What a way to celebrate my birthday!

Posted by Cheryl Smith, February 9, 2009

“Fancy working on your birthday!” my aunty exclaimed as Paul and I completed teaching over 1000 people to waltz at the luscious green Fitzroy Gardens yesterday. “Call this work?” I responded “That’s a word that doesn’t exist in my daily vocabulary anymore!” I told her. “How much fun is this? Dancing, meeting people, hanging out, this just can't be called work” I said.
And its not work, its an incredible life of fun, happiness, joy and fun.. oh I said that already.

Yesterday was my birthday, Feb 8. I kicked off the day with a coffee on Chapel Street at around 1am after our show in Richmond. Home for a quick sleep and back up again for early lunch with a handful of close friends. Quick trip to the Docklands for our 5pm Beginner class and then off to the Fitzroy Gardens for a 7pm Waltz class. Back to the Docklands after that and then home to a nice pot of tea and chat on the couch with my best friend, dance partner, business partner and partner in life, Paul.

The highlight of the day for me was the effort Paul put into making me happy; first with my favourite tea on the front porch in my favourite pot with my favourite cup. He then ducked out to do some mystery shopping and reappeared hurried, stressed and a strange look in his eye, somewhere between excitement and that of a smiling axe murderer.

Not only had Paul given me the most beautiful purple amethyst (February birthstone) but he went on a search to find the perfect birthday cake, the birthday cake to end all birthday cakes as he knows my love of the birthday cake ritual.

But he didn’t want to get just any birthday cake for his queen, he couldn’t bear the thought of going to the suburban “Cheesecake shop” or to “Michelle’s Patisserie”. Paul had big things in mind, he wanted something with presence, a statement, something that said “Ta da, I’m here!” as far as cakes go.

So with 2 hours of searching and no planning whatsoever, he scoured the outer suburbs of Narre Warren and Berwick finally stopping at one of my favourite cafes (Berwick Primary School Cafe) thinking they would have something extravagant. The waiting staff know him so they were kind of amused by his stress, they laughed as he rejected the carrot cake, the orange and poppy seed one, they weren’t in the business of making big fat, decadent birthday cakes.

But wait! They remembered something…. Oh, it was big and it was extravagant…. But would it suit the occasion? Out the back, in their cool room, they had the most wonderful chocolate mud cake with soft white chocolate icing and white chocolate waves as a decoration on top. It was big, it was bold and it was built for a very special occasion.

“I’ll take it!” Paul shouted at first sight “Its perfect and she’ll never know” He said as he trundled off the heavyweight birthday cake.

As we cut the cake at the restaurant I told him I was impressed, I asked where he got the cake from, it was different to the ones we usually purchased, pleasant in an unusual kind of way. Paul looked sheepishly at me and said, “It’s a long story, don’t worry about it, just eat your cake”. “No no” I insisted “Tell me the story, I love a good story” I continued and after pushing him a bit more he finally confessed.

“Well, it was kind of left behind” he said looking embarrassed and hesitant. “Its actually layer 7 of 8 layers of a wedding cake” he screwed up his face as though I was about to hit him. A big laugh exploded from my chest…. “You bought me a wedding cake for my birthday!” I exclaimed “Yyyyes” he said hesitantly as he shied away from me. Defensively he added “And the worst part was that on the box it said ‘Congratulations Darlene & Jo, I made sure they gave me a knew box!” he bounced back proudly.

“I couldn’t help it” Paul said “I had to get you something, I know how much you like cake and I just wanted to make it special and NOT get it from the Cheesecake shop” he blurted out.
We all fell back into the couches, guffaws all round, Paul had bought me a second hand cake for my birthday from some random bride and groom that didn’t pick up the top layer of their cake. A strange, yet hysterically back handed gift of decadence.

If you looked really closely, under the white chocolate waves on top of the cake you could almost see the brush marks of where they had smoothed out the icing from the two sets of feet in that little bride and groom plastic statue placed in the middle of the cake!

So the highlight of my day was the hysterical wedding cake from Darlene and Jo as my birthday cake, big, bold, laden with chocolate and oh so second hand!

Hey but it was on sale!

