In Review...

What a year. I'll start at the beginning. I turned 16 at the beginning of the year (YAY DATING!!). As it was, I didn't really have time for anything besides school and ballroom. Competition season was in full sway. I competed with my high school team at The Gem State Classic in February and The National Dancesport Championships in March.About two weeks before Nationals I was hired for my first real job at a local plant nursery. It's a perfect job for me as it was very flexible with my schedule and it closed at a decent hour so I could keep up with school. But besides the hours, My boss and co-workers are great. They are funny, hard working and honest. I was very blessed to find such a great job. After ballroom competitions were over, we moved on to prepare a concert for the end of the

year. It was a huge success for the coaches and all of the students. We had such a great time and all the late night practices and early mornings paid off double.

And then.... School was over for the summer. I continued to work at the nursery and my competition partner and I started cracking down on practicing. We worked with our wonderful coach, Nicole (amazing!), and she did all of the choreography for our pre-champ events (Waltz, Quickstep and Tango). We worked really hard and we're getting pumped for competitions in the spring!! I'll let you know when they are.

Mom and Dad and I went on a few great trips this summer. We went to Yellowstone for a few days and it was great!! We saw a bunch of cool wildlife and it was great to get away for a few days.

And then.... I was a Junior (School started again). This meant that LHS Ballroom started again and it was the only reason I would have ever gone back. Ok not really. I signed up for AP Biology which has since proved to be a huge mistake. I mean, is a trip to Catalina over spring break really worth the THREE textbooks we read, college level labs, and endless vocabulary quizzes?? REALLY??? Oh well, I'm stuck and I'm going on that trip to Catalina:).

In October I competed in Ballroom's annual "Dancing With the Athletes" Event. I was paired up with our Varsity Football Team Captain, Bubba (not his real name but he prefers that to Richard). But the best part about the whole thing was that by the time we had our dress rehearsal, he had broken both his arms in recent football games which made it very difficult for him to dance. But he was a trooper and we danced anyways.It was a BLAST!!

From about mid September to the end of November there is a minor Competition season. For ballroom, we have to compete once a semester in order to pass, but due to a costuming catastrophe and a few other circumstances, my partner and I couldn't compete in our open event. We ended up dancing in a syllabus quickstep event for our grade which was a blast, but no matter what we are definitely competing open in the spring.

And now I only have two more days till Christmas break and I'll be seventeen in twelve days. oooooh!! So yeah....

Slow Slow Quick Quick Slow

Saturday, November 14th:
6:00-8:00 am: Standard Medley Practice
9:00-11:00 am: Work (Thank you Amanda for taking the rest of my shift!!)
11:30 am-5:00 pm: 2009 BYU Dancesport Semi Annual Championship
6:00- 11:30 pm: Sadie Hawkins

It was a busy day. I had practice for two hours, work for two hours, and then it was off to competition. Sam and I competed High School Syllabus ISTD Standard Quickstep (Hence the title). We made it through 3 of the 6 rounds. It is fair to say that I was very nervous. Now that it's over though I can say that we had a blast, but while we were waiting in the on deck area, about to go onto the floor, the only thing running through my head was, "Why do I do this? This is NOT fun!!!" But it was:). After our event was over we got to stay and watch Jess and Chris Compete Open Pre-Champ Smooth. They did great!! Then Sam and I came home. I had about an hour to undo my ballroom hair and make-up for