We all know that classes are fun. It's great to learn new and interesting ways to dance with each other. To improve our technique, to become more confident dancers. But classes are really there to help you to dance better at freestyles. Freestyles are what it's all about.

As freestyles are so important, you'd better believe that Stokie's take them seriously. Never was the mantra "good enough is never good enough" more important. We aim to make any evening at a Stokie's Blues Party memorable for all the right reasons. We select our venues with our dancer's heads on. For example, before we would even look at hiring anywhere we would start by asking the dancer's questions. Is there good parking? Are the refreshments reasonably priced? Is it easy to find? Is the dance floor just right? Are the loos clean? Is the area well lit and safe? Only when we are completely satisfied that the place is somewhere that we would want to drive to on a dark, drizzly night would we even consider talking to a venue manager about using the venue. To us, it is of paramount importance that you - the dancers - feel at ease from the moment you pull into Stokie's car park to the moment you drive away again.

One thing that we do have complete control over is the music that gets played. We have attended more rubbish nights due to poor music than we care to remember! We're sure that you have probably had similar disappointing experiences. With so much beautiful music available is there any reason for things to to be bad? We don't think so, do you?

The main reason we are able to boast about the music at Stokie's is because of our music policy. We aim to give you a mixture of challenging, musical, interesting tracks that will challenge and delight you in equal measure. The ability to do this comes from our own personal passion for fantastic Blues music, a passion shared by our resident Blues DJ, DJ Blueshoes. Blueshoes is respected for his amazing Blues sets. He has years of experience in Blues rooms up and down the country. He is also a regular Blues room DJ at the most prestigious dance weekenders. His ability to keep a room on its feet is really quite remarkable. He will stun you with quality tune after quality tune... driving your desire to dance right up to the end of the very last track, and leaving you with a thirst for more!

To keep you guessing at Stokie's, we start the night with a guest DJ. The guest DJ plays through to 10:00pm when the decks are turned over to DJ Blueshoes. Guest DJ's bring an extra air of excitement to Stokie's Pure Blues Parties.

Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the fun Blues class that we start our nights with. The idea of the class is not to turn everyone into blisteringly amazing Blues dancers in a stroke - that's as unattainable as it is unrealistic. The idea of the class is to get dancers together, to break the ice a little and to allow newer dancers to see that Blues is about having fun - together