Another Showcase in the Books

It is a bit strange for me to think of ballroom dancing as a hobby but I guess it has crossed that line for me. OK, it has probably crossed the line into obsession but that’s another story. Its an odd and expensive hobby but it would count as one. I say odd because if something like golf is your passion, then you can usually just pick up the clubs and go play at any time.

If your primary interest is in social dancing, then there are generally going to be multiple opportunities to do that. I guess it is also true that there would be plenty of opportunities to do “real” ballroom events as well but it would involve significant cost and travel. So I just have to live for the few opportunities like Showcase that I can work into my life.

According to my Fitbit, I ended up clocking 13,417 steps during the day. But I also got credit for 489 active zone minutes. Zone minutes are based on heart rate and you get bonus points for minutes spent in the highest heart rate zones. So I wasn’t active for 489 minutes. Just enough Viennese Waltzes and Peabodies to keep the heart rate up.

My readiness score today was 1 and the Fitbit told me that was a “Low score” as if I couldn’t have figured that out. The really good pro dancers make ballroom look easy and effortless. When you do it, you find out that it is a lot of hard work. At the end of the day, everyone is tired and sore in spots but we’d all probably sign up to do another one next weekend. Maybe that’s where ballroom crosses the line into a cult.

It was a good day. Many of the heats were crowded and so there were a few, unavoidable bumps. They did mostly space out my heats although I got stuck twice with the five in a row rhythm (Cha-Cha, Rumba, Swing, Bolero and Mambo). And there was the time I had to do a Peabody right after a Viennese Waltz. That was fun. But I had enough space in between heats so I never got too over heated.

The portable fan was a life saver. Had so many people come over and say what a great idea it was. That happened at the last Showcase as well but I think everyone forgot because I was still the only one with a fan.

There was a big delay at the start because they had issues with the floor. So some of the heats at the end got cut a little short and they did have to cut out some of the social dancing at dinner so they could get to the awards and the pro show.

They did the solos in between the Smooth and Rhythm sections. That is good because you get all your costume changes out of the way and you don’t have to wait until the end of the day when everyone is tired. The bad thing for me is I could kind of feel myself mentally checking out after getting done with the routines so I wasn’t as focused on some of the rhythm dances.

Despite the Fitbit telling me to rest, I do have a lesson tonight. The pros generally are only available for the days right after Showcase so I’ve got coaching lessons booked with both of them. One for tonight and one for tomorrow. Then, we have our usual double lesson on Wednesday to go over what we learned. But I do have Friday off so I’ll rest then.