Every so often I have this feeling of despair when it comes to dancing. Like many dancers who enter competition in college or later and discover they love it, I feel like I started too late. Yet because of the cards I was dealt, there was nothing I could have done to change that. One part of my life was completely in my control, though: I wonder if I had stayed in Wisconsin, would I have been better off? In theory, I could have continued dancing for those 5 years instead of scrambling around Arizona being broke. At the time I left, I had a 40 hour/week job. I had saved a few thousand dollars and could have built a career for myself during a tough time in the economy. Instead, I disrupted my life and it took me years to find my feet again. Every once in a while I regret that choice. I feel time was wasted. I lost hours, days, and years in which I could have become so much better and have a stronger chance to become great.
My idea of greatness manifests in being able to move well and winning competitions. It's clear to me the latter is detrimental, and yet I still choose to believe it and consequently suffer. Right after Ibrahim and I came back from Nationals - a competition we hadn't planned to attend until the last minute and one for which we had no expectations - I had a mini breakdown. We felt so good about our results at first, and then I came home and realized the magnitude of work to be done to catch up to our peers. It has taken some of our fellow competitors years to advance within Pre-Champ and Novice levels. We had been dancing together for less than a year, so who knew how long it would take us. And we would continue to compete against up-and-coming kids. I felt hopeless and started crying uncontrollably at our next practice.
However, I did find a life raft in my sea of sadness. One thing that helped me gain perspective on winning, dancing, and defining success has been a book I started reading recently: Latin: Thinking, Sensing, and Doing in Latin American Dancing by Ruud Vermeij, one of the top and well-respected coaches in the dancesport community. In one section, he discusses the "competitive spirit" of dancers. He writes that when one is only goal-oriented, he loses the dancing. "So often," he says, "the 'competitive spirit' encourages the ego to become involved, seek satisfaction." I realized my ego sought winning. I wasn't focused on the experiences of dancing, but the results and I was becoming depressed because of this. However, winning isn't truly why I dance. It's a compulsion more than anything, and the very act of dancing makes me happy. Somewhere along the way - and not for the first time - I went off track.
Additionally, Vermeij talks about the vast subjectivity of judging at competitions and the many factors that influence results. I concluded that if you base the worth of your dancing on highly subjective measures and get caught up in trying to win, you not only lose your dancing but your sense of self...which I had started to do. It made me rethink my priorities. Even at one competition with the same judges, the scores for couples can all over the board and unpredictable. Even those in the final, which I witnessed at nationals. Bottom line: you might as well learn to dance well and do it for yourself.
The issue of getting older surfaces every so often, too. In order to have a good shot at becoming any sort of champion, you have to start by the age of 6, 7, or 8. Anyone who started later and became a legend had some sort of divine intervention in which a top professional took the person under his/her wing and built them up. Sometimes, I would think, "If I can't win, what is the point of even trying?" However, after coming to terms with my ordinary circumstances, I've realized I can either not dance and be sad or I can develop my dancing to the best of my ability. Really, there are no other options. I can't turn back time, so I might as well keep moving forward, even though the thought that my biological clock is ticking and I only have about 5 years to reach my peak is not comforting. Yet, videos like this one give me hope:
https://www.facebook.com/GrowingBolder/videos/10154408596533581/?pnref=story.
You can't deny this woman is pretty good! :)
Ibrahim and I would like to go to a few international competitions in our amateur career, namely Blackpool (England) and Paris Worlds. The age limit for competing in adult amateur is 18-34 or 18-30 in some cases. At Blackpool, once both people in a partnership are over 35, the couple must compete in Over 35 (Senior), which is a huge fall-off in competitive level. It isn't nearly as impressive being a senior champion as it is an amateur adult, professional, or even youth champion. At Paris Worlds, we could compete in amateur adult until I'm 40 technically, but we'll probably switch over when I'm 35 (if we make it that far!). However, the senior population and competitive level is picking up and many couples right now would still easily beat Ibrahim and me. So I am hopeful. Even though I would have appreciated several attempts at Blackpool and Worlds in adult amateur, I'm becoming ok with the idea of competing in senior. I told Ibrahim, however, that we need to make it there twice before we hit the senior category...and the first one will be in 3 years I hope.
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