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Saturday was filled with dance lessons of different kinds.

First, 1.5 hours of DS Teacher Seminar with Silke. I noticed, the first year that I taught dance (when I was 14 and was a teaching assistant in ballet/tap/jazz combo classes for 6-8 year old girls) that my dancing improved tremendously. I thought, at the time (and for many years after, really) that the reason I improved so much was because I was determined to not let students pick up my bad habits. I'm coming to realize, however, that being extra dilligent about having proper basic technique for basic things is only part of the reason teaching helps one's dance so much. The other part is that in having to explain something to other people and be prepared for questions they might have, you have to think outside of the questions that you would ask about your own dancing. So you think more deeply about everything, and from more perspectives about how dancing really works.

It's especially true with ballroom. Ballroom has a man and a woman dancing together trying to display a single picture. Which means each person has different roles and objectives. In Latin, for instance, the woman's movement is a response to and continuation of the man's action. It's such a simple thought, really, but it totally changed how I thought about latin. Yes, I know there is lead and follow and the best dancers make you see a couple and not simply two good dancers dancing in unison. I'd never really stopped to think about why that happens, I merely observed that it did. So Silke's workshop gave me words... and also a thought that changed my dancing. A reason behind why connection is important. She said a bunch of other technique-y things that I think will be really good for my dancing, as well, but some words carry an idea with them that is so general and so widely applicable that they carry immense power. Now every step I take in Latin, I will think in terms of "how am I continuing his movement?" instead of "am I following correctly, am I connected properly, etc, etc." Because if I am really continuing his movement, then I will follow correctly and be connected properly. That will just take some time and work. :-)

After that, there was a group technique class. There is one of these technique classes every week, but this week was my week to take notes. Which was fun, as Tomas (one of my standard coaches) was teaching. He is a fabulous teacher, and I learned a lot about dancing in general and what makes quickstep different from other dances (something I knew intuitively, but again, words can make a huge difference), even though I was already familiar with many of the technical points he brought out. I saw things with new eyes, though -- ways of teaching technical points, ways of explaining things that I might bring in to practice with my partner as these technical points are just as important at our level (if not moreso!) as they are at the syllabus levels.

Finally, we had a lesson in quickstep. Which was great because Aira poked at my dancing just as much as she poked at Steve's. It's rare for this to happen, in part because I usually catch on pretty quickly, and in part because we dance standard... and with Steve being the guy and therefore the leader, often fixing his mistakes will fix problems that I am having. There's a lot to do to be a strong, active follower, but, as Stephen (another standard coach) points out, all the lady has to do is follow, and think about what she is and isn't getting from the man. The man has to lead and take care of floorcraft and make decisions about where to follow the routine and where to change it in order to not run in to other couples and decide on the timing of steps and all the rest. There's a lot involved in a task like that... and a good lead with a decent follower will create great dancing. A bad lead with a good follower creates mediocre dancing at best. So it's a treat when I get picked on. I am perhaps weird in that I like it when coaches are hard on me... it makes me feel like I am a good dancer who has potential (as I have seen many a coach work with mediocre dancers who don't seem to be going anywhere and they just correct things fairly mundanely). And I like that a coach will lead me in something saying "I'm not the best leader, but..." as it means I've gotten to a place where her lead is not so much better than my follow that I won't notice the difference. Plus, I really do want to be the best partner and follower that I can be.

Especially since I feel very good about my current partnership. After not-quite a year, I still enjoy dancing with Steve, and feel we are improving and improving together at an acceptable rate. I'm not improving as fast as I might like, but I feel that we are improving very nicely, and that I'm not really outrunning him. Not that we don't have little fights now and then or difficult practices or any of those things -- we do -- but that would be true in any partnership... and we always manage to get through and come out on top. I practice 4 days a week with him, most weeks, including spending all day on Saturdays dancing. I remember the studio in NYC and practice there and how 3 days felt like a lot. In some ways I wanted more, but often, I felt that 3 evenings a week, plus one for the NYU team should be enough... I certainly wasn't inclined to get up on saturday morning or sunday to head into the dance studio. I'm not sure if the difference now is that space isn't free, so I value the space we have on Saturdays and am willing to work under that constraint, or if there is something really different about this partnership that I really enjoy dancing 5 days a week (4 with him, 1 teaching), but it is a difference. I practice harder, I think, than I ever have... perhaps in absolute time a little less, but then I think the practices are more productive as Steve and I argue a lot less than many couples, and I love it. Which feels good because I believe, now, that I was being very honest when I said I would willingly practice as many as 15 hours a week. (It's more like 8-10 for me and Steve, generally, but still, that is a good amount, and I would willingly practice more, but don't *have* to do so).

