995 with my friend Jane
Barrington just before it really took off in the UK. We went to nearly all
the classes available in Sheffield at the time and had some great fun attending
regularly 3 or 4 evenings a weeks. However, being a bit thick I found that
many of the teachers were teaching too quickly for me as a beginner to be able
to pick up the dances properly and I found it quite frustrating - it was OK if
you could dance but many teachers were only interested in showing more
experienced dancers and letting new people struggle.
So...Wildhorse
Dancers were born..
The Most
Fun you Can Have with your Boots On
Jane and I decided that we would start our own classes
aimed at Absolute Beginners!
Our Motto's were
' Teach
'em Slow 'cos then they'll Know '
'Make
it Fun to Learn and they'll Return'
Rather than bore you with words have a look at some of the pictures
below taken at some of our classes. Click on the thumbnails for a better look.
But then you'll need to click your 'BACK' button to return
to this site.
'The Full Monty'
It is a terrible truth that sooner or later even the
most mediocre line dance teachers feel that they must write their own Line
Dances. Unfortunately, this has lead to the state we have today where there
are literally thousands of new dances being created each year . This
means that a dancer can attend a different class in the same town and not
know any of the dances being done there.
However, sad to report that I
succumbed to this malaise. In 1998 we started a Line Dance Class in Shiregreen WMC in Sheffield. This was the club featured in the famous last
scene of the Fully Monty and the shimmering Gold curtains put up for
the filming are still there. So, to commemorate this I developed a 'Full
Monty' Line Dance. I say 'developed' rather than 'choreographed' as
virtually all the steps are taken directly from various parts of the film
- I just put them together to make up a dance. I had great fun
teaching it and the class had fun doing it. It never became an
international hit - unlike the film - but the steps are to be found in
the database of Linedancer Magazine website. Or you can
CLICK HERE for a copy
The demise of Wildhorse Dancers
Both Jane and
I have finished teaching now as we eventually found that we could
not devote the time necessary to learn new dances to keep our class up to date .
Jane stopped teaching at the end of 1998 and I finished at the end of 1999.
I still go dancing regularly to one of my old classes , now run by one of our
previous pupils. I am still threatening to teach now and again if I discover a
dance to music I really like.
Check out my new Linedance
Portal - links to about 400 Linedancing websites
