York Showcase

When we started this whole dance thing, there was talk of us competing. For a little while, we were good enough to try some competition at the introductory levels, but never made it happen. Lately we can hardly make practice happen, so competition is out.

The studio (and Jen) made me go anyway - not to compete, but to see what it's all about. There are three semi-local competitions a year held by the semi-local Arthur Murray studios. This one was in York, PA.

I've been to a lot of different kinds of competitions over the past few years and this one was the strangest for me. It's more of an evaluation then a competition. The only prizes or places up for grabs is Best Couple, Best Male, or Best Female. After that it's all gravy. You'll get a score sheet for your own performances, but unless you get Best, you have no idea where you scored with the rest of the bunch.

I'm ok with that approach. It should relieve you the stress of coming in dead last, but it's still stressful. The studios totally hype it up. They have special practice sessions, dry-runs, reminders, all kinds of crap to "prepare" you for the big day. "What dances are you going to enter? How many? With who? What are you going to wear? Do you have a costume?" All that crap seems to conflict with the averaged results of average dancers.

If you're going to take it seriously enough to buy $400 costumes, practice your feet off, pay $1000 just to be there, and glue on fake eyelashes, I want to know where I place with everyone else.

And if it's all just for fun, don't pressure me into it.

That's my take on it anyway.

Jen liked it. She wants to try it. Which is fine as long as I remind myself to ignore the pressure and just have fun.

- b