This month our member Paul Chapman has offered to tell us all about his line dance life! 
 
Paul started teaching over 28 years ago in 1996 and first got into dancing in Sutton Ashfield as a result of his love of country music where he regularly attended country music clubs in the Mansfield area.  Initially Paul, operating as Dusty Boots, only ran evening classes due to his work at a Foundry, and despite some ribbing from his work mates, it was actually one of them that got Paul into teaching as they knew of a group of ladies who were looking to line dance!  When he first started teaching, classes were run using cassette tapes, where the dances were numbered with timings on the cassette and he would have to stop, start, rewind and forward the cassette to play the music for the dances he was teaching, he also recalls how it was a very different experience sourcing new dances, both the scripts and the music.  Paul now runs his classes under the name Chapps Western Dance.
 
Like all of us, COVID had a huge impact on Paul’s classes, but he managed to maintain them using the ELD streaming service as he was threatened with legal action by Facebook.  Since then he has been rebuilding his classes, including day time ones ranging from absolute beginner to advanced classes, and it is these beginner classes that are his favourite as they, and he, like a challenge!
 
Over the years Paul has worked with some of the finest in our industry, including Billy Curtis! And alongside IOW tours, his real claim to fame is teaching Prince Nazeem the Latin Wiggle in 1997, he heard the boxer was in the club he was teaching at, so went and found him out to teach him the dance!
 
Now at 74, and in his words, approaching his prime! Paul mainly teaches in the Nottingham area and intends to carry on as long as his legs will allow him to do so, after all, line dancing is, as he puts it, the be all and end all! 

July 2023