Sandbagging

You can learn a lot from your competitors and the competitor of choice for Ibrahim seems to be Chris Henzie. Last year, we watched him win novice ballroom at nationals by doing basic syllabus figures. We were shocked and started dramatically simplifying our routines.

This year - a few days ago - Ibrahim looked up Chris's competitive history. It turns out he was a collegiate dancer who started around the same time as I did - 9 years ago. He moved his way up through syllabus and then into open ballroom and latin. However, in 2014, it was like someone hit him on the head and he changed courses abruptly. He started over and went right back to bronze ballroom in amateur (he dropped latin). Since then, he has steadily achieved top places in every category every year at nationals - first bronze, then silver, then gold, then novice. This year he finaled in pre-champ.

In my opinion, it takes a certain amount of humility to completely start over. Most collegiate dancers jump ahead categories before they are ready. Then they get stuck in them forever, repeating mistakes in basic figures and movement principles. However, Chris's strategy could also be what dance federations are trying to eliminate: people competing below their level and then winning at national competitions (i.e. sandbagging). Yet Chris is consistently climbing, so I wouldn't call what he did unethical. I would actually call it smart. Ibrahim and I can't go back to bronze ballroom, because he's already pointed out of syllabus. (I never competed syllabus in amateur, so I could probably do it still.) However, it's an interesting idea, especially if your goal is long-term and you want to improve fundamental technique. If we keep Latin, we might consider doing just that.

Chicago Dancesport Challenge - Standard

I think I messed up more at this dance competition than I did at any other. During my first side of foxtrot, I caught Ibrahim's leg 1/3 of the way through and stumbled around pretty badly the rest of the way. I thought for sure we were done. No callback. We messed up a lot after that, too. Aside from mistakes, though, my posture was visibly poor. I was definitely tired and my neck was cramping.

Off the floor, we waited for results and got ready for the next event. Each time I was expecting not to be called back. And each time we were. I was honestly surprised.

However, the rounds became more challenging in terms of energy. I remember thinking each time I walked on the floor, "Oh my god I can't do this." The thought of Quickstep made me want to cry. But I had to do it. Almost every time I was praying for the music to be over.

When we reached the final rounds and stood waiting to go on the floor, Ibrahim said, "It doesn't matter what happens from this point forward. We made the final and we're going to nationals." Ibrahim originally wanted to place in the top three, but when we saw our competitors, we knew it would be tough. From this point forward, we just wanted a clean run; we were content with our placement - whatever it was.

When we finished the Pre-Champ final, I was nearly dead. We lined up and awaited our awards. I kept waiting for the next number they called to be ours, but it was always someone else's. Finally it came down to me & Ibrahim and Colin & Aya, two dancers who were much more experienced than us. I was ready to take second. And then the official called their number. ...What?? I looked at Ibrahim. We WON?? I'd never won anything in ballroom before (nothing that was contested anyway). I honestly didn't think I'd ever win...just final my way through, lol. So this was a big deal.

The Novice final was next. I thought it would be weird if we won the higher level and not the lower one, but it could happen. People trip all the time and mess up.

Nope, we won that one, too. I got to bow twice!

I was floored by these results. Did we look better than I thought? Did everyone else really look worse than us? I needed feedback. I asked Heather and my former coaches for their honest opinions...and they let me know. They were as surprised as we were about the results. Out of the two of us, I seemed to be the weaker link: I looked like I was hanging on Ibrahim sometimes, struggling to keep up with him, moving into his space, looking like I was going to pass out, and my neck was contorted; our movement looked flat and about half the time we weren't in harmony together.

That all brought me back down to earth. They told me not to take the criticism too harshly - enjoy the win - but remember that a placement isn't necessarily an indicator of your dancing. You could do really well and not place and do poorly and win. It all depends on the judges. Sometimes you get lucky and they only see your good moments.

...well, I did ask for their opinions, right?

Watching the videos afterward was painful. I saw everything my friends and coaches saw. Heather was filming and at one point she yelled, "You got this! Almost done!" ...and you could see me bob along with a crooked neck...looking like a dying swan.  But somehow we got through and the judges either missed our mistakes or didn't regard them as significant. I really didn't get it. The only explanation anyone, including myself, could come up with was that Ibrahim had a really good frame and large movement (because he's tall). It made him/us stand out.

This competition gave me a lot to think about. I've been enjoying the high of winning, for sure. Even if I don't talk about it, I'll just start smiling and think, "Wow! We did it!" However, there's also a feeling that our win wasn't real...that something was wrong and that's how we got through. Instead of making me feel confident, I now feel like I need to step up my game and prove that I deserve to win. I need to show that I don't look like a dying swan, but a flying one....that this result may have been a fluke, but that doesn't mean the rest will be. It's a tall order and we will have to practice a lot.

Standard at Galaxy, the aftermath, and photos.

I never followed up from my previous post. The Standard part of the competition went fine. One of my favorite coaches from the midwest who probably did not remember me and had no idea I took a lesson from him at one time - Bill Sparks - even came up to us afterward and said, "good job!" That made my day. Probably by the nature of Standard, our dancing wasn't amazing, but it didn't make me cringe when I watched the video. Latin makes me cringe almost always.

