Why Every Man Should Learn to Dance

Before I started dancing, I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d been holding back.

Growing up, my father told me men don’t dance. 

So I didn’t. Not for decades.
After my divorce, I finally stepped onto a dance floor for the first time.

And it changed everything.
Dance helped me find confidence in my body again.

It gave me friends who became family.

It taught me how to connect with people, with presence, and with myself.
You don’t have to be good. You just have to show up.

When you do, you might find something you didn’t know you were missing.

———

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Website: https://teevee.mx
Podcast: https://teevee.fm
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Transcript

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Today I want to talk about dance, how it may be one of the best decisions that I

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ever made for my own personal improvement, and possibly saved my life,

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or at the very least, made it a whole hell of a lot better.

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For those that don't know me, my name is Teevee, and on this channel I talk

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about parenting, personal development, and simply becoming a better human being.

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I am a father now to a 23 and 21 year old,

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and I'm also a grandfather, divorced father to the 23 and 21 year old.

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I've had to raise them

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as a divorced father, and through the process of all of that,

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I learned a lot about being a man, being a human, and being being a father.

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So dance.

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Why do I say this big, crazy thing about how it may have saved my life?

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Well,

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I'll start by saying that

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before I started dancing and really pushing myself, I never really danced.

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I loved it.

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I was fascinated by it, but my father unfortunately didn't allow me to dance.

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He insisted that men don't dance, so he forbid it in my family.

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He forbid it from me, even though I've always felt this

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desire to move to the music.

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Because come on, let's think about it.

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Music is captivating,

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and especially some of this stuff, it just makes you want to move.

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All cultures throughout history have a history of dance and music.

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It's almost synonymous.

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You can't.

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I can't imagine a culture that doesn't move in some way.

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Now, is it as structured as it is today?

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Probably not.

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But nonetheless, every single culture has it so

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despite that, my father didn't allow me. Now,

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so I didn't do it.

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I didn't do it for my adult life.

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I didn't do it when I was married.

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I mean, I would wiggle with my

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my daughter and dance with her when she was young and sick.

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That was actually one of our,

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favorite pastimes is just dance together.

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I wouldn't move there, but still was nothing structured.

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I didn't know what I was particularly doing,

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but I was feeling the music.

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Now fast forward, I'm divorced.

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I have two daughters, struggling, trying to date

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and what to do with my life in general, but date

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and then trying to figure out how to get back into the playing field.

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So this was 2007 or 8.

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I decided after some while to start dancing, and my girlfriend at the time,

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and I, her and I went to an event where there were salsa dancing,

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and it was it was overwhelming because they were badasses.

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They were absolute badasses. And I

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could not keep up.

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My girlfriend at the time was like, come on, just come out dance.

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It's really easy.

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You just have to feel the music.

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And I knew in that moment from looking at those people

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that they weren't just feeling the music, they were doing something.

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There was, I don't

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I didn't know how classes worked or how much work people put into it, but,

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there's no way.

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They're just feeling the music.

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Sure enough, eventually found out

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we broke up and I decided after that break up, I am going to learn how to dance.

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So in 2009 or so, I started taking salsa and bachata classes.

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And there were fun.

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There were absolutely fun. Especially my there.

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That's the one that I lean towards more.

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I had a simpler step and had,

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something that I could relate to a little more than salsa.

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Salsa was still a little too much for me.

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And it was.

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It's a it's a marathon.

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It's not to say that it isn't beautiful. It absolutely is.

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It just wasn't for me.

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Bachata is where I was leaning, but even then, I still wasn't fully on board.

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It wasn't until like 2014, 15, almost ten years ago when I stumbled across

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what we were then calling kizomba Chi Zombie a just so you know.

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Now, for the record, kizomba, it wasn't necessarily the style

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or the original format, but for the sake of it,

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I'm going to call it kizomba in case somebody is watching

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that is in this space,

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and they start to trash me or badmouthed me,

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because I don't know what I'm talking about.

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We're going to call it Zumba for the sake of this conversation.

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So I discovered kizomba.

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I was introduced by a few friends.

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Another friend, now friend, was teaching a workshop which is really new.

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It came from Africa, Angola.

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It was a beautiful dance. It was really intimate.

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It was chest to chest.

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It was.

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It was something else.

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It was beautiful.

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It was sexy. It was sensual.

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It was passionate.

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And I wanted to learn how to do it.

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It was that was even a little more intimidating because you are chest

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to chest, predominantly in the style, in the style of dancing.

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So that's one part of it.

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But I love the music.

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I love the connection.

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I loved, I love the people.

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So I got immersed in it and after a while it took me some time

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because I was really didn't know what I was still doing,

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but I didn't know I liked it.

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Something unlocked in my head that allowed me to connect

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with the music differently.

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What I what I heard, and when I was started to understand,

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is that this, this style allows you to interpret

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and connect in a different way than many of the other styles.

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There wasn't so much stepping in so many, patterns per se.

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Even though they do teach patterns.

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You could interpret

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and do whatever you wanted to the music, and that was a huge unlock for me.

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All right. So

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I at that point became incredibly enamored

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with the style and was determined to become better and better and better.

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So this is where we get to the first big benefit of learning to dance in general,

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but specifically cuz on the other people dance in general, you should do it.

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And I'm gonna tell you why.

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I'm going to tell you that for me specifically, Zumba is what helped me

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become the man that I am today.

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And I'm gonna tell you how.

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Number one, my social circle.

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I would go to classes, would meet people.

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I obviously meet women and men.

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And from that group of people and the various generations

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that I was a part of,

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I started to befriend and become close friends with a handful of people.

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To this day,

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many of my closest friends

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are from the community of Kizomba and Urban Kids dancers.

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That's the name that eventually evolved out of it.

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They became some of my best friends.

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One of my some they're many of my best friends have come from the community.

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I started to think about it.

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Right now, it's easily 4 or 5 that I can I can rattle off that

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come from the community.

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Something about coming together,

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dancing, connecting, getting to know each other over time.

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It's it's less intimidating than a lot of the other spaces that I've been in.

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That where you're trying to socialize.

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It's just easygoing and fulfilling.

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And that is the first big benefit.

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Your social circle starts to change.

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You all has this artistic endeavor.

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You're trying to listen

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to this beautiful music and interpret and play, encourage each other.

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It was it was.

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It's been an absolute ride to know that and to look back

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and realize that so many of my friends are from the community.

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So that's number one.

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Number two, and this is probably should have been number one.

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No, I don't think about it, but I'll just say number two,

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I started to really get comfortable in my body again when I was a child.

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When I was younger I wasn't allowed to dance.

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I was awkward, a skinny, I was teased, you know, all the kid stuff.

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And personally, when I have another child.

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I will make sure, especially a son,

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I will make sure that he or she he learns how to dance.

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I will teach him how to dance because there's nothing

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that makes it easier to move in your body and move fluidly, confidently.

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Nothing that can help you learn that skill as dancing, weight distribution,

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interpreting the melody, just being able to carry it in such a way

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that it looks much more elegant and frankly, feels better,

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which is probably the most important thing.

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Up until then, I didn't feel very confident in my body.

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I'd walk into a room and not to say that people didn't like me and that people

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didn't appreciate me, but I walked in with a posture

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and a presence that isn't becoming who I truly am.

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At my core, I like to think that I'm a bravo, brave and bold individual.

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But the way I walked didn't reflect that, and I think that dance helped unlock

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that part of me that was been hidden all those years because I want to move.

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Especially if I had some music playing. Forget about it.

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If you're going to find me

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grooving and if there's a dancer, chances are might be on the dance floor.

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But it made me feel much more confident in my body.

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And if you struggle with those types of insecurities, you should check it out.

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You should try dancing in general, but specifically keys

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only if you have some something going on in your city.

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And I didn't know it at the time.

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I just started to feel better, starting to show up stronger, and I felt like that

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was the tipping point in becoming the man that I was meant to be.

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So get out dance moves.

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Honestly, I'll add this as a part of all this.

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Is that it helps de-stress you moving,

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moving energy through your body, moving to music.

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If you're having a bad day, there's nothing that makes you feel

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better than moving to this day.

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Even with my girlfriend, we're having something.

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Or if we're going through something, we'll dance because that's how we met.

