Jiří Ščobák
I have been dancing since 1988, I started to call one year later. I founded the Country Farrow club in Prague and I have been serving as its President for four years. I moved to Slovakia in 1993 and started to call in the Karolína SDC Bratislava club. The Vienna Swingers club located in Vienna became another home club of mine in 1996, I started to call every other week for the Corvinus Dancers in Wiener Neustadt about eight years ago. It has been about ten years since I started to call for the Pinkafelder Promenaders once a month. I have been serving as President of CSCTA for two years in the past. I am a producer of ABC Records (together with Slamák – Jiří Slabý).
Square Dance is the kind of entertainment that suits me well. When I started with dancing, I travelled Europe halfway through and I visited many clubs (and called for them). I met my current wife when dancing and all the people that I consider my best friends are square dancers. All this was the reason that I have been attending to Square Dance until now (and I am not even thinking of quitting).
I call Basic through A2 but I have to admit that I have been feeling secure when calling A1 and A2 as late as during the last twenty months (and I have really been able to „teach Square Dance“ as late as in recent few years as well). I have come to like to use novel, non-Square-Dance music for workshops recently because it is faster and dynamic.
I live with my wife, three daughters, 22 aquariums or mini-aquariums, dwarf hamsters and an African dormouse. I am keen on travelling, hiking and taking photographs. I am interested in zoology, evolution, archaeology, anthropology and ethology. I have been publishing my blog since 2006 (you can find almost all possible information about me there).
Mail: scobak@zoznam.sk
Blog (in Czech only but with many photographs): http://scobak.blog.sme.sk/
P.S. I am a radical objector to the opinion that Square Dance is undergoing a crisis in our area. I promote the opinion that if a club wants to have dancers from other clubs at its Special Dance, it has to push its members into activities (a club whose members do not attend any dances do not deserve anybody attending its dance). I consider the fact that members of Karolína are attending more dances than before one of the positive points of the Convention that took place in Bratislava last year. Our dancers danced in Olomouc, they attended several Round Dance events near Brno, and several members of our class have even survived dancing to Míla Malý at the recent PAC. Some people plan to go to Třeboň, many want to come to the Convention in Prague. We want to thank the Country Farrow club for the attendance last year and we wish every future organizer of Convention as good a feeling as we had :).