Last Dance Competition of the year

So yesterday was the Intervarsity Dance Competition which also happens to be the last competition of this academic year. Some time ago I had been looking forward to the competitive season being over so I could focus more on maths again (okay so I was a lazy git this term). But now that it’s over I’m missing competitions already. Let’s face it the atmosphere is great, I enjoy competing and the demonstrations are usually awesome. I guess it’s safe to say that I will continue competing next year, even though it will cut into my study time (but dancing is so much fun). Ah well, I still got the medal exams to look forward to.

It was a fairly successful competition too. We made the semi-finals in the Quickstep but unfortunately didn’t make it that far in the Waltz. Which was a bit distressing. Seriously, I can’t see why couple 48 made it through one more round than we did. On another lighter note the IC beginners team won the best beginners team trophy. So while I never made a final I still ended up getting a prize.

Also I never actually said how well we did in the competition two weeks ago in Bath. We made the quarter finals in both Waltz and Quickstep. So after a total of 4 competitions we total 4 semi and 2 quarter finals. Not bad. Hard to say how the next year will turn out, especially since we won’t compete as beginners anymore. But we’re looking forward to it – should be fun.

Dance competition

After I’ve spent most of the last two days working on tomorrow’s radio show I thought it was about time that I wrote a quick something about last Saturday’s Sheffield Social dance competition. First off, it’s really neat that I get to look up the results online. Either way, let’s start at the beginning.

I wasn’t really expecting too much as it was only last Wednesday that I was really struggling with the timing in the Quickstep. Waltz on the other hand didn’t seem too bad, though I was, as usual, obsessing about corners. I don’t like corners, though I’m sure I’ll eventually get over it.

Luckily, in Sheffield you dance in an octagon. Everyone was telling us beforehand how awful that was, but I dare say I really like the octagon. I basically treated it like one big circle, so I just did my thing without ever really having to think about taking any corners. This might have played a role as to why I did pretty well. The other factor was that I had spent most of Wednesday night working out the timing in Quickstep, this was followed by a little practice on Thursday afternoon and apparently this was all it took to be ready for the big day.

I was surprised that we didn’t get kicked out on the first round of both the Beginner’s Waltz and Quickstep as we were off-time (only for a short amount of time, but still) in the Waltz after bumping into another couple and our Quickstep felt really messy and disorganised (it felt that way every round, though I could tell it was getting better, but I guess one can’t trust one’s feelings).

But, low and behold we made it to the semi-finals in both the Waltz and Quickstep ending up on the 9th place in both. Furthermore we came 12th in the Team Waltz competition. Nevertheless these are all numbers and they ultimately don’t really matter that much to me. What I was really chuffed about (and still am as a matter of fact) was that Dorothy, our teacher, was rather positively surprised at my performance. She often said in practice that I don’t offend. This isn’t really a bad thing, but it’s not exactly something to write home about either. Whereas on Saturday after one of the Waltz rounds she looked at me and said ‘what was that?’ I obviously knew that it had been one of my better performances so I replied ‘was that good?’ and she said ‘you used to not offend, but now you’re actually pleasing’. That clearly made my day.

Now we’ve got two weeks till the next competition and I hope we’ll be able to continue to please with our performances.

PS: One may wonder why I only described my performance rather than our performance (including my partner’s). The reason being rather straightforward; unlike her I don’t first blame my partner when things go wrong. Seriously, after the Beginner’s categories when we practiced for the team event she was all do this, don’t do that, nag nag nag. In case anyone wonders, the reason why she’s my partner is that I’m a slow-burner (ie. it takes a lot to piss me off). So from that point of view I’m looking forward to the 11th of March when the competition season is over because she starts to get on my nerves.