“Aaaaaand, she’s back!”

(my friend Steph Thompson’s ballroom instructor’s tagline every time his dancers completed an underarm turn)

Sunday afternoon saw us back from the Gumbo Dancesport Championships in Baton Rouge, LA just in time to host our Sunday Night Dance Party for an awesome crowd.  Thank you, everyone who attended!  The Gumbo competition was a great experience and we are so glad that we went.  Although we didn’t place as well as we’d hoped, we had a fantastic time and got to see all of our comp buddies as well as meeting some new ones.  The Louisiana Gumbo chapter of USA Dance is full of nice people and they put on a well-run, classy, enjoyable competition.  Our only regret was not getting to do more sightseeing around Baton Rouge, but at least we did get a great view of the river Saturday night from the terrace at Tsunami.

The highlight of the comp came on Saturday afternoon when we lined up on deck with 10 other couples for the Smooth portion of the Open American 6-Dance.  While we were lining up, 8 couples were on the floor dancing the Smooth portion of an Open 9-Dance event.  Daniel got everyone in the on-deck area to sway back & forth and wave our arms in unison as the Viennese waltz played for the 9-Dancers.  By the end of the song, all the judges were staring and everyone, including us, was laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes.  The announcer said, “All of you on deck, cut it out! I’m getting seasick!”  So when we lined up for the Rhythm part of the 6-Dance and the 9-Dancers were dancing swing, Daniel cued everyone to do the basic swing step together.  He led us through underarm turns and everything.  It was hiLARious.  Rumor has it that someone got this exploit on video, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, click through for some video that our various dance friends captured for us.  I also have a few pictures but WordPress does not seem to want to upload them right now, so look for those in a later post.

Senior I Smooth:

Senior I Rhythm:

Open 6-Dance Smooth:

Open 6-Dance Rhythm:

Adult Silver Rhythm: