The ballroom drama continues in Week 3 of Dancing Queens! Sabrina, Donie, Colette and Gaëlle have travelled to New Orleans for their next competition, New Orleans Open, while Leonie prepares for American Star Ball in Atlantic City. We also meet the sixth lady of the show, Pooja.
Like Episode 1, this episode follows the ladies during the final days and hours before they step onto the competition dancefloor. As the countdown progresses, preparing to dance becomes less about rehearsing steps and more about the mental game.
Anyone who has competed seriously knows how important your mindset is. It will make or break you, and should not be ignored or dismissed. Someone who is well-prepared mentally will have their own inner demons managed and also have a plan for dealing with outside disruptions that are out of their control. As an introverted dancer with anxiety, I had to do a LOT of work to strengthen my mentality and develop strategies for dealing with external triggers. The good news is it can be done! And even better news – being mentally prepared allows you to be fully present and enjoy your dancing so much more.
Episode 3 included plenty of potential triggers to throw the dancing queens off their games:
M.I.A. Partners
Sabrina’s pro partner Stas has been in Mexico on vacation, so she hasn’t had much practice time with him since the last competition. Colette arrives at her dance studio for a lesson and after waiting for her pro partner Alex for a half hour, she learns that he is sick in bed. I have to give her a major shout-out for continuing to solo practice!
As the anticipation of an event picks up, you want to look to your dance partner for reassurance and also simply to remind yourself that you’re not doing this alone. When your partner is out of the country or too sick to get out of bed, the inner demons can get real noisy and throw all sorts of “what ifs” at you that you have to process on your own.
Ballroom dancing is a partner sport, but I quickly learned that I had to take care of myself as a pro-am student. I could never afford more than one or two private lessons a week with my teacher, so going a week without dancing with him was normal. Sometimes I would squeeze in a third lesson in the last week or two we had practice together before a competition, but then I would have to take a week or two off after the event before I could buy more lessons.
We absolutely should be able to count on our pro dance partners on the dancefloor, but we can’t always count on them to always be available to us the rest of the time. Dance teachers get sick just like the rest of us. They go on well-deserved vacations. My teacher was competing at the professional level with his wife at the same time he was competing in pro-am, so he was frequently out of town for events. As many of you know, solo practice became a very effective tool for me to grow as a dancer. I took it as my responsibility as the student to practice and prepare on my own so when my teacher did return, I was ready to pick up right where we left off.
Costume Changes
Leonie and Donie are both getting new dresses for their upcoming competitions. New dresses are fun, but if it’s something you’re not used to dancing in, a new dress can become a distraction. Donie took a risk by ordering a new dress that she wouldn’t be able to dance in until she actually arrived at the competition. If she had a chance to dance in it during a lesson ahead of time, she may have realized the turtleneck style would be uncomfortable and have had enough time to either alter the dress or find an alternative.
The cost of new dresses was not exaggerated on the show, though it’s not wholly necessary to purchase a custom-made dress or to wear a new dress at every competition. I wore the same pink (used) dress for years. My next dress was a gift from a fellow dancer and I only spent a few hundred dollars to have alterations done.
I think what is most important when it comes to your ballroom costume is that it fits well and you feel good in it. You want it to show off what you love about your body and disguise what may make you feel insecure. That way, when you look in the mirror, you think, “damn, I look good!”
I loved my pink dress because of the way it showed off my tree tattoo and because I could feel the weight of the skirt. When I was already feeling vulnerable by being under literal spotlights, being able to feel that physical weight around me helped me feel grounded and protected.
Something else to consider with a ballroom costume is how well it matches the character you want to portray. Leonie becomes Cleopatra when she dances and her dress needed to reflect that persona.
New Territory, Old Expectations
Pooja and her pro partner Kristijan (formerly Colette’s pro partner) are competing in the Latin style for the first time at New Orleans Open. For several years, she’s been competing and winning in the Rhythm style. So this competition is new territory for her, and like Sabrina moving from age group A to B, Pooja is coming from a place where she is used to being successful.
It’s not easy being the big fish in a small pond and then moving into a new lake. You’re not exactly starting over, but you kind of are. It’s easy to set high expectations for yourself based on the old pond, even though this is new territory.
Sabrina made it clear that her 2nd place at Tri-State was not acceptable when she had been winning in A. But 2nd place at your first competition in two years!? That sounds pretty awesome to me!
