Name: Part 6 - Training Jazz & Lindy Hop - Establishing a Team
Uploaded: 2025-03-11T06:44:27.000Z
Duration: 15 min 12 s
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So let me tell you a little bit about the history behind the Old Souls and the full group with the Apprentice Group, the Jazz Maniacs it's called.

So essentially, it was around 2016, 2017, I was personally a little bit frustrated with the fact that I was missing a little bit this concept of training.

Okay, there were the parties, then the festivals and the competitions, but where do people go and train?

Now, there were some training sessions in Brussels, but it turned out to be more of like a tea dance, you know, or people like, you know, putting on very slow music and just kind of social dancing together.

And it didn't really feel like the trainings that I was used to as a b-boy, which was truly busting your arse and sweating like crazy and, you know, like running out of breath type of training.

So with Jill, we seeked out to establish something and we were fortunate to have our friend Slabs and his partner at the time that were also motivated to do something.

And so we founded the first Old Souls group, it was just the four of us.

For training, I would recommend that if you're by yourself, find somebody else.

If you're doing Lindy Hop and you're a couple, find another couple.

Now, another reason that I wanted to do training is that it was purely selfishly.

I hate being in a room and then just, you know, like just looking around and nobody's there.

I like to see people, other people, busting their arse and feeling like, oh, you know, I shouldn't be sleeping here, I should be, you know, working as well.

And the reason is, is that also the effect of having somebody else come into training with you is that when you're not motivated because it's raining outside or because the public transport isn't working or for some reason, you're like, hey, I just better stay at home and watch a movie and that's it.

You know that that other person is showing up to training and waiting for you and expecting you.

So they're going to send you a message, okay, I'll see you later at training.

They'll be like, or they'll even say, hey, where are you?

And you know, you don't want to let them down.

So that's when, you know, you put on your raincoat and you take the bike and you cycle to training or whatever, you know.

So it allows, it allows to pull you out of the rut, pull you out of the mud.

And when the other person is feeling down, you do that favor for them.

And when it comes to Lindy Hop as a couple, it can, things can quickly get out of hand where you start kind of having a little bit of rouse or whatever.

And what's nice is when there's somebody else in the room, you can say, hey, we're having a disagreement here.

Can I try it with you or can you figure out, can you help us out here or make a, you know, help us make a choice or, you know, and that really, really relieves a lot of tension.

If you have that agreement together, say, hey, time out, let's ask.

And, and it's, it's, it's very nice to have that third, third eye, you know, a different opinion.

And then the other thing as well is that simply it's just way more fun to train all together and to be able to set a date for ourselves to do, okay, we're going to do a routine.

Now, the way that we did it is that we set very classic routines at the beginning.

We said, okay, we're going to do a Tranky Do slash California routine performance.

We started choreographing something, but the material that was in there, the choreographic material was always based on some old school stuff.

This was important to us because we established our style and our common ground as we love the old school aesthetic, right?

So we're always looking up to the originators of the dance, whether it would be the video clips or the material or whatever it was.

And this is kind of important as well to establish as a group is what is it that identifies you?

Now, you don't need to absolutely do this at the very beginning, but the earlier you do it, the clearer it is.

And from that day on, from those group, four people from that day on with that common interest that we had is going to define the whole stylistic choice and value for the whole rest of the legacy.

And we were very, almost very conservative in our way of approaching the dance and jazz and Lindy Hop.

And so it has left an imprint on the rest of people.

I'll go back to having a common vision afterwards, but setting up that team at first, that's all you need.

And just make sure that you have people who are extremely committed.

It's if you're going to go with somebody else, just make sure that you both agree that, okay, we are committed.

And establish little goals for yourselves so that you feel like you're getting achievements.

You put it, again, you do a little showcase, a tiny, tiny, mincy showcase at a social dance, and you're going to feel like, okay, you've achieved something together.

You set the next one and set the next one.

Now, what happened between the four people there and now the nearly 40 people training today in Brussels?

So when we put the Old Souls together and we were four or five people, we wanted to seek more people to be honest.

But the thing was, is that nobody truly had the aspiration or the level that we had.

We were looking at those old clips, figuring things out ourselves for already some time.

And we felt that there was nobody really close to the level that we were trying to achieve at that moment.

And the other thing, what happened was, is that as we were doing these kind of small shows, people were asking us, can I join the trainings?

And this is a phenomenon that will occur.

At the beginning, we were doing things, shows, where we were crashing, it looked rubbish.

But after a while, people started to see, oh, wow, this isn't so bad, actually.

Or people, oh, wow, they're really improving.

And people seeing where we were trying to bring jazz and the Lindy Hop and could feel like, hey, actually, I want to do that too.

People were somewhat knocking on our door.

And at the same time, we felt that we needed new people to be able to continue this legacy and grow as a team.

We felt that that was probably the best way to do things.

There was 35 people that showed up, more or less.

And the way that we did the audition was, I would teach a small routine, very simple routine.

I think it was like maybe eight eights or whatever.

You know, I show that in 10 minutes, and it's like, okay, practice.

And we would look at who was generally practicing versus those who were just kind of standing there and waiting for me to show the steps again.

And so it was less about the end result of that choreography, but more like what's the methodology of working.

That was more the what we were seeking, because that's what we were afraid of, is that we didn't want to turn this training into a class.

So that was less, certainly at that time, less of a quality.

And at the end of the day, we took something like two or three people.

And when they showed up the next week to trainings, they were expecting obviously a lot more people to be there.

And they looked around, and they just saw us and those two other folks.

So they were like, oh, wow, so this is kind of serious.

And we were like, yeah, this is really serious.

There was also a feeling, of course, I think of for them, perhaps as a success, like they made it or something like that.

So it does help like people feel like, okay, I should commit to this, you know.

And what happened after that was there were more and more people that started knocking on our doors to be part of this as well.

And in that case, we were only training the Friday night.

And we said, let's open up a second day of training.

It was an open session where everybody can join in.

The thing was, is that now we had, you know, six, seven, eight dancers who knew how to train that were now, when there was like five or six or eight other dancers that joined, they were, they knew to follow the others and the whole structure.

And you know, it would be the first thing when somebody steps into that room, we would say, hey, welcome, you know, it's great to have you.

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Part 6 - Training Jazz & Lindy Hop - Establishing a Team

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