There Will be Dancing

Today is the day we get to talk about ballroom dancing. With just a little ‘rona thrown in because you can’t simply ignore it.

There is big news from the studio! OwnerGuy has decided to do a combination medal ball/showcase. It will be held in the studio on a Saturday night in November. Dinner will be served.

Now, it is going to be vastly different from all previous Famous Franchise events. I don’t yet have all the details so I’m only going on what Mini told me which is what she heard from OwnerGuy. There will be no other studios invited. Since it is an evening event, I believe they are not going to have the open heats but just limit the Showcase portion to solo routines.

I think the Medal Ball part will replace the open heats but I’m not entirely sure of that just yet. Sounds like one of the other area owners is going to show up to be the judge. In the times of the pandemic, change is required but it will still be an opportunity to actually dance a routine in front of people.

Several people had already signed up and I naturally agreed to do the Quickstep again. We did it last year for Showstoppers but Mini is promising to add some additional stuff and clean it up a bit.

The Medal Ball is not going to include any International (Standard) check outs. But I was informed that OwnerGuy is bringing in a coach the following week with a lot of experience in that style so I’ve been signed up to check out of Bronze in Waltz and Quickstep. Kind of interesting because I really haven’t actually danced the complete Waltz yet so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh and OwnerGuy is also bringing in another coach in late September so I’ve been signed up for that.

I have to assume that all of this is predicated on the ‘rona fading a bit in the fall. Is that going to happen? Hard to say. Will probably get a bit of an idea today when our new state counts come out. The days at the end of the week are always the “high” days so we have to see if we are able to stay under 1000 new cases on a high day. Depending on the source, yesterday’s count was the lowest since sometime in early July but one day does not make a trend. I did a deeper dive into the numbers and at least one region that was spiking looks to be in decline. So, you never know. All we can do is work towards it and see what happens.

And that meant we spent all of the lesson reviewing the Quickstep. Trying to apply some of the footwork things I’ve learned in the Waltz to the Quickstep and trying to remember to land softly. Spent more time on a couple of steps that are a little different. One is like an open box. There’s a name I’ve got written down but I can’t recall it right now. The key is to power through the first two steps which stay down so you can rise (slightly) and rotate (a lot) on the next two. The third stays up and then you come down on the end of the fourth. The other one is an impetus turn which I’ve done before but not quite using the correct technique and alignments so that is what we worked on.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we also discussed some of the other dances I’ve had to put on hold since JoNY left for greener pastures. Mini does want to start working on some of those as well. Clearly I don’t want to divide my attention and work on a bunch of different dances when I’m only taking one lesson a week so I’ve been fine with letting those ride for a bit. I think it may bother OwnerGuy more than me since I’m pretty close to checking out of Bronze III in a bunch of the smooth and rhythm stuff. So how can I just leave all that hanging out there?

As I’ve said, it doesn’t really bother me. The world has been turned upside down and moving from one level to the next doesn’t seem critical in the grand scheme of things. I figure if it is meant to happen, it will happen and it will happen when the time is right.

I will say that the possibility of a Showcase and the return of coaches is starting to bring a sense of transition. For some reason, all I think of is the scene in the first Narnia movie where the Ice Queen’s power is weakening and the snow and ice start melting all over the place. Why that image? I don’t know. It just seems to be appropriate for where we are right now. Although I have a feeling that the ice is going to melt a lot lower in real life than in the movies.

And, with that, I’ll end.