Goals for 2019

Last year taught me that if you decide to do something and start moving to make it happen, doors will open. Our wedding put me behind in figuring out goals for this year, but I've finally come up with a few.

My first goal is to expand our dance coaching opportunities. We love our coach Artem and we want to keep him as our main teacher. However, we also want to start networking and building relationships with teachers who train champions, specifically senior champions. Moreover, we want to learn the WDSF style of dancing, which is mostly danced in Europe. So I've started reaching out senior level champions and asking them about their teachers. Facebook is surprisingly helpful when it comes to this. I messaged the current world champion in Germany and she responded right away. After searching her teachers, I found out one of them is organizing a camp in Germany in October with several high level teachers attending. At first, I wasn't sure if we could afford a trip over there, but we discovered a Norwegian airline that sells tickets for about $500. This trip was looking like it could happen.

My second goal is start a vlog. I want to create videos about our adventures and dance lives. I plan to put the first one out in June.

My third goal is to begin changing careers. I don't like my job and I hate going to work every day. I have many great colleagues, but I feel like my abilities are not being utilized in the way that is most effective. And it makes the little annoyances feel unbearable. However, changing careers without disrupting the rest of your life is hard. I ultimately want a different community, more creativity, and more freedom. I also *like* learning about business and accounting and I miss that drive that makes me feel like I'm building something. I don't know how I'm going to pull this off or what I want to do exactly, but I have to make it happen.

Dancing with Our Stars performance

My long overdue post is finally here. I had three performances and a competition in May and it was a whirlwind of dancing. But it was a lot of fun, too. I felt like I crossed off some big personal goals of mine. Ibrahim and I performed our Iko Iko samba-quickstep routine for two Dancing with the Stars charity events and our studio's showcase. I really enjoy samba, so I was glad to do it.

My favorite performance by far was the Dancing with Our Stars event put on by the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona. That was the one where we had to raise $2000 to perform. It all came together in a crazy, hectic way, but it did come together and it was awesome. I felt incredibly fulfilled performing in front of a few hundred people, and the physicians with whom I work were among them. Our performance was our best of that dance - technique maybe wasn't top notch, but we didn't mess up choreography or trip. People came up to us afterward (some we knew and some we didn't) and said we did a great job. I felt like my doctors looked at me in a different light and saw the Amy I wanted them to see - the real version of myself. It was a dream.

Here is the link to the show:  https://youtu.be/sEx2Rj1UFxc

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.

Losing Trust and Latin Dancing

It’s disheartening to lose trust in your coaches. You want to hold them up as knowers-of-all who will lead you successfully through the world of dance. However, at the end of the day, they are people and I think I’ve questioned all of them at one point: they’ve given me instruction that seems mechanically incorrect, or they’ve been too vague (i.e. “you need to figure it out for yourself [what I mean]), or they put you – the student – in charge of the lesson. They all have the knowledge, but occasionally a flag goes up. I’ve learned that sometimes a flag is actually a different interpretation or a quirk of the person. For instance, I have one teacher who can be so cryptic at times that her instruction causes me frustration. But then one day – after months of not seeing her - she’ll give a simple correction, and everything she said before strikes like a chain reaction: piece after piece suddenly come together and I can see a larger picture. My faith is restored.

However, I feel like Ibrahim and I are struggling with our Latin coach. We had a long conversation with her about a month ago regarding trust. This was a conversation I wanted to write about because it was particularly insightful, but I haven’t had the time. Essentially, she didn’t think we trusted her, and we didn’t. We felt like she let us do whatever we wanted and didn’t take the reigns in teaching us. She realized this was because of the teaching style imposed on her when she worked in an American chain studio: “the customer is always right” sort of deal. She was understanding now that this wasn’t what every student wanted or needed. She’s been trying a new approach ever since and it’s been helpful.

Our improvement in Latin, though, has been smaller and moving more slowly than that of our Standard, even though we have Latin lessons almost every week (we have Standard about twice a month). It’s hard to say why this is…are we physically less apt for Latin dancing? Did our trust issue with our coach put us behind? Is it our coach’s instruction? Is it because we won a few Standard events in Chicago, and consequently we have more drive to improve?

