Comp results
So finally, a report on last Saturday's dance competition...
In the morning we danced bronze and silver East Coast Swing, which was fun but we actually performed pretty badly. I botched the leads on a number of moves (we didn't have a routine or anything). Also, I tried swiveling my torso a little on my rocksteps, which is something that people tend to enjoy while I'm dancing with them, but I suspect didn't look to good to a 3rd-party judge. We ended up not getting called back for finals.
In the afternoon, for the nightclub dances, the only dance which we actually had any sort of routine for was Lindy Hop. Even in that case, the routine was pretty loose, with several places I could adjust it on-the-fly to try to fit the music better. For all of the nightclub dances we did (hustle, west coast swing, and lindy hop) we competed in the beginner-level categories.
Our first nightclub dance was Hustle. I should probably also note that at that point I had only taken a couple of beginner-level 90-minute hustle classes, so I could really only do beginner moves with so-so technique. ;) The song also started off without much of a tempo. After waiting a few measures, I got impatient and thought I detected a tempo, and so started dancing there. Unfortunately, it was a little too early, so I ended up dancing without a tempo for some time while everybody else was still waiting. Oops. In any case, we ended up not being called back for Hustle.
For West Coast Swing there were only ~13 couples competing, so everybody went instantly into the final round. Even though I've really only taken a couple of West Coast Swing workshops, I still managed to import a lot of my Lindy Hop experience. Also, Wendy is quite good at West Coast Swing stylization. After we danced, I felt really good about our performance. Even though we didn't really do much in the way of fancy moves, our technique felt reasonably solid and the dance seemed to flow very well. I even managed to hit a couple of breaks in the song!
For Lindy Hop there were ~5 couples, so we also went instantly into the final round. We ended up having to dance to a song which was pretty fast (~170bpm), which I think was way too fast for beginners to dance to. After watching last year's videos we had fortunately expected an absurdly fast so, so Wendy and I had actually spent some time explicitly training for fast music. Wendy switched over to some fast-lindy footwork we had devised, but I still ended up falling behind the music. We managed to get through most of our routine, but towards the end I reverted to just trying to do basic moves at pace. Afterwards I felt kind of so-so about how we did.
We also enjoyed watching the intermediate/advanced Lindy Hop competition. The same team won this year as last year, performing a number of crazy aerials.
As awards were given out, we somehow managed to get 4th place for beginner West Coast Swing. I was really surprised and pleased about that. As the Lindy Hop awards were announced, a few numbers were called without ours being announced. I was actually pretty sure that we had ended up not placing at all, but we somehow got called for 2nd place. That was quite a delightful surprise.
During the dinner break we chatted about the team matches, which are these zany-ish events where team members compete in various strange events. Examples for that evening were "Hollywood Tango," which was highly-exaggerated tango, "Reverse Samba," where the men and women would switch dance roles, and the guys often ended up wearing the ladies' dance clothing, and "Skippy Polka," much like normal polka but even skippier.
Megan asked me if I was interested in dancing "Skippy Polka," but I declined, as I don't even know regular polka. After dinner I was doing videography, but right before the team match I noticed Megan waving at me. I went down to her and she informed me that I was dancing "Skippy Polka" with her during the team match. She quickly showed me how to dance polka, and the team match ended up being quite a bit of fun.
Apparently there's going to be some upcoming competitions at Cal Poly Obispo and UCSD. I'm still undecided about whether or not to go...
In the morning we danced bronze and silver East Coast Swing, which was fun but we actually performed pretty badly. I botched the leads on a number of moves (we didn't have a routine or anything). Also, I tried swiveling my torso a little on my rocksteps, which is something that people tend to enjoy while I'm dancing with them, but I suspect didn't look to good to a 3rd-party judge. We ended up not getting called back for finals.
In the afternoon, for the nightclub dances, the only dance which we actually had any sort of routine for was Lindy Hop. Even in that case, the routine was pretty loose, with several places I could adjust it on-the-fly to try to fit the music better. For all of the nightclub dances we did (hustle, west coast swing, and lindy hop) we competed in the beginner-level categories.
Our first nightclub dance was Hustle. I should probably also note that at that point I had only taken a couple of beginner-level 90-minute hustle classes, so I could really only do beginner moves with so-so technique. ;) The song also started off without much of a tempo. After waiting a few measures, I got impatient and thought I detected a tempo, and so started dancing there. Unfortunately, it was a little too early, so I ended up dancing without a tempo for some time while everybody else was still waiting. Oops. In any case, we ended up not being called back for Hustle.
For West Coast Swing there were only ~13 couples competing, so everybody went instantly into the final round. Even though I've really only taken a couple of West Coast Swing workshops, I still managed to import a lot of my Lindy Hop experience. Also, Wendy is quite good at West Coast Swing stylization. After we danced, I felt really good about our performance. Even though we didn't really do much in the way of fancy moves, our technique felt reasonably solid and the dance seemed to flow very well. I even managed to hit a couple of breaks in the song!
For Lindy Hop there were ~5 couples, so we also went instantly into the final round. We ended up having to dance to a song which was pretty fast (~170bpm), which I think was way too fast for beginners to dance to. After watching last year's videos we had fortunately expected an absurdly fast so, so Wendy and I had actually spent some time explicitly training for fast music. Wendy switched over to some fast-lindy footwork we had devised, but I still ended up falling behind the music. We managed to get through most of our routine, but towards the end I reverted to just trying to do basic moves at pace. Afterwards I felt kind of so-so about how we did.
We also enjoyed watching the intermediate/advanced Lindy Hop competition. The same team won this year as last year, performing a number of crazy aerials.
As awards were given out, we somehow managed to get 4th place for beginner West Coast Swing. I was really surprised and pleased about that. As the Lindy Hop awards were announced, a few numbers were called without ours being announced. I was actually pretty sure that we had ended up not placing at all, but we somehow got called for 2nd place. That was quite a delightful surprise.
During the dinner break we chatted about the team matches, which are these zany-ish events where team members compete in various strange events. Examples for that evening were "Hollywood Tango," which was highly-exaggerated tango, "Reverse Samba," where the men and women would switch dance roles, and the guys often ended up wearing the ladies' dance clothing, and "Skippy Polka," much like normal polka but even skippier.
Megan asked me if I was interested in dancing "Skippy Polka," but I declined, as I don't even know regular polka. After dinner I was doing videography, but right before the team match I noticed Megan waving at me. I went down to her and she informed me that I was dancing "Skippy Polka" with her during the team match. She quickly showed me how to dance polka, and the team match ended up being quite a bit of fun.
Apparently there's going to be some upcoming competitions at Cal Poly Obispo and UCSD. I'm still undecided about whether or not to go...