Jake (Spincat) Meadley
Following in the footsteps of many of the dancers from the early days of the Swing era, Jake Meadley (aka. Spincat) has devoted most of his life to sharing his passion for dance.
When Jake first stepped into a dance studio in 1988, the dance director was surprised to find that Jake had never had any formal training and told Jake he was a natural and should give up everything and dance. As Jake was in year 11 and not ready to finish school, he just continued to dance for fun and fitness. Eight months later a friend took Jake to another dance studio where the director there also commented on Jake's natural ability. So Jake decided to pursue the dancing a little more seriously and soon discovered his interest in teaching. Five weeks after starting medal classes, Jake had not only learnt his part of the routines for the exams, but had also worked out the 'follow' part and was assisting to teach the girls their steps for the routines. This continued to happen for further medals that Jake studied and found them easy, but especially enjoyed assisting teaching the classes.
In December 1990, Jake reached the finals in The Australian Ballroom Dancesport Championships, after having only competed for 10 months.
In December 1993, Jake returned from 18 months in America and wanted to return to dancing, but rather than return to competing, Jake decided he wanted to get into teaching. He wanted dancing to be fun, to be something he could share and use to bring fun and enjoyment to others. So Jake applied for a teaching position the week he returned home from America. Within a year Jake had worked himself into the top 5 teachers in Victoria in his teaching style, and earnt himself an award for his efforts as a leading male teacher and won 6 straight Gold awards for choreography and performance of student showcases at State level.
In 1995 Jake completed his A.M.D.S. teachers qualification and won 6 straight Gold awards for choreography and performance of student showcases in the Nationals.
From 1996 to 2001, Jake learnt and taught under Australian Ballroom Champions Tony Sutty and Mark Wilson who mentored Jake to a greater understanding of dance frame, connection, control and technique in partnership dancing and received his A.D.S. teachers qualification for International Ballroom dancing.
But even with this experience under his belt, Jake felt he needed more to feed his hunger for dance and stumbled across an advert for Swing Patrol.
It was mid 1999 and classes were being held at The Rising Sun Hotel in Sth Melbourne but were unfortunately on the same night as his own lessons. Irritated that he couldn't get to classes Jake called Claudia and chatted about having private lessons... but somehow just didn't get around to arranging one.
Then in early 2000, Jake saw an advert for Swing Patrol in the local newspaper and attended his first swing class in Doncaster, Victoria on the 10th of February. Mid year 2000, Scott and Claudia offered Jake a teaching role with Swing Patrol and since then Jake has anchored regular venues in both Sydney and Melbourne as well as teaching at School gigs, various festivals, the Melbourne Zoo Twilights season, The Whitehorse Council music series for 4 years and all manner of swing events and gigs.
In 2003 Jake started classes in Albury/ Wodonga, and travelled the 8 hours return trip from Melbourne nearly every week for 4 years. During that time he also ran classes in Wangaratta, Shepparton, Bendigo and Echuca. As Jake is an avid outdoors dancing freak, he became a regular local celebrity at various annual jazz festivals. The first year Jake led his team of students from various Swing Patrol venues at the Wangaratta Jazz & Blues Festival in 2003, and since then it is solely due to Jake's dedication and passion that the swing dance aspect at that festival has grown and has become an integral part of the festivities at the Wangaratta Jazz and Blues Festival and has been invited back every year to date.
Since 2000 when Jake first started with Swing Patrol, Jake has learnt from many leading international Lindy Hop and Balboa teachers, and is continually altering, adapting and reshaping the way he teaches and dances so as to bring his students the cutting edge of partnership dancing.
In late 2007, Scott and Claudia offered Jake a teaching position in Sydney. It took him 2 minutes to make the decision and moved to Sydney 2 months later.
Since moving to Sydney Jake has been thrown into the limelight with his lead role in the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Sydney Festivals at Hyde Park. From photo shoots 'in' the Archibald Fountain at Hyde Park for the Daily Telegraph, news spots in Channel 9 news, to radio interviews.
Two highlights for Jake were stepping onto the main stage at Hyde Park at the Opening Night for the 2008 Sydney Festival to teach swing to over 8000 people, and in 2010 teaching a lesson on a tower 7.5 metres above the crowd before one of his favourite bands Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and getting to dance up on the tower the whole time the band was playing.
In 2009 Jake was invited to teach Swing in Perth, and then in Darwin for their first Swing Festival weekend. In 2010, Jake is returning to Perth in February to teach and in June, will be teaching in Auckland, New Zealand.
Jake's passion continues to be seeing the development of his students, watching them having fun and putting a smile on their faces. As a hopeless romantic, Jake also has a soft spot for bridal couples and loves helping them prepare for their first dance as a married couple at the wedding reception.
It has been 21 years since Jake first stepped onto a dance floor, and 15 years since Jake first started teaching. Throughout this time Jake has also gained various other notches for his belt including:
- Teaching bridal couples since 1994
- Dance choreographer since 1994
- Teaching primary and high school groups since 1998
- Teaching aerials since 2000
- Feature dancer for 'Child Star, The Shirley Temple Story', Disney productions.
- Feature dancer for the music video clip, 'Hold On', by Melbourne hip hop legends, Diafrix.
- Feature dancer at the Opening of the Bondi Jitterbug exhibition in 2008 at the State Library of NSW.
Other than dance, Jake has been involved in youth and team leadership including his first job when he was promoted to Production Leader within his first 6 months. He has been a youth leader, camp leader and kayak instructor in Australia and The United States of America since he finished High School in 1989. He worked as a Programme Director on youth camps for four years and graduated in 2002 with a Diploma in Ministry. Jake loves to draw from his experiences and training to continually make classes a unique experience for his students.
If you haven't been to one of his classes yet... what are you waiting for!?!