Let me just vent for a second. I’m losing interest in Latin dancing. I used to love it because I loved feeling every muscle in my body move. I love the drums in samba…they feel like a second heartbeat coursing through my body. However, my joy is not in Latin these days. It’s a struggle to practice, but I make myself do it. Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been doing it for Ibrahim. He wants to improve and keep going. I might be going through a phase, and maybe I’ll get excited about it again once I see some progress. But it’s been a struggle. When I dance Latin, I feel like I give it a 10 (out of 10) and on video it looks like a 2.5. I don’t like the way I look. We’ve been working on three dances for the last year and a half, and I am not interested in learning the other two. I feel like we have a better chance of making some gains in Standard competitions, and I’d rather do that. I’d rather put my energy into one style and excel at it than spread my resources thin and stay in pre-champ for years. I admit that I'm also losing some faith in my Latin coach, and may become more frustrated with it if we continue taking lessons. I like her as a person and I'm willing to keep going for a few more months, but if I make an effort and don't see much improvement, I have a feeling I will want to cut it off.

But every time I bring up specialization, Ibrahim says, “Let’s get through this year’s nationals and then assess.” So that’s our plan through April.

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. 

Buying a Latin Dress - Part 3

A waited a few days after my last post to think about my options and see if I heard from anyone else. The woman from Portugal didn't respond and I didn't want to chase her. If it took her days to respond to an email, I could imagine the whole process would be like pulling teeth.

I asked Lena in England more questions about costs and fabrics. It was possible for her to make me something less expensive than Marina in NY, but if the pound jumped up and then if I added shipping costs on top of labor and materials, it could come out about the same. However, I decided to go with her anyway. I didn't contact the woman in Utah again. I didn't want another conversation of me saying, "I'm sorry, I'm not interested," and then having her send me ten text messages about why I need to have one of her dresses for X amount off..."such a great deal!" No thanks. Lena was open about all costs of the project (labor & materials) and Marina offered me different price options to choose from. Neither of them pressured me into anything...probably because they have some regular work? I'm not sure. I sent Marina an email thanking her, saying I chose a different route this time, but would like to keep her in mind for the future. She was very cheerful: "Thank you! No problem! :)" And that was it. Perfect.

One important lesson I learned while doing this is that just because you have a beginning design, it doesn't mean you will end up with it. Lena and I went back and forth on design. I kept asking questions and changing my mind, while she sent me photos of other work she's done that resembled my ideas. Here's one example: I wanted a fringe dress and when I sent her a photo, she expressed doubts that it would work, because fringe is heavy and it probably wouldn't hold up the way the picture showed. I knew she was right...the old fringe dress I had was heavy. So I searched and searched for other dress ideas. I would send her something else and we would talk about it. She would send me more photos and I would take a few days to think about her ideas.  I was so tired of making decisions. I was ready to pay whatever to have her decide and be done with it. Then I finally found something I could be happy with. It was basic, but classy and it had the potential for several different stone designs. I sent it to Lena and she said she could make it.

Mariana from Portugal finally emailed me back and said she would send me sketches. I wrote to her saying, "Thanks for getting back to me, but because I wasn't sure I'd hear from you, I went with someone else." She was disappointed but understood. I guess she had some shipments come in that were keeping her busy. However, if you don't respond to customers and at least let them know you are busy, they *will* move on. Back to my dress...

Lena chatted with Ibrahim and me on Skype yesterday. We had a tape measure and Ibrahim performed all the measurements in front of the computer so she could see. The conversation was mostly between her and Ibrahim, but sometimes me as well...a hodgepodge of English and Russian. It turns out I was almost the exact size as Lena's daughter, so she could use her mannequin and Sasha as a model. Lena asked about stoning and I told her I needed more time; I had no idea. She said I had about four weeks to think about it. Good enough. When we hung up, I was incredibly relieved. The dress was mostly out of my hands now.