Expectations related to placements can really mess with your head if you’re not careful. You are not guaranteed to win, no matter how many previous first places you’ve taken home. Of course, we all want to win. Otherwise, why compete instead of performing in a recital or showcase?
The funny thing is I discovered I didn’t dance as well when I focused on the competitive aspect and the goal of impressing the judges and taking home a trophy. I’m grateful to a dance coach who shared that I seemed to be looking to the judges for approval instead of showing them my worth. Like there was a question mark to all of my movements.
When I stopped focusing on what others thought of me, including the judges, I shined on the dancefloor! I was able to own my dancing and own who I was as a dancer. Screw everyone else and their judgments! The funny thing is that mindset shift led to me winning a World Championship. I think it’s because I was able to be fully present in my own body, connected to the music and my partner. I was able to trust in the work I had done to prepare for that moment and just dance for the sheer joy and fulfilment. Everything else, like the technique and the choreography, took care of itself.
The Other Players
When you compete in ballroom, you’re not on the dancefloor alone. Other couples are dancing at the same time and vying for the judges’ attention. You have to be able to stay focused on your partner and your dancing without getting intimidated or distracted by the others dancing around you. Sabrina finds herself getting distracted by Gaëlle and later by Colette in the practice room at the competition. Colette is competing against her former pro partner for the first time and can’t let her feelings about the end of that relationship cause her to lose focus.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on competition practice rooms down in the comments. I avoided them like the plague because every time I went in one, the energy was way too intense for me. It was where people were panic-rehearsing last minute or showing off to intimidate others. I felt eyes on me more intensely in the practice room than on the competition floor itself.
My feeling was once you arrived at a competition, you were as ready as you were going to be. There was nothing more to learn once you arrived. There was nothing more to try to improve last minute. My teacher and I never practiced full routines at our comps. We might mark our dances, but it was primarily to reconnect as partners because we hadn’t danced together in a week or more.
I thought what Koysta said to Leonie was great – focus on your partner, the music, and your dancing when you’re out on the floor. That’s it! There’s nothing else. Stas said something similar to Sabrina when she got upset about seeing Colette in the practice room – it doesn’t matter who else is competing.
I found myself distracted by another women competing in my division at one point. She had appeared out of nowhere and started winning events that I thought I should have won. In my head, she felt like a rival that had to be beat, but just like when my focus was on the judges, my dancing suffered when I worried more about her than about my own journey.
Questionable Advice
It’s not always the rivals that can throw you off your game. Sometimes it comes in the form of questionable advice or feedback from within your support system. Donie’s look comes up a LOT on Dancing Queens as being “not the typical ballroom look”, and the underlying message is she’s not skinny enough to win. While I’m sure her teacher and her dance friends believe they are helping her by telling her what they think is the reality of the situation, I call bullshit and I wish they would stop focusing on it. No one is going to dance their best if all they hear is people indirectly telling them that they’re fat and that’s why they don’t place well.
Yes, a person’s appearance is a factor in how they’re judged on the dancefloor, but instead of focusing on how someone doesn’t fit into the ballroom mold, why not work on building confidence and presence on the dancefloor? Practice showing up with the attitude that it doesn’t matter what you look like because your dancing is badass. Own who you are as a dancer to the point that the mold becomes irrelevant.
I danced outside the mold when I chose to wore backless dresses to show off my tree tattoo. It was a risk that my teacher warned me about. Tattoos are not part of the ballroom tradition and some judges may penalize me. I knew every time I walked out with my tattoo visible, I would need to dance twice as well as others in order for that tattoo to become a moot point. I had to work harder to prove that I belonged on that dancefloor. The rebel in me who always responded “watch me” when she was told she couldn’t do something was motivated by that challenge.
Eventually, I stopped trying to prove anything because I finally started to accept all of me for who I was. So whether I fit the ballroom mold or not didn’t matter anymore because I knew who I was and where I belonged – I was a ballroom dancer and I belonged on that dancefloor.
None of this is simple or easy. The mind is a tricky thing and we can feel fully self-confident one day and full of doubt the next. We can believe we’ve gotten over something and then some trigger sends us spiraling. Mastering mindset is a practice, just like mastering our dance movements. It won’t necessarily win you more trophies, but getting your mind right will ensure you have a fantastic time dancing for those trophies.
As always, happy dancing!
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The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 
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