Unless otherwise noted all pictures and text are by and copyright 2004 Mike Strong

In 2005	Mike Strong Photo CV For my full set of personal pages Click Here
Links to Photo CV pages: Starting - Air Force - Lust - After the Air Force - News Room - Tilly - Kansas, KC-80's - The 90's - Dance Much of this CV is still to be added. It will be some months before I can get to a finish point. But please enjoy this offering as it is.

1994 - Movement, ballroom, dojo

Arthur Murray

I had tried dance lessons in 1979. It was very expensive. For $1,200 I learned little and I was gun-shy about the price. In the mid-90's I was making enough money programming that for the first time in fifteen years that I thought I might give it a try. I again tried Arthur Murray, this time a studio close to where I was working, in Lenexa (left). The Arthur Murray I had gone to in the downtown (right) was long gone and the owner, Tom Chapman, was running his own chain of studios (TCI). The current Arthur Murray no longer had contracts. They had "agreements" which were like contracts but not binding. You could just stop, if you needed. That seemed okay. So in August 1994 I started ballroom lessons in Lenexa. This time I would keep dancing, in many places.

Steve Mackey - Bushidokan

At the same time I thought I would try karate. At first I tried a spot downtown. It was a distance from my work and I began to realize that the moves were choreographed. If I really needed something on the street I suspected that I would not have the sense I needed. That is when I found Steve Mackey. I dropped the other dojo, even with money expended and started with Steve. The next year it became a good decision, on a street in San Francisco, in August 1995. Steve taught a variation called Bushidokan and it was designed for the street. Also, to my liking, as in ballroom dance, anything could change at any counter move

Swing

Frankie Hoang and Jeanne Denny in Loose Park. They started Cat's Corner to teach Lindy Hop in Kansas City.

 

This is Camelot Ballroom during a Birthday Club dance. The members of the Birthday Club have four dances each year. Those persons who have a birthday in that quarter year pay, the rest get in free.