With the year nearly over, there is no shortage of goal-setting talk and new year’s resolution discussion. Some like making resolutions, some purposely avoid them. Others prefer to set goals rather than resolutions. I fall in the “set goals” category. I think it’s important for my ballroom dancing and the rest of my life to think about where I want to go because that will determine more immediate actions. So for this last Ask the Girl episode of 2015, I present to you my goals for the new year.
And all through the house, not a creature was stirring…
Except for me. I’m not quite ready to sleep. But I think it’s ok, since Santa has already come and gone. I hope all of my readers who celebrate Christmas had a wonderful holiday!
I’m just going to openly ponder some things while I wait for my eyelids to get heavy.
A fellow ballroom student, thinking about getting back into competing after several years, asked me for a refresher on what expenses she needed to account for as she budgeted for a comeback. It’s great timing as the new year brings a whole new cycle of ballroom competitions to enter. So for any other pro-am ballroom dancers gearing up for a competitive 2016, here is a quick breakdown of what you’ll need to include in your budget. Note this list is based on my experience with NDCA competitions.
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I miss ballroom dancing.
I haven’t completely stopped, but I am doing a lot less. So far in December, I’ve had two private lessons. In mid-November, I had to cut down from two to one per week due to finances. Then Teacher was gone for a week for the Holiday Dance Classic. This past week, we were supposed to return to the normal two, but Teacher cancelled the second one.
Two lessons. Normally, it would have been six by now! Or at least four, if you account for the week Teacher was gone for the competition. And with the holidays coming up, I might have two more lessons before the end of the year.
I miss dancing.
Two is better than none though, right? Am I just being ungrateful?
A quick post.
I came across this video on Facebook, posted by Steezy:
I love Mitch Villareal’s very precise, yet smooth movements. Every one is executed with purpose and confidence.
Oh, if only I could dance like that!
The ironic thing is the title of the video is the reason I can’t: trust.
“Trust” is going to be my key word for 2016. I know I have issues trusting others, but the harder thing to admit is how much trouble I have trusting myself.
Teacher brings it up again and again. I whine or fret that I just can’t get something right, and he comes back with “it’s because you’re not trusting yourself!”
Point taken, I’ll work on that. Trust me.
Today’s Ask the Girl episode was inspired by a conversation I had with the creator of freeballroomlessons.com. He specializes in teaching social-level ballroom dancing, but used to dance competitively. We were talking about how expensive ballroom competitions are, especially for a pro-am student like myself, and about the emotional rollercoasters that competing in ballroom puts me on.
He wondered, with all of the financial and emotional stress involved in competition, why do I do it?
Today is more about writing than ballroom. I am working on my second eBook (yay!) and a lot of the content is based on what I’ve already written. So I copied a bunch of blog posts into a Word document to use as the foundation for this new project. I proceeded to stare at my screen for 15 minutes without a clue of how to proceed. I started to feel like I should just delete everything and start from scratch! But there was good information from my original posts, why waste time rewriting it?
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A year ago, on this Thursday (although it was December 11 in 2014), I was in Las Vegas dancing in my second-ever ballroom competition, the Holiday Dance Classic. I didn’t sleep the night before, made my morning tea with hot water from the bathroom sink because I had no money left after getting myself TO the competition, and had an amazing time dancing.
It’s weird that it was a full year ago! It is cool, however, to look back at the four competitions I’ve danced in and see how far I’ve come.
Holiday also marks what would have been my first repeat comp. What would that have been like?
It’s Tuesday again and I’ve got another Ask the Girl post for you!
I don’t know about you, but I had a rough Monday. If there is such a thing as a case of the Mondays, I had it bad! But I survived to write again.
Today’s question came from one of my Instagram followers! She just started dancing and competing in pro-am ballroom with a pro who also happens to be a good friend. Their connection outside of dance makes their connection and performance on the dance floor really strong, but she has also found that it sometimes causes extra heartache and disappointment. She wanted to know how I found my dance partner and how I knew he was the one to stick with.
Is there any pro-am dancer out there who hasn’t experienced the odd mix of joy and pain that is ballroom dancing? I doubt it.
For awhile at least!
The Dancers United for Saving Lives event was a success! There was a LOT of last minute and last second changes and cancellations to the performance line-up, and the organizer worked her butt off to keep the show running smoothly.
In the end, it was a successful event and I think everyone that came had a great time. And my waltz? Well, that’s what I really want to write about.
The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 