And. Latin is coming together well. I think we will be okay in novice at the next couple of competitions. (Also, I finally finally have a real open jive routine! I love it! I have to say... starting open made me hate Smooth, but I think a lot of that was because of my partner and probably because I was in a little over my head (though I didn't realize it at the time). Open Standard and Open Latin have been a different journey. They may have felt a bit premature when I started, but then I looked at how I dance and the way people dance at syllabus and realized that I could hold my own in open so I might as well go for it. And open has been, for the international style dances, when I really started understanding them and loving them).

but apparently, they can break him.

IGB was Sunday night, and Steve and I were competing adult prechampionship standard. It was the largest prechamp field I'd ever competed in (17 couples, yay!), and we very definitively made the semifinal, with 4 of 5 or 5 of 5 recalls in every dance.

We danced at least the same as, if not better than the quarterfinal in the semi (though we did have some traffic problems and got stuck in some corners), yet we did not make the final. And several couples who did make the final were couples that we've beaten recently. The frustrating part was looking at the marks and watching our 4 of 5 or 5 of 5 drop to a total of 4 marks accross 4 dances.

I blame this on the fact that Steve does not own tails. And while he looked clean and presentable and I like a champion. (Even though I made my own ballgown... it really doesn't look it on the floor), I think the fact that Steve didn't have tails really hurt us. Because there were several couples who all deserved to be in the final, who all had the same number of issues, and thus the judges will, in many cases, reward those with a more polished look. In part, it is because we were dancing in an evening session and dancing at the prechampionship level... which means that we were dancing for spectating social dancers as much as competitors. The upside of this is that we got to have the bright stage lights in an otherwise darkened room and feel like performers as much as competitors. The downside is that we were in a situation where ballroom is being presented to the world, and that carries with it a certain image. At the prechamp level, it's not just about good dancing anymore. It's necessary, at that level, to have a look that tells the judges that you take your dancing seriously and that you have respect for your sport and art and craft and its traditions.

So, quite frustrating. Especially when we'd previously beaten about half of the couples who did make the prechamp final.

The plus side, however, is that Steve has recognized that he needs tails to be really competitive at the level at which we dance. I had been sort of prodding at this for a while, and he disagreed... and wanted to be frugal and delay getting tails as long as possible. And I understand that; I certainly have to be very careful about how I spend my money. But if I'm making a commitment to dancing, that requires committing completely, including investing a little in my look as a dancer. And I think Steve sees that now. Which is important and which is a definite good thing out of a bad result.

It helps that several pros (all three of our coaches), friends who are better dancers than us, and even strangers who are also better than us were all surprised that we didn't make the final and assured us that we belonged there. And any drop in the quality of our dancing we can blame on a lack of practice time directly before the competition due to Steve having had his wisdom teeth out a mere week before we were to compete.

It also helps that it's not the first time it's happened to me. The last time was in a final, where my partner and I were placed 4th after one couple we certainly should have beaten and one that we possibly could have beaten ... but again, the top three couples all had men in tails and women in thousand-plus dollar ballgowns.

So, all in all, the competition was a success, and we have room to grow and we will grow.

(Plus,it was nice to have my coach tell me I belong in prechamp. :-))

Oh, and the shows. Amazing. Simply amazing.

We got a new wall in Quickstep on Sunday. 'Tis most cute. And mostly a swinging wall, which is nice, because so much of our routine is hopping, skipping and jumping. And it did have charlestons in it, toward the end, which are tremendously cute. :-)

Also made some changes to the first wall. It doesn't move as much now, but Steve seems happier with it, and as Tomas (one of our coaches) points out, quickstep has inherent in it a lot of momentum. So being light and having good musicality is more important. I think the way that we rebuilt the end of the first wall will fix some of the problems with overshaping and a waffly frame that we used to have. And if it doesn't work when we practice, we can always change it.

I'm glad we're competing again soon. It's great to have time that's spent developing and reinventing material and adding material, which has been the journey of the last 3 months (wow, it really has been 3 months since we last competed. That's a very startling thought, really -- it doesn't seem that long), but getting out on the competition floor is important, too, as competition is sort of a measuring rod for improvement, and a reminder of how far we've come and what's left to be improved. (As, you know, dance really is all about the improvement).

I am also excited about this competition since my greatest cheerleader and biggest fan, my mom, will be here for it. She's never seen me dance open, and hasn't seen me dance at all since Nationals 2 years ago. I'd like to think I've improved a lot since then, so I'm excited to see what she thinks. :-)

So now the challenge will be getting everything done with my new gown in time for the competition. It's getting close... stoning to finish, choker and wings to make, and that's it, really. The challenge with the wings is that I want two-toned fabric, but need to do the dyeing myself, and thus must find time for coloring. Which I still haven't entirely figured out. Though I think I have a much better sense of it now -- I think my flaw with my last attempt was how I attempted to dry the fabric. If only I could find the right sort of two-toned chiffon. But I guess you can't have everything.