Category: comp diary

Danced 4 heats’ worth of American Smooth this morning. Did not make the final in Senior I Silver or Adult Silver; in the Gold events, which were smaller, we came 4th of 4 in Senior I and 6th of 6 in Adult. Quite hard on one’s positive attitude but our friend Philip Jones rather brought it all into perspective when he asked how much we practice. Without putting the answer to that question on the Internet for all to regard with horror, I’ll just say that Philip practices 10 hours a week and we need to get a LOT closer to emulating his example.

Rhythm events tomorrow, then a mad dash home. I have collected a bunch of good pictures but will not post them till after we get back for fear of angering the app. iPhone, you are a fickle mistress.

WordPress for iPhone seems to be just as crashy as the App Store reviewers said. Lovingly composed, hilarious, profound post about the agony & ecstasy of competitive dancesport, illustrated with gorgeous and moving photos, is lost forever. Disillusioned, I will be writing only hasty fragments of made-up silliness till further notice.

Warmed up for the weekend by dancing an exhibition tonight for the Georgia Technical College Directors Association, which went very well. We danced a cha-cha, a rumba, and a waltz as well as helping Paula lead the comedy routine (someone remind me later to explain the comedy routine) and Dianne lead the line dances. Everybody seemed to have a good time and so did we. Somehow we did not get any video (read “my partner didn’t pack the camera”) but they had a pro photographer there, so I hope to have photos soon.

It made for a long day but at least my dresses and dance bag are already packed now. Overnight bags are also mostly packed. More tomorrow from the road.

Yesterday’s lesson was canceled, fortunately with a fair amount of notice–I found out shortly after I posted Comp Diary #1.  We were disappointed at first but ended up having a much-needed lazy day at home and enjoying the heck out of it.  If only a lazy day at home could magically have taught us the bolero!  Instead, we headed over to the Wellness Center this afternoon to practice while Paula was teaching her Sunday class.  In addition to the upcoming comp we are preparing for an exhibition on Thursday for the CGTC Foundation (same organization that put on the Spring Soirée back in April) at the new Marriott City Center.  Swanky!

We ran through our cha-cha, waltz, and rumba routines a few times since those are the dances we’ll be doing Thursday, then broke out the laptop to look at our bolero routine.  When Eddie came to give the workshop a few weeks ago we got the routine on video, but we had hardly had a chance to work on it.  I had danced it in lessons with Eddie on my own and only gone over a few steps with Daniel.   The great thing about dancing with Eddie is that he can lead anyone through anything, especially if he’s counting out loud.  The bad thing about dancing with Eddie is that I rely on him too much to lead and don’t learn my own steps.  So although I’d done the steps before, I couldn’t say that I remembered them.  On the other hand, the great thing about dancing with Daniel is that he picks up steps in a hot second, even from video–I am terrible at learning from video.  He got the bolero figured out pretty quickly and we got through enough of it that I think we can manage not to go down in flames next weekend in the Gold events.  More practice coming up tomorrow and then Friday if we get to the comp venue early enough.

I also stocked up on eyelashes yesterday and am currently strategizing about when I need to pack.  We will probably leave EARLY Friday morning; the CGTC exhibition is in the late evening Thursday; I have ballet & contemporary Wednesday night…Maybe I’ll just get the suitcase out now.