This week Jeni Bradshaw of Boogie Boots Blackpool tells us all about her experience of line dancing through lock down.  Jeni holds classes in Lancaster, Cleveleys & St Annes on Mondays Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays

Jeni is line dance and country music mad, once she discovered line dance on her return from university she was hooked!  The line dance world is where Jeni feels like she belongs, it is her home, dancing takes her to her happy place, I think this is something that many of use can identify with, line dancing isn't just an activity, it is a way of life.  Jeni is also a qualified swimming instructor.  Prior to lock down Jeni ran line dance classes 4 days a week ranging from beginner through to advances dancers, and had just taken on  a new class only 5 weeks before lock down was announced.  In addition to this she runs a Saturday social once a month, hosts several weekends throughout the year, 12 hour 'Days of Dance' and has just started a line dance and country music festival Silverados, co-hosted with Andrew Hayes.  In addition to all of this, for the past 2 years (in August) Jeni has also been hosting a radio show on a Thursday evening, Jeni's Jukebox, on LineDance Radio. In her spare time, of which there isn't that much, Jeni spends it supporting events and weekends hosted by other people, as well as teaching swimming twice a week.

Jeni had been keeping a close eye on the news in the run up to lock down to determine whether this would be a short of long term situation and decided that she would plan to make video teaches of dances, purchasing a webcam to facilitate this.  For Jeni. it wasn't just her classes that were cancelled, many of the events she was due to run over the summer were too, lock down has had a huge impact on her lilfe.

Jeni freely admits that she was (and possibly still is!) in the dark ages when it came to technology, but was very lucky to have a friend who was able to remotely guide her through setting up for her live streams and regularly comes to the rescue!  In the first month of lock down Jeni tried lots of different methods to provide the best service for her dancers, taking into consideration the technology she had available and the limited knowledge she had.  Following advice from her friend, Jeni decided that neither Zoom or OBS were suitable for her, so having brushed up on copyright law, she decided to set up a private online tutorial group on Facebook.  Jeni goes live three times a week on her group and has posted over 80 videos to it, being a mixture of individual teaches and live sessions.  To do this she uploads the videos to YouTube and then shares the link within the Tutorial Group, or on WhatsApp for those dancers who aren't on Facebook.

Like many other ELD members, Jeni is making use of the FREE music library, so there is no issue over Facebook muting the teach, and is very fortunate that hse has not had to follow any tutorials as she has had the support of her friend to guide her through getting everything set up.  For Jeni the hardest part of preparing and delivering live content hasn't been technical, it has been a personal one.  Jeni has found it very difficult to film herself, having no feedback from her dancers, knowing whether she needs to slow down, or speed up a teach, all her mistakes are recorded and imperfections highlighted.  There is no escaping the camera, it is always there.  So whilst Jeni has managed to conquer presenting online content, she's not really found it easy and there's not really a tutorial that can help talk her through that.

When classes are able to resume again, Jeni doesn't intend to carry on presenting online content, for her nothing will beat the interaction of dancing in the same room as other dancers.  She sees this as a temporary solution to an extraordinary situation and the quicker she can get rid of her webcam the happier she will be!

If you would like to find out more about Jeni you can check out her ELD profile here.