Friday, June 22, 2012

Maryland: Oct 1995


Awards:
1st Am Team
1st Int Team
5th WCS
6th R/V Int Q w/ Julia
5th Int W/Q
4th Int F/T
5th R/V Int Cha w/ Julia
6th Int Sa/J
2nd R/V Am Swing w/ Yoo Jin
6th Am Open Sw

Fri:
    In my car was Julia, Brian, and Tom A (Uggh...social reject). We left at around noon to get to DC in time for our private w/ Ron Bennent. The drive was okay. Julia and I talked the whole time. The private was AWESOME!!! We worked on Jive. Whoa - Jive overload. Our intro looks really sharp now, but the rest of our routine still looks crappy. It was a totally worthwhile lesson. Then we went to the social that Maryland was having.

We got there when they were teaching basic hustle and west coast. So we sat out and got settled and gathered our arriving team. Then when the instructor was showing them a step, she called from the center of the floor for me to get out there to help her demonstrate. I had no idea who she was or what she was even teaching... but I went out anyways. It was really funny. Appearently she knew of me from other comps and knew that I could lead whatever she was doing.

The social was fun. Danced around alot... practiced the new jive with Liz. It was really cool. There were 10 people staying at Liz's house that night. Which is actually less then we expected. Liz was planning on 14. But that was cool. We had Kim and Kyle from Delaware stay with us as well. Liz was a little pissed at one of the cars that stayed with us. They had basically arrived in DC around midnight, walked into Liz's house and crashed.. didn't tell mom that they were there or even who they were. This pissed Liz off alot.

We stayed out that night till about 1:30 or so. When we got back Liz and I stayed up with Mom while Liz did her toes and eyelashes and stuff. That night for whatever reason, Liz was wired.... so she read before going to bed, I completely passed out. This worked out really well... I was able to fall asleep with my arm around her while she read, and I didn't keep her awake, and then when she was ready to fall asleep - I already was... so I was able to hold her all night. That was really cool.

The comp was okay. But the way that they had it scheduled you really didn't get much of a break. At our level, we were dancing syllabus, intercolligiate, and open-to-all... these were run consecutively. And making it to finals for most of the rounds was death. We must have been dancing for a solid hr without breaks. Very difficult. You know there is something just wrong about cheering when you don't make call backs because it gives you time to breath.

Pat and Pam were both in a really pissy mood the morning of the comp. Both of them totally jumped down my throat when I talked to them. Just mentioning it for memory sake

Oh, one of the funny things that happened was during rookie/vet. I was dancing International style with Julia. We did fine an all... but we really didn't have all that much flight. When I got Liz for our heats... I think I must have covered the long side in 2 steps of waltz. It was a big readjustment. Kinda amuzing....

Here is something you'll like... you remember asshole announcer from DC comp? Well he was one of the judges. Not to worry though... he liked us. Actually it makes sense. I remember Kay saying that he really needed to see what a college comp was like and why normal rules don't apply to us.

Smooths went incredible well - other then being incredibly tired. And all of newcomers did really great. In everything. Latins on the other hand - didn't go so well... For whatever reason we didn't make call backs in R/C and this really upset Liz. So with Liz really upset, a become flustered and it took us almost 5 heats to regain ourselves. That kinda sucked.... and the effects of dancing a solid hour in latin is so much greater then the effects of a solid hour in smooth.

I danced with Kim for intercolligieates. The events were Waltz and Swing. For the swing, we were both exhausted from dancing so much. They played a really slow swing for the comp...so we decided to west coast to it - thinking that we would get eliminated that way. Wrong... we stood out and all the judges called us back. Foiled again.

The team matches were GREAT. We did Cha and Rumba as usual... but this was the most intense cha ever. This dance had to have been the all time biggest rush I've ever received while dancing in my life. The song that they played was Love Potion... jsut a great song in general. But not only is if a high energy song... but I know it VERY well.... our demo is even choerographed to it. Anyways... the song has a really long intro (if you want to hear it call my answering machine)... So whe n hte song started, the people in the club who recognized it and recognized it's relationship to us... gave a big holler. We stood poised for the entire intro.... you could totally feel the tension mount. It is like a 6 measure intro. Everyone else on the floor was already dancing. And Liz even said to me to go ahead and start. But we waited for the intro to end. The intro ends very abruptly and the high energy part kicks in almost immediately. We start right on cue, right at the beginning of the music. The entire CMU team yells. It is like an explosion.... you could just feel EVERY eye in the entire place turn to us. It was such an eye catcher.... just because we weren't moving and everyone else in the place was. And with the scream from CMU.... what a rush. Wow. WOW! what a feeling.

We ended up taking third in Cha team match -which is understandable given the competition, and first in Am Rumba team match -which is weird....The comp was a lot of fun. And I think that all of our newcomers really enjoyed themselves. Did I mention that we had 54 people go to this comp. It was great. We took up and entire side of the ballroom.

Let's see... Sat night we putzed around the ballroom for a while. We
went out for some drinks that night... because Pam really NEEDED a beer.
We tried going to a resturant/bar type place, b/c we had a lot of people
under 21 with us. But we couldn't find any at that time (1am) so we
dropped off the under people at a pizza place and we went next door to
the bar to hang for about 1/2 hour.  Then we were all really hungry (you
know we ALWAYS eat so well during a comp) - and we went to a incredible
bad diner for dinner.  We ended up leaving there by about 3 or 3:30...

Sun:
We went to the workshops. For the most part they were useless. VERY
beginner. Like Mambo basics and Waltz basics.  Except the Argentine Tango - that was AWESOME! IT was really funny. In the first workshop - "The discussion of the competition". The judge was saying that she really enjoyed judging this comp b/c so much of our personalities came through. After she said this, Tom (our socially challenged team mate) said "maybe that is why I did so bad, I have a miserable personality." Liz lost it. She covered her face with her hair and was bent over laughing for about 10 minutes. I think that it is really funny and sad too. He knows that about himself....and he hasn't changed it.....

The Argentine Tango was so great thouhg. It is so much fun. The guy (the
awesome one from the day before) taught like 5 moves., plus a lot of
technique too. It is such a great sensual dance... it would be perfect
for dance-a-thons. The frame for it is the girls arm totally around the
guys neck, pretty much on the guys left sholder blade... faces are
together - actually cheeks are in contact. IT is all very lazy, but with
very strong definate leads.

I ended up leaving DC around 5. The drive back was really painful, both
in terms of how tired I was (did you know I have a very loud bed, I
could hear it calling my name 3 hrs away :) ). The other reason why the
drive was painful was that Tom was in the car. See it wasn't bad on the
way down (I drove him down too)... b/c Julia and I talked the entire
time, mostly about non-ballroom stuff (yes - it is possible :) ) and Tom
really couldn't participate. But on the way back most of the talk was
about the competition - and so he could participate in that. And I don't
know how much you actually got to know Danny, but he is just full of
useless information.... Don't get me wrong - he is a lot of fun to be
around, but he can go on forever telling you things that you could care
less about. Well he and Tom fed off each other. Tom would ask a question
of make a comment, DAnny would answer or correct him and that would keep
Tom talking. It was all very annoying.

When I got home I totally crashed. I did good on Monday - except for my
classes... I couldn't stay awake at all... but outside class - no
problem.
Oh well... have to actually start thinking about school now... at least
for a month. Well..... I'll see what I can do about thinking about
dancing a little sooner then that. Like tomorrow :) :) :)

Anyways....

I've gotta run
Talk to ya soon!
Cheerio!
Drew

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