2nd Birthday

Wow! Today is our 2nd birthday (DANCE101) and we're off to celebrate at the Melbourne Docklands.

Its amazing to look back over the last 2 years, even just the last blog and think about how much we have grown and all the wonderful things that have happened.

Its so much fun developing and running our own company. We have a shared vision and passion and it has absolutely unleashed so much energy in us both! We look at what we get done in a day and its incredible! So many things achieved in such short periods of time, our lives are being fastracked and it feels great.

The most beautiful thing about DANCE101 is the people that make it. The teachers, the students the suppliers and everyone that pulls it all together. We are so fortunate in the caliber of people around us. We remember in the early days noticing lovely the people were coming to our classes. We thought it was a co-incidence at first and then it started happening in all locations and with our teachers as well. And then we realised, people get attracted to you for who you are what you represent!

We only want to enrich peoples lives, make them happy, give them access to fun and allow them to progress in ways they dont even think is possible. We never entertain negative gossip, negative drama and people with nasty agendas. Our teachers are all hand picked, so they are nice people as well and have genuine concerns for their students. And we only ever work with people we like! So we have created this wonderful space in which to do our work. Its absolute bliss, every day!

And the funny thing is I cant call it work. Work is a word thats fading from my vocabulary, I rarely use it and I just cant use it when referring to what we do. I find myself saying things like "I've got to teach now, or I'm going into a session, I need to go dance" I just dont see it as work, even the administration part, it's just part of what makes us tick and needs to be done. And so we live in this space where everything is a choice, its a wonderful feeling.

I believe that its one of the key reasons why we have so much energy. When everything is a choice, you are happy to do it and you have a positive energy. When you are doing things you dont really want to, its a push, you have to drag yourself up off the chair, push yourself to wakeup when you dont want to and sit in situations that you really just cant tolerate. We dont do any of that, we have eliminated that negative push from our lives! We dont travel in peak hour traffic, we dont work with negative, nasty and unscrupulous people. We dont tolerate drama queens in our teaching community or people without integrity and we want people there that dont want to be there! Its a wonderful way to live your life!

But it never used to be this way, believe me, our lives are unrecognizable compared to before. We were both miserable, for various reasons. I was stressed to the eyeballs, in a job I didnt like, sick, tired, depressed, overweight. And Paul was wasting his time on fruitless activities, he had become cynical, bitchy and unfulfilled. We work hard at creating our reality, planning it, visualising it, talking about it and most of all making it happen. Its a daily thing. Every hour, every minute we are creating our lives, making them exactly as we want them. We were both under an illusion that life happened to you, we then discovered, we make our own lives. When that went clunk for us both, we started the process of creating an amazing friendship, relationship and life together.

So on the 2nd anniversary of creating our dream, we reflect on what our lives were like (not for too long) and I'm overwhelmed with appreciation and gratitude. Gratitude for the opportunity to live my life the way I wanted, the way I intended. Appreciation for the people around us, people that have assisted our journey, people that make our journey so much fun and people who share the journey with us.

It's and incredible ride, this thing called life and the more I look at it, the more I realise its all the wonderful people around you that make it what it is. So thank you to everyone that has shaped my life to make it what it is today and to everyone that participates in creating the wonderful, blissful and joyful reality that is the world of DANCE101, it is truly a gift and a very very special place.

Thank you

Salsa Dancing in Melbourne has never been so much fun!

Wow! We are having an absolute ball running our own business in Melbourne, DANCE101 is going gangbusters and we're loving every minute of it.

We've now got 11 locations around Melbourne and we're teaching mainly Salsa and Latin Dancing.

- St Kilda

- Williamstown

- Docklands

- Prahran

- Fitzroy

- Chelsea

- Braeside

- Beaumaris

- Balwyn

- Dandenong

- Phillip Island

We've developed our own Ladies ONLY Latin Dance Program and its just awesome, there are six programs happening and more coming soon!

Check us out on our official website http://www.dance101.com.au

There are heaps of photos, videos and events

We havent updated our blog for a while, but will start again and give you lots of interesting stories and updates.

