Great Expectations

So OwnerGuy was supposed to help on our lesson and he did – at least for part of it.  We didn’t get much more done than looking at the Fox Trot and the pivot.  If all goes well, we should be able to do a passable version of it at Showcase on Sunday.

Stayed through the whole party.  Got a chance to dance a Rumba and a Swing with JoNY.  We still haven’t practiced a lot on the smooth dances and that concerns me a bit.  But, to be honest, at this stage in the game, there isn’t going to be much more I can do about.

Showcase starts at 9AM which is early but they have a metric crap ton of heats to get through.  Not sure how that happens.  For us some of it is because OwnerGuy is dancing heats with five different ladies.  Not sure how many each are doing but let’s say it is 20.  Well that would require 100 heats all by itself.  Yeah, that’s probably the main reason.

Its not a bad thing to have so many heats except that it makes for a very long day and you get towards the end and you’ve got heats in some of the minor dances with 2 people in them.  And here’s our 8th meringue heat with the same 3 people who have danced in all the others.  Yeah, that can drag quite a bit.

Now I sit here and wait for Sunday.  This is the part of the dance world that is not my strong suit.  The whole mental thing and getting yourself prepared to dance.  I don’t know how to set expectations because there isn’t a lot of quantitative feedback you can use.  Of course I want to do well but defining that is the problem.  If I base it on how I feel and things don’t go well, then it feels like a failure whether it is or isn’t.

It was sort of like the lesson when we were working on the pivot and I did one that sucked a little less than the previous one and both OwnerGuy and JoNY are telling me how great it was.  Yeah, see, I can’t go great.  And I probably should.  Fake it till you make it and all that.  Keep telling yourself that you are good and maybe you start to believe it.  Except I’ve got this other part of me that doesn’t like to sound like I’m bragging and when I get in those moods, I end up undercutting the nice words.  Like I did last night when I told them I couldn’t go great and that it was really just OK.

So, what do you have to worry about:

1. Hearing the music and the timing in Fox Trot and Tango.  With Kid T, I had improved my ability to dance on time and feel the music.  Now, I seem to have lost it mostly in the Tango and Fox Trot where there are sections with multiple quicks or different timing.
2. Floorcraft – I just have this nagging feeling that I’m going to be on the floor with OwnerGuy and Z a lot of the time.  In part because OwnerGuy is likely going to be on the floor most of the time.  And they’ll be doing their wonderful open routines and taking up space and I’ll be fighting to find room for my stuff.
3. Trust – OwnerGuy tells me and JoNY that we are a team.  Yep, but we’ve never been truly tested.  If I get stuck, is going to be able to bail me out?  If I have to break the pattern to avoid someone, is she going to trust me enough to follow?
4. The smooth dances – I love smooth dances. I know we did a great Viennese Waltz at the demo but our other smooth dances (Waltz, Fox Trot and Tango) are not great.  I used to not worry about these but now I have to.

Showcase is your chance to challenge yourself and see what you can do and it is my reintroduction and I’m afraid I’m going to blow it and just look rusty and unprepared because that’s kind of how I feel at times.

I suspect a lot of this will go away when I actually get to the dance floor.  It has in the past so I’m hoping it does again.

All you can do is dance your best dance.  Doesn’t really matter what anyone else does or looks like.  If you can say that you gave it your best effort, then that’s what matters.  (At least I hope that’s true)

I may not sleep real well on Saturday.  Not sure why this is getting to me so much.  It isn’t my first rodeo.  But I alternate between visualizing it going well and worrying about all the things that can go wrong.

OK, I think I’ve done all I can here.  Just wanted to ramble a bit and now I’m going to do something else to get my mind off it.