Like I mentioned in my last post, we decided to scale down our latin routines. We've trimmed them severely and essentially made them syllabus, which I'm totally ok with. It's such a great feeling to do a simple figure and work on the movement instead of racking your brain trying to remember where your feet go or hope you keep your balance during the syncopation. We're still struggling to remember some parts, because our old routines are still in our bodies, but I hope we can pull it together by the end of the month.

For those of you not on my facebook or instagram, here are some photos from the event:

 This photo is of Ibrahim sewing my large stones on my dress...and me wearing them! *Teamwork*

 This is a start, but hoping to make these jumps bigger in the future. 

Galaxy Dancesport Competition - Latin

We competed on Thursday evening in Latin at Galaxy Dancesport Festival and I was terribly nervous. I was afraid of forgetting my routines and with good reason: they were complicated and had sections that were similar enough to confuse. Also, we were the only couple in our event. This meant that we would "win" regardless, but also that we would be the only ones on the floor. If we messed up, we were front and center. During open warm ups, I continued to drill sections, with or without Ibrahim. I just had to get through these few sections of Cha Cha - our first dance - and I'd be ok.

 As luck had it, they combined our event with open Latin, so we had another amateur couple to compete with. It made me feel a little better to share the focus with others on the floor. That's such a change from when I was a young child. I loved being the center of attention at dance recitals. My teachers would actually PUT me in the center of my peers because I was the most charismatic. Twenty five years later, though, I am exceedingly nervous when asked to demonstrate or perform by myself. I wonder what happened.

We got out on the floor and messed up our Cha Cha almost immediately. Ibrahim's mind went somewhere else and he started changing our choreography. When we realized we weren't in a good position to continue, we floundered for several seconds and it was obvious. My mind was confused until Ibrahim did something I recognized. Then we were ok, but I continued to make mistakes. Not huge ones, but ones that would make me cringe when watching the videos. We made it through samba and rumba ok. Still made mistakes, but they didn't throw us off. One of our standard coaches, Artem, was there watching. When we left the floor, he gave us both hugs and said we needed to have drinks before we went on the floor to help us relax. He told us good job, but it felt like consolation.

Ibrahim talked to Artem afterward about our dancing. Artem told him that we did some things better than the other couple, but we were also all over the place and doing choreography way over our heads. The other couple, whose dancing was smaller and simpler, would beat us because they were cleaner. That stung. Going into the competition, we definitely thought we were technically better, but it turns out we weren't. If we were stronger than them on some things we masked it with our inability to do anything else well.

 Ibrahim and I had a conversation about our dancing on the 2.5-hour drive home. This performance left me disappointed. I was unhappy with myself for being so anxious. I thought I could have danced better, but my nervousness about losing my balance and forgetting my choreography got in the way. I also felt like we had a mountain in front of us. We had spent over four months building three new Latin routines that we couldn't actually dance. It shouldn't take that long. We barely spent any time working on basics - the quality of our dancing. Our next comp was in less than two months and if we wanted a chance to qualify for Nationals, we would again need to work on our routines and simplify them. Moreover, I felt that the responsibility of this rested on our shoulders. One of our coaches came up with one of our routines for last season on the fly and for reasons I won't explain here, it it wasn't good. So my trust in her choreographing dropped. Our other coach - our main Latin coach - for some reason can't tell us "no." I like her as a person and she's become like family to me. However, she can't seem to gauge our level or tell us not to do something if we aren't ready for it. If we look at a move by a professional couple and say we want to do that, she helps us incorporate it into our routine. She doesn't say, "no, that is above your level, you should be doing X instead." As students, we're clueless. We don't always know that we can't do something. We need someone to guide us, at least until we're experienced enough to understand better what we're doing. Our Standard coaches tell us what to do all the time, because they know we don't understand certain concepts yet.

 We watched our videos when we got home. They weren't as horrible as we thought, but I had hoped for better. Ibrahim thought our dancing was an accurate display of our level and our ability. We decided not to rebuild our routines completely, but we will try to simplify them where we can.

 We compete in Standard on Saturday. Hopefully those dances will go better.

Competition (Not) Ready

My first ballroom competition in six years is today. It's a small, local competition - we're the only adult amateurs competing in fact - so it's more like a show. There will be 1-2 other couples on the floor with us competing in senior and/or pro-am.

Honestly, I'm terrified. I'm afraid I'm going to forget my routines, and since we aren't surrounded by people, everyone is going to see our mistakes. I'm also afraid of costume malfunctions. My standard dress is a piece of patchwork - we tried to fix it up because my new dress hasn't arrived yet. It's so old, though, that we're just praying it doesn't fall apart. We are literally pinning and sewing it back together. Lucky for me, Ibrahim can stitch. They teach trade skills to all Russian kids in school, along with math, science, reading, etc. He can fix a car, build furniture, sew, practice basic survival medicine...he's like my own MacGyver. Anyway, my latin dress isn't perfect either...it's so long that my heels keep getting caught. Like I need something else to keep track of when I'm out there...

Everything else - I decided this morning - is going to be basic. Basic makeup with fake eyelashes. Basic hair. Basic nails. We don't dance until 7pm, but I'm going to start getting ready at noon probably.

I'm very nervous.