In the meantime, you can email us at cheryl@dance101.com.au or paul@dance101.com.au and we are contactable on 0417 700 767

Ciao

Cheryl & Paul!

Phillip Island, the greatest place to see wildlife

Amidst the craziness of our lives, we couldnt resist a visit to the Phillip Island Wildlife sanctuary to pat the gorgeous kangaroos again.

The weather was cold and the roos were all in the top paddock, within reach of an easy feed and warmer ground.

We entered the enclosure to find dozens of healthy roos standing around waiting to be fed. And so many of them had babies in their bellies. (Joeys).

Usually the large males wait at the back of the herd to let the females eat first, but this time the big males were waiting anxiously at the front of the enclosure.

As we entered, I heard the rhythmical bounding of a huge grey male bouncing in my direction. He pulled up right in front of me and gestured his nose towards the bag I was holding.

Knowing these creatures could rip me apart in within the blink of an eye, I offered my bag of goodies and he promptly grabbed my hands, holding them still so he could eat the entire contents.

As I stood and admired the enormous size of this large grey male, I heard a group of children come running into the enclosure. Both the big grey male and I turned to see what the commotion was, the children were running towards the herd of kangaroos, flapping about madly and trying to scare them away. Of course they succeeded.

The entire herd dispersed and I was left with my big grey as he looked arrogantly towards the annoying boys. My new grey friend lifted his head in an assertive manner, eyed the young boys and sat back on his tail. This isnt necessarily a good sign if you know kangaroos, it could mean one of two things, he was relaxing or he was getting ready to defend.

My new grey friend turned his head from side to side and with his big brown eyes, viewed the entire area behind him, no doubt checking his escape route and seeing if there were any annoying boys surrounding him.

And just as he was about to settle into his second bag of kangaroo goodies, the annoying boys came screaming towards us; with two powerful bounds, my new grey friend has disappeared into the bushes.

Mutter, mutter, mutter was the sound I made as we left the enclosure. Those kids had ruined my moment with nature, now ALL the kangaroos were gone! As I walked out of the enclosure and around a corner I was met with smaller group of roos, females and they were all standing looking at us as they were expecting us.

We took out our brown bags of specially prepared roo food and the females approached. The first one grabbed my hand tightly and ate rapidly. Another female nudged her out of the road and then I saw the joeys in their pouches. Large babies that didnt look like they should have been in the pouch. Big gangly legs sticking out the same entrance their heads were.

I gentrly reached down and extended my hand to the joey all snug in his mums pouch. The mum took a look around, held still and didnt flinch a muscle. She allowed me to feed her baby while it was being held safe and secure inside her body! What a precious moment!

I thought my moment was ruined with the big grey bounded off, but what I didnt realise was that something equally magical was just around the corner.

Just goes to prove, one door closes, another one opens!

Ever taken a ride on a Yak in Tibet?

One of my bestest buddies (Cath) has this amazing life and is currently in Tibet leading tours. She is a fabulous writer and a wonderful character but for some reason she never publishes her stories. So when I received this email and saw these photos today, I just couldnt resist publishing her work for her.

If you havent heard me talk about Cath before, he's the story.

I met Cath in my first big Corporate role at BMW Australia almost 20 years ago. I admired her the moment I met her, big buxom, womanly presence with a proud stance and an attutide to suit. She had already travelled the world and had amazing views that had me constantly captivated.

When Cath left BMW in a huff over sexual harrassment issues (stuff that today is clearly unacceptable) we kept in contact. Since then she has lived in Thailand and China and has travelled every province of these countries, she learned to speak the native languages and has this amazing resiliance for situations I would find traumatic. She's a tough cookie and a constant inspiration to me.

So here's a little tidbit for you, if you enjoy this story and her photo's please drop me an email and I can publish some more stuff she has sent me. In the meantime, I will encourage Paul to fall over in public, lose his pants in a performance or just tweeze out any kind of humorous situation from his incredibly funny existence.

Ever Taken a ride on a Yak in Tibet? by Catherine Miller

What a great trip it was to return to Tibet, the most remote and amazing place I have been to in this world.

With a great small group, our 15 days covered Beijing - Great wall, Lhasa, Shigatse, Gyantse, Sakya, Mt Everest (Qomolongma), overland, to finish in laid-back Kathmandu.