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Which leads me to point number three.

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By 2009 2010, dating started to get really complicated.

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By 2015 or so.

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Forget about it. Everybody's swiping,

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and I did my fair share of it.

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I wasn't a fan of it. I never really worked out for me.

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But dance allowed me to connect with a whole another group of women

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and potential date people that women that I could date now,

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I didn't think about that, that

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I wanted to learn to dance because I wanted to learn and dance.

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I didn't actually think that I was going to meet

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someone that would eventually be my wife.

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Through dance.

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That's exactly what happened.

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And the joke that I like to say is that I'm not promising

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that that's going to happen for everybody.

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But there is there is something to be said about

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feeling and becoming more attractive by being able to moving your body,

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by being social and being in a social circle

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with other social circle, with social circle with other people,

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as a social circle with other people, like minded individuals.

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You get that opportunity

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to connect with women and other human beings in a really tight knit circle.

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So sometimes you might hit it off with someone, and that's what happened for me.

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But it actually happened in a different way. Let me explain.

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As I started to get more and more involved in the dance,

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I realized that I really wanted the community to grow.

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So in 2019 or so,

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I made a commitment to start growing the scene.

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So I grew a little community.

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I started to host events and through that, over the course of time

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and managing those events, I started to really grow the community.

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One day in 2019.

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By the end of 2019, in walks this beautiful woman.

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Beautiful.

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And I didn't know it at the time, but

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that was going to eventually be my wife, and she's been my partner for six years.

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Again, disclaimer I'm not saying this is going to happen for you or to you,

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but I the probability of this happening is much higher, I think, than swiping.

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I feel that in this culture, nothing in this culture, in

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what we do today, which I, I think people do today, is

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we don't really socialize and connect with human beings,

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much less people of the opposite sex.

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I believe that dancing is one of the best ways to connect and date.

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You get to meet people out in the scene, dancing and classes.

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And I'll say this you don't even have to be very good.

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So if you're like, oh, but I'm not, it's going to take forever

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for me to be a good dancer and then to become attractive.

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You don't have to be good.

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You just have to be present.

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You have to be out there.

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I used to tell this to some of my single friends,

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like dudes, guys just show up, just show to the class.

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It's much better than trying to swipe, show up, connect

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and be kind, friendly, funny, charismatic.

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Be you. And it's okay to be clumsy.

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You don't have to be the world's best to find someone

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that you might be attracted to, and vice versa.

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They might be attracted to you for just trying,

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and I think that's a problem with a lot of people these days,

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that they're afraid to try things and learn things and look dumb.

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It's okay to suck. It's okay to not be good.

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You're all in the classes together, being very good together,

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but you grow together

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and you're going to end up finding someone that you might be attracted to.

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I'll say that for me, as I was hosting these events, not only did that

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I meet my partner, but I also through the the hosting of it in the ongoing.

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Yeah, the ongoing hosting a handful of people met at my events.

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They ended up becoming couples.

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I think 1 or 2 might have already gotten married because of it.

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And it's a beautiful thing.

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I feel like it's it's probably the biggest payoff.

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You do not have to be very good.

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Again, dancing for me has become, an integral part of my life.

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I don't dance as much as I used to because my partner is here with me.

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But we do move whenever we can.

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We try to go out whenever we can.

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And for me, I still to this day, I'll dance in the kitchen.

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I'll dance to the room, I'll grab my my partner and we'll dance as well.

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We'll do whatever. But it is a part of my life has become,

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It's become a part of my identity.

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I am a dancer.

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And knowing that it has been this fulfilling adventure that has helped me

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become the man I want to be, become attractive

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and have all these friends that I call, all these people that I call my close

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friends tells me that is, it's probably the best decision

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I ever made for myself and to improve myself.

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So dance, go out,

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dance, kizomba dance was shot down south and do ballroom do swing.

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We do whatever you want, but get out and dance and move

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and you'll be surprised by the rewards you'll get on the other end.

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Thank you for tuning in.

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My name is Teevee and if you enjoyed this video then please

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check out this video where I talk about my 50th birthday party.

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It was crazy fun and something I didn't even want to happen, but it did.

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Check it out.