We’re in the final countdown to the competition that the Dancing Queens ladies have all been preparing for: Millennium Dancesport Championships. This competition is a very large regional event that is known for its elaborate themes. For example, 2023’s theme was Egyptian Nights. When I attended the event in 2018, the theme was comic book superheroes. The theme of the 2022 Millennium on Dancing Queens was a nostalgic flashback to the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
We haven’t arrived at the competition yet in Episode 7, but the ladies are in serious prep mode with lessons with their pros, cross training, and getting outside coaching. Through the pressure and stress of doing everything they can to ensure the best chance of dancing away as the champion, an important truth emerges in this episode – dance at its core is about joy.
I appreciated the storytelling arc between Episodes 6 and 7 because it reflected a journey that many of us go through. We hit a point when at competition after competition, our results are not what we had hoped. We feel disappointed and frustrated, and we start to question our efforts. Our self-esteem and self-confidence take a hit. In order to recover and keep moving forward in our dancing, we have to pause and reconnect with our joy of dancing. That joy keeps us motivated and helps us maintain a positive mindset as we work through the more difficult times.
After her fight with her pro partner in Atlanta, Sabrina gets reminded of the importance of joy in her dance journey by both her daughter and her husband. Wise beyond her years, Sabrina’s daughter tells her mom that the competitions aren’t the point, it’s about having fun. Over dinner, Sabrina’s husband suggests that if Sabrina doesn’t win at Millennium, she should reconsider her future in dance because it doesn’t seem to be making her happy anymore. From his perspective, dance has become work for her instead of fun.
Donie has a coaching with Valentin Chmerkovskiy (best known for his work on Dancing with the Stars, he’s also an owner of the Dance with Me dance studios) and gets a similar reminder. We’ve seen her put a lot of work into trying to conform her look to what she thinks the judges want to see. Val gently but directly tells her that none of her efforts are going to be effective if she doesn’t also bring her joy of dance to the floor. He coaches her that the best way to prepare for the next competition is to focus on the things that make her happy.
Over in Arizona, Pooja continues to feel the pressure to measure up to her mom and sister as all three prepare for Millennium. She recognizes that her self-esteem has been negatively affected by her results so far in the Latin style. It’s been a tougher transition than she originally anticipated. She gets coached by her pro and her pro’s wife on tapping into the confidence she had when she competed in Rhythm.
You’re guaranteed to have some bad days on your dance journey, especially if you decide to embark on a more challenging path like competition. As you progress on your dance journey, you don’t necessarily have fewer bad days, but hopefully they pass more quickly and they have a lesser impact on you.
Maintaining a strong connection with your joy of dance is a key tool. That connection allows you to find validation and satisfaction in your dancing from an internal place, rather than relying on external validations like high placements. You’re able to enjoy the entire journey, from learning new choreography, developing stronger technique, and exploring musicality to finally bringing your full performance to a competition event. If you focus too much on the final event and the placements, the journey to get you there can start to feel more like work than an expression of your passion. Lessons and practice become simple means to an end.
So what happens when you lose that connection? Is it a sign that you should quit dance?
For some competitive dancers, they do take it as a sign. They reach a point on their journey when the competition element has become too important, either to them or their support system (i.e., their coach, studio, dance family, etc.), and it ruins their experience. A competitive environment can become toxic and sometimes the only thing you can do is walk away.
For many dancers, losing their connection with their joy of dance is usually a sign that they need to rest and refocus on what’s truly important. When the mile markers on your journey are all competitions, it can be easy to focus on the related results and nothing else. Results can be quantified and tracked, making them seem like obvious and logical measurements of your progress.
Results can also be deceiving. Placing higher or lower at one competition to the next depends on more than just the dancer’s skill. It also depends on how the dancer was feeling on that particular day (which could be impacted by numerous factors), who else was competing, how the dancer perceives those other dancers (have they danced together at events in the past or is this the first time?), who was on the judging panel, and how much time the dancer had in front of the judges at both the current event and past events.
You can’t put too much stock in your placement at one particular competition because your journey doesn’t end there. There is always another competition around the corner. You also miss out on the richness of everything in between those competitions if you only focus on results.
On my journey, joy was learning choreography enough that I felt like I was dancing it instead of doing steps. Joy was present when I was able to correct my own errors before my teacher had a chance. As I became better aware of my body’s alignment, I found joy in discovering a simple tweak to my position that enabled a stronger balance or connection with my partner. Joy accompanied the pride I felt for overcoming various obstacles on my dance journey. I connected with my joy whenever my teacher and I joked around or acted silly to break up the hard work we were putting into our dancing. I connected with my joy whenever I felt the small steps of progress from all of that hard work.
The dance journey isn’t always easy or fun. It’s a tremendous amount of hard work and sacrifice, as Dancing Queens has shown us through this season. We don’t need to feel joy or happiness all of the time; we’re allowed to have bad days and hate our technique drills. Keeping joy at the core of why we dance makes the journey, with all of its up and downs, worthwhile.
The Dancing Queens finale is this coming week! Catch up on the reviews of other Dancing Queens episodes here and don’t forget to support the blog by clicking the button below:
The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 