The biggest change I've seen in Tibet since 1999 when i first travelled there is the huge increase in foreign tourists... & more shops, hotels, restaurants to cater for them.

The culture of Tibetan Buddhism is still as strong a faith as ever for the people and monks are active in some of the monasteries, we even got to experience chanting in the prayer halls twice.

And Mt Everest promised nothing but clouds as we arrived, only to find a short while later a clearing and picture postcard blue skies to back up our stunning mementoes.

This was an even more amazing & incredible trip to Tibet, showing some locals in remote areas the pics from my previous trip, one man recognised a "monk" in one of my photos & explained he is actually a policeman and very sympathetic to the Chinese.this is not uncommon, sometimes army personnel dress in robes & collect money & monitor the interaction of Tibetans with foreigners.

There is still a strong anti-chinese feeling amongst some of the older Tibetans, the ones with some memories of the "cleansing" of the Cultural Revolution which saw many monks & nuns killed, tortured, imprisoned & forced to "disrobe" & become good communist citizens.

As i toured the countryside visiting monasteries wearing a traditional Tibetan outfit (long wrap around dress with 3/4 sleeved shirt, the local tibetans were so thrilled to see a foreigner in Tibetan style... maybe this is why more of the tibetans opened up to me & told me stories.

In one of the monasteries, one monk showed me an image left from pre-china days, now illegal. Definitely a highlight of all the times in Tibet, in the sakya monastery, a small group of us were sitting outside the prayer hall enjoying the chanting & were invited in by the "living Buddha" reincarnation to a tiny meeting room crammed with statues & paintings & a throne for the visiting high llamas (monks) - we drank tea & spoke for a while with translators interpreting for us & then he motioned us to be shown back into the prayer hall again to see his face amongst the murals on the wall of the prayer hall. such an amazing gesture to invite us in as foreigners, & i was so overawed, i was speechless, no probing questions on buddhism or monastery life.

But it was still such an enchanting moment and such an honour to be included in the "mini tour" of the inner sanctum, seeing the tiny kitchen & sleeping quarters that the senior monks live in. and on to Mt everest again, with some clouds overhanging as we rode the pony carts from Rombuk to he base camp.

Yet, as we were in the litte teahouse/cafe, the clouds lifted to give us spectacular sunset golden light over the peak. those of us who were planning on enjoying a whiteout sleepin were pleasantly surprised by a stunningly crisp clear morning with bright blue skies & blinding
snow peaks - more great photos!!! yay...

On the previous trip, the day before we arrived at the mountain, an independent american group unfolded an outlawed Tibetan flag at base camp & promptly got arrested, jailed & tortured for a couple of days before being deported to Nepal. this trip, a more tragic event occured on the North Face (tibetan side of Everest): a group of climbers lost 2 Korean members of their team in an avalanche.

Both of these events were not spoken of & only found out about them after leaving china & back into the arena of western media. In Kathmandu the North Face outdoor equipment store set up a shrine in rememberance of the 2 Korean climbers so I looked in & paid my respects. the dangers of climbing Everest are so real but so many people want to do it.

Big Week for us!

This week, Paul took off to teach some wonderful students at a school on the outskirts of Melbourne. He took off nice and early and was met with peak hour traffic pretty quickly.

As he patiently waited to turn right off a very busy highway, the traffic banked up and parted politely for him.

Two lanes of traffic sat quietly while he turned; little did Paul know an impatient four wheel driver decided to climb the embankment, drive over the concrete barricade and plough his way into the passenger side of our new Mini Cooper S.

The Nissan Patrol four wheel drive raged through the passenger window with great force shattering the window, crushing the door and shoving our little Mini sideways across the road.

Fortunately for Paul these little Mini's are well grounded with a really flat wheel base that made sure the force of the four wheel drive didnt roll him over. The mini sat their defiantly as the bullbar ripped through its crumple zones, almost as if to say "I know you're bigger, but I'm stronger!"

As both cars came to a standstill, a friendly woman volunteered her witness status and the driver of the aggressive vehicle confessed his sins "I'm sorry, I was completely in the wrong".

