The magic of Sanlúcar

I'm full of gratitude. It's been an amazing week in Sanlúcar in the Curso de Flamenco.

I took Carmen Cortés' dance class for three hours every day. The choreography party was not so great but she did very good technique training with us. It felt good to sweat it all out. The excellent Manuel Valencia accompanied us on the guitar.

After that I just had 1.5 hours to shower, grab a bite and go to Cepillo's percussion class on cajón. This guy is a machine. He has a lot of humour and we practically laughed nonstop. His wife Sonia is a sweetheart too!

Every day we went to eat to one of the best tapas bars in Andalucía called Casa Balbino. They seriously were the best seafood tapas I've ever eaten. Everything is freshly displayed on ice and cooked from scratch. There are about 10 waiters behind the bar who run non-stop, take orders, prepare food and remember exactly what you had as soon as you ask for the bill. On my first evening there about 100 people were standing in there which had my slightly overwhelmed when it came to ordering my food...!

All participants stayed in the lovely Hotel Los Helechos. It features shady patios and a rooftop terrace with swimming pool to hang out on. We were completely relaxed there!

Every single night, the course organizers had a programme ready for us. On Monday, the guitarists played in the Peña Puerto Lucero. Chris & John gave us a special jam at the end:

On three nights we went to different manzanilla bodegas in town. Next to drinking the excellent wine from Sanlúcar, there was a bulería juerga every night. All students from the dance class were required to dance a pataíta. It was so much fun. We had singers come all the way from Jerez to accompany us and they gave us all they had. It was such a luxury!

And sometimes we would have mini-juergas of our own on the street:

On Friday night we demonstrated the things we learned in a chiringuito, one of the many little beach bars. Of course we weren't ready so we had to rehearse in the sand first. Haven't laughed so much while dancing in a long time:

I really haven't got a lot of pictures because I completely stopped taking photos somewhere along the way. There was too much going on and I didn't want to miss a thing. So, many thanks to John for letting me use his photos on the blog!

After the juergas we would go to Raquel Villega's Bodegón A Contratiempo to carry on with the music. Sometimes it would really jam off and sometimes we would have a quiet sip of rebujito to wind down. On Saturday night Raquel gifted us with a flamenco show the likes of which I've never seen before. She and Begoña Castro danced. Her brother Diego Villegas was on harmonica, flute and saxophone and María Mezcle sang. Diego has a way of playing that makes me cry. Together with Raquel's mindblowing dancing we went through an emotional rollercoaster. They all left us sitting there completely stunned. I think we truly experienced the flamenco duénde that night. It was simply magic.

 A lot of energies were set free last week. I met some lovely people and I cannot wait to see them again next year. On Saturday I experienced the reason why I came to Spain for. I'm in exactly the right place at the right time, and things are just as they should be. I'm full of gratitude that is hard to express in words.

I'm happy.