"Don't Embarrass Your Partner!"

Famous words of Bart Bartolo - a "legend" in the Balboa dance world. This past weekend I took Friday off for the annual All Balboa Weekend. This year it took place in a Holiday Inn in Independence. I drove up on Thursday night with Mandy and Jonathan Howard. Unfortunately, we got off to a later start than we really wanted to, but thankfully we missed having to put up with nasty flash flooding that had happened literally right before I made it into Columbus to pick up my friends. We managed to head out on 71 and were making good time until we stopped in Delaware to get food (and coffee for me...). After we picked up some scrumptious Arby's, we headed back north and not 10 minutes later we were stopped in serious gridlock traffic. Mandy called her dad and asked what was going on, Jonathan consulted his phone/GPS in the backseat, and it took us an hour to move 10 miles. I drive a standard - my left leg was all wobbly by the time we got out of it. We discovered that there was construction that didn't start until after dark, and they were bottlenecking everyone into one lane. SO frustrating! They did this twice. Needless to say, the three of us didn't get there until after 12:30am!!! yikes! Luckily, I have really entertaining passengers - on Mandy's suggestion, we played a game where we chose a topic (ours was "celebrities"), begin with the letter A, and then whatever the last letter is in the name of that celebrity begins the next name. So, say I start with Anna Pacquin. If your turn were next, you'd have to say something like "Nicolas Cage". It was good for some laughs - but we kept getting stuck on the letters "e" and "y". Really common letters for the ends of last names. How many names can you come up with that begin with Y???

Once we arrived and settled into our room, we immediately checked out the facilities, the shoe vendors, and the ballroom. I promptly spent $125 on a new dress and some really sweet dance shoes. Love them!!! I slept like crap that night though - unfortunately a cup of coffee at 9pm did not do me any benefits. I tossed and turned all night, finally fell asleep around 3 or so, woke up again around 5 from talking in my sleep, etc. This made for a very sleepy first day of workshops.

Friday morning we all went to the level test (all Bal has a Beginner, Intermediate, Int/Advanced, Advanced, Advanced Plus, and Masters level) to see where we all placed. I was proud of myself for getting into Advanced this year. I took Int/Adv. last year. I was in the third and final heat of the test. They circled us up, we switched partners three times, and I had some really good leads. However, my third lead threw me for a loop when I approached him to introduce myself. Immediately after stopping in front of him, he scrunched up his face in the "Aw, man!" look. He said "I'm sure you're a really great dancer, but I really hoped to get Anne-Helene." (She won the ACBC championship last year.) My stomach sort of turned to a rock and I couldn't figure out whether that was because I was so pissed or so embarrassed. Anyway, his comment really screwed me up for that particular dance, because now of course I felt pressure to dance as well as Anne-Helene. It did not go well. I was awful. He was a crappy lead anyway. When the dance was finished, we were instructed to hand our safety pins from our numbers to the MC and his assistant. I politely asked my jackass partner whether he would like help with his number. He refused, saying that they were still evaluating him. I think at that point I had to talk myself out of breaking his glasses. Following the test, I told every one of my friends what a prick he was and to not dance with him. See what happens fellas? You get a big head and think you're a spectacular dancer, but then your ego takes over, and you piss off the wrong chica. Then she blacklists you. Ha.

Throughout the day I lagged a bit - I'd missed breakfast, and needed some sort of nutrition quick. I got distracted helping Mandy choose a skirt and a new pair of shoes. I was intimidated by the fact that Eric got put into my classes. (damn!) But since Dave is a good friend, he made me feel all confident and stuff - we made up a silly name for him, and since our class was so big, it got split into two rings. How convenient for me... :) Whatever ring Eric went to, I went into the opposite one. Never had to dance with him the whole weekend. However, that night at the main dance, I very nearly ran right into him. It was one of those encounters where you think you're going to run into someone, they move in the same direction you do, and then you sort of go back and forth until you find your escape route. Mine couldn't have come fast enough. He did the oblivious typical Eric thing, and I very unintentionally hissed "Excuse me." at him. I guess if I'm hostile enough, I can't really hide it. I don't know what possessed me to become so angry though. I did confess to Dave that I was really irritated that his little girlfriend was wearing the same damn style of shoe that I had. ARGH! I spend a lot of time inside myself, building up my own confidence, and then one little girl wears my shoes and the whole thing goes up in smoke. I constantly think, You know - I've never really met this poor girl - she's never done anything wrong to me, why should I be so hateful? I couldn't tell you. Really. I have no real reason. It's just Eric I feel most of my animosity toward. And obviously I have my reasons for that.

Anyway, beating a dead horse sucks, so moving right along....

Both Friday night and Saturday nights I woke people up from my nightmares. I screamed at one point. Scared the crap out of myself when Desiree crawled into bed next to me, trying her hardest to be quiet - I woke up, and she said she's never seen me so startled before - and we lived together for 5 years! Sunday morning, early, apparently I sat straight up in bed, and then flung myself back down and to the left. At least I was entertaining, even though my sleep was fitful... :)

I learned a lot over the weekend. I danced with some really fantastic leads (Nick Williams!!!), improved my own balance and frame, perfected my basic, learned to follow some pretty fun moves, and met some really cool (and some not so cool) people. I wished I could have stayed the day on Sunday, but I really wanted to get home to hang out with my Aunt Doreen and Uncle Vince who were in town the weekend I was out of town. The trip home was much swifter than the one there. :) Here are some pictures from this weekend:


Above, Mandy and her partner for the Jack and Jill competition.


Desiree and one of her partners for the Jack and Jill


Me, hamming it up for the camera. What else would I be doing?
Mia and her partner - she is one of my favorite instructors from the entire weekend.


Another couple of my favorite instructors - Bobby White and Kate Heiden. Such great people!