The police were called, statements taken, names and numbers exchanged and a very shaken and confused Paul was returned home safe and sound without a scratch!

As he sat there on the couch he was overcome by fits of shaking and his body turned cold and an unusual shade of grey, I figured he was in mild shock so I game him a cup of tea and kept him warm. I figured if the cup of tea came back up again we should probably head out for the Doctor.

He's a tough cookie this one, he sat there dazed and confused wondering what in the world had just happened. As he rested we planned what was to be the biggest week of our newly developed business. I couldnt see how we would get through it if he was injured and we had no car.

Quickly we chatted, planned and phone various people; moved things around and after a period of quietness we got up and got on with our day. We had so many commitments, so many people counting on us that we just couldnt allow ourselves to indulge in this unexpected drama. The main thing was, Paul was ok and that he wasnt injured.

So off we toddled, Debutante ball lessons, Ladies Programs, Social Classes, Corporate Classes, School lessons, Performances, Coaching courses and teaching a Hens night to boot! It was full steam ahead as we focused on being unstoppable in the face of adversity!

As it turned out, it was one of the toughest and best weeks we have ever had! We even had energy left over to go out dancing and play video games!

Just goes to show you, what doesnt kill you makes you stronger!

The fun you have on driving trips

This weekend Paul and I took off in our new Mini Cooper S to Echuca / Moama on the boarder of Victoria & NSW.

It was a special trip, to celebrate the official arrival of my niece Katie with her "Naming Day" and to accept the very prestigious honor of being a first time Godmother so it was an extra special day for me.

I hadnt seen baby Katie since Christmas so it was fantastic to see her gorgeous little baby rolls and to interact with her on a whole new level.

I was taken aback when I set eyes on her and could see how she had grown from this little squashed up baby not long out of the womb. She now looked like a member of our family, with all the familiar genetic traits. In fact, she was the image of my brother when he was a baby. AND, I could see she was just like my Father when he was a baby. Having lost our Dad 3 years ago (almost to the day) it was a special treat to see his genes living in this beautiful little girl, the grandaughter he hadnt even met!

We had a fabulous time meeting the other side of Katies family, a lovely large family, full of happiness, warmth and smiles. The day went really well and since I dont have "official" photos of her to publish, I couldnt help but publish this gorgeous one of her in the bath. I'm sure she wouldnt mind, its very modest :-)

But the funniest thing for the weekend actually happened before we even left Melbourne. Paul is the man and he likes to drive most of the time, so being a good woman, I let him. Unlike him, I sit back, relax and dont tell him what to do. However, on this occasion, perhaps he could have done with some instruction.

It was a nice intermittent rainy day, sun, then rain, sun, then rain. Paul was hot, then cold, hot, then cold. As we weaved our way through Pascoe Vale to get onto the Hume Highway, Paul was operating the window as his body temperature fluctuated, one minute he was enjoying the lovely sunshine, next minute he was complaining about the rain.

I'm sitting there happily enjoying the ride when next thing I hear "Ouch, ow...ahhoooowww, arghhh..." as the cries got louder. I looked over and saw Paul in his latest pickle. There he was with his hand jammed inbetween the door and the window, the window that HE had SHUT on his own hand! WHILST driving the car!

My sympathetic nature immediate sprung into action and I exploded with hysterical laughter. Laughter so gripping that I couldnt even get to the button to release the window. So as Paul cried for help, I cried with laughter. I literally couldnt move and neither could he. He fumbled for the button to release his mashed fingers and I'm ashamed to say it but I laughed even louder.

In the panic of the moment Paul got all discombobulated and coudnt figure out which button to push, so he sat there even longer. I thought this was even funnier, so my laughter picked up another notch. I was paralised, the lactic acid was ripping through my stomach and back, I had laughed so hard I coudnt move!

Finally Paul released his hand, the indented black mangled mark on it showed me how hard he was crushed and oh dear... I laughed even more.

For 20 minutes I laughed and each time he put up that window I looked to see if he needed a hand, really I was looking to see if there was another laugh to be had.

Good lord, he's a funny man even in the dullest of moments :-)