Dance...my life support

Alright,

I might as well get it out there on the table. Dance has become my life support. The other day I was scared a knee injury was going to take me out for the season and I was nearly devastated. Let me inform those of you who do not know my background in ballroom just what is going on.

Growing up my family never had the funds to give me lessons in things like voice, piano or dance. Things that I really loved and deeply desired to pursue. So I promised myself that as soon as I got to college I would do just that, sign up for everything possible. Which is precisely what I did. My first semester at BYU I enrolled in a beginning ballroom class, a beginning piano class and voice lessons. (Remember this post is just focusing on my dance journey).

That class turned into the catalyst for my ballroom passion. That and the movie "Shall We Dance." Something about that tango music just spoke to me. My partner for DanceSport convinced me to stay and miss my BYU MENS CHORUS concert that was being recorded that night for national broadcast and to my surprise it was for the best. We ended up winning that class event which in turn made me think..well what did I do that the others didn't? I was just doing the steps that they taught me.

Well after that semester I left BYU and prepared to serve a mission. Upon returning I saw many of my fellow class mates on the beginning ballroom teams and to tell you the truth I was jealous and thought to myself (I beat you and you and you...:) Anyways, I kept going with the ballroom thing, taking 2-3 ballroom classes a semester. I auditioned for the beginning teams after one semester of being back and made it. I started taking private lessons, getting into higher level, audition based classes.

Sure the complements came every so often (but not often) from a teacher or a coach, but something inside me just said, "Keep with it." Something about dancing ballroom just spoke to my body. When I explain this to other ballroom dancers I say, "It just feels right," and they get me. Over the summer I had to take courses to get into my major so to preoccupy my time I took lessons, and was on the Spring and Summer teams.

I am now on the middle team at BYU (there are five teams I am on the third, the first being tour team). I am taking just about the highest classes in ballroom there is to take: Gold II Latin and Gold II Ballroom and 480 (Smooth)---my personal favorite.

Needless to say in this process I received an award or two from one competition or another in west coast swing, mambo, ballroom (waltz and quickstep), smooth (waltz and foxtrot), Rumba, etc. (you get the idea). I'm anything but the best, please don't get that impression of me, but I do have to say that I see my progression and it excites me.

Now I have three wonderful partners. I am in three technique classes, team, and I TA for a beginning ballroom class: 5 hours. Besides that my open partners and I practice about every day or so (tack on 2-3 hours a day.) Plus a two lesson or so a week from private instructors...ya I guess I could see why my leg started to give out :)

So that's my ballroom life in a nutshell. I love it. The adrenaline, excitement, poise, smoothness, excitement, tenacity (the list is endless) of dancing ballroom and latin dances is to put it simply....addicting. Trying to get that line just so, or make that count, or dance and entire 1:45 seconds of quickstep full out......what a rush. I love looking like a modern Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly (although he really didn't do ballroom). I love the respect you learn for the ladies. I love the class about the sport. I love the fact that I can eat whatever I want and stay relatively fit because I'm dancing something like 7 hours a day.

I love it. Nothin' to it. I'm gonna push myself tell I am the best I know I can be. On a side note, the other day we were looking at dance magazines for an assignment and I said to myself, "If only I would have been trained when I was young, I most definitely would look like the guys in those magazines."

K, this post is long enough...but I hope you get the gist.

Sir Charles III