About Me

Kora Stoynova

My name is Kora Stoynova. I fill many roles: business owner, dancer, teacher, model, sister, student, wife. My life is pretty crazy. My husband, Simeon Stoynov, is also my dance partner; you’ll see him in many of the pictures on this blog. We are dancers by trade and craft, and that includes many of the other roles we fill. Because of our dancing, we are students (constantly travelling to take lessons with the best teachers in the world); we are teachers (few dancers from Seattle have reached the level we have, and as such, our information and schedules are in high demand); and we are business owners.  I have a younger brother who just started dancing a few years ago, just for fun, but he won’t make a career out of it, which is fine. A career out of dancing is not easy, let’s be honest. It includes long days on your feet, teaching for hours on end, coupled with practice that is tough on your body as well as your relationship. It means constantly sacrificing other joys in life, like being there for your mom’s 50th birthday because of a comp, or having to wait to have kids because the travel schedule is too hectic for family life, or constantly being on diets because dancers are expected to have perfect bodies. But for those of us who love dancing, it’s worth it!

Simeon and Kora Dancing

Some of you may think the idea for this blog is stupid. But it’s more than just a log of all the Starbucks cafes we’ve been to. It’s almost like a log of our travels. Being high level ballroom dancers means having to travel a lot. I mean, about half of our lives at least, and the better you get, the higher up the ranks you go, the more you travel. This is the goal of every competitive dancer. You’ll find a great many of the cafes on this blog are in England, with a high concentration in London; the best teachers in the world are in London, which means the best dancers in the world are constantly travelling to London for coaching. We spend about 1/3 of our year in London. The rest of the time is spread out over Europe, America, and Asia.

one of my modelling photos

For a long time, our travels were limited to the same places every year. So we may have travelled a lot, but to the same cities over and over again. But in 2010, something changed: we turned Professional and began representing Simeon’s home country of Bulgaria. We were immediately declared Professional National Champions in 3 out of 4 styles, and we were Vice-Champions in the 4th style. This meant two things. First, we were given the privilege of representing Bulgaria at 4 World Championships a year; second, we were given the privilege of representing Bulgaria at 4 European Championships a year, a privilege we wouldn’t have had if we had continued to represent my home country of America. What did this really mean? More travel. LOTS MORE TRAVEL. And as our results continue to improve and our abilities take us to more places around the world, I want a way to keep track of all the places we’ve been to. So when you read our blog, don’t think of it as a log of someone who is obsessed with Starbucks Coffee. Don’t get me wrong. I love coffee. It’s a staple when you’re subjected to a dancer’s lifestyle. But Starbucks is a taste of home, and Starbucks’ reach across the world is a good way to remember all of the places we’ve been to.

So enjoy reading through the posts and checking out the pictures. We’ve certainly enjoyed visiting all of these locations, and hope to visit many more as the years go on!

Simeon and Kora in Blackpool, England