This video was a great laugh.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
When Scary Things Happen at a Dance Competition
You know that recurring nightmare one gets before an important event. All of mine run along the same lines. Showing up for a dance competition without shoes, running late for a competition, falling in a competition and the most dreaded - forgetting my routines.
Well at the Northern LIghts Classic in Edmonton last Saturday, the scariest of the scary occurred. Actually it was a combo - a 3 couple collision plus forgetting 2 of my routines. The samba started with us running into 2 other couples and it was just downhill from there. I was so incredibly mortified. I just couldn't hear the music anymore and I didn't know where to start again. I couldn't remember my routines! Where was I? What's next? I could just feel everyone looking at me with pity.
Eventually the ordeal ended and I hobbled off. I was fighting tears and my legs were shaking so badly I could barely walk. I sat in a stairwell crying, refusing to do the next event. My coach exercised tough love - ie. he was in my face trying to scare me into putting my shoes back on. It was also then that I was told that I somehow had made the cut for the finals. How did that happen?! Well, at that point I realized that the respectable thing to do would be to keep dancing. In the end, we did ok. We made the finals in both events, placing sixth. Not bad for my third competition.
The whole experience just goes to show you never know what the outcome may be, and being a perfectionist never pays off. I am always focused on doing my routines perfectly. Whenever something went awry during a practice I stopped. And when things didn't go perfectly, I didn't know how to recover. So here's to comebacks and keeping your head up when shit hits the fan. And I'm thinking that after that experience, things can only get better.
Also don't beg your partner to walk off between dances - in case your coach is like mine and can read lips.
I'm trying to find pictures from the weekend - but we were all too frazzled to take any. If some surface on Facebook, I will put them up.
Well at the Northern LIghts Classic in Edmonton last Saturday, the scariest of the scary occurred. Actually it was a combo - a 3 couple collision plus forgetting 2 of my routines. The samba started with us running into 2 other couples and it was just downhill from there. I was so incredibly mortified. I just couldn't hear the music anymore and I didn't know where to start again. I couldn't remember my routines! Where was I? What's next? I could just feel everyone looking at me with pity.
Eventually the ordeal ended and I hobbled off. I was fighting tears and my legs were shaking so badly I could barely walk. I sat in a stairwell crying, refusing to do the next event. My coach exercised tough love - ie. he was in my face trying to scare me into putting my shoes back on. It was also then that I was told that I somehow had made the cut for the finals. How did that happen?! Well, at that point I realized that the respectable thing to do would be to keep dancing. In the end, we did ok. We made the finals in both events, placing sixth. Not bad for my third competition.
The whole experience just goes to show you never know what the outcome may be, and being a perfectionist never pays off. I am always focused on doing my routines perfectly. Whenever something went awry during a practice I stopped. And when things didn't go perfectly, I didn't know how to recover. So here's to comebacks and keeping your head up when shit hits the fan. And I'm thinking that after that experience, things can only get better.
Also don't beg your partner to walk off between dances - in case your coach is like mine and can read lips.
I'm trying to find pictures from the weekend - but we were all too frazzled to take any. If some surface on Facebook, I will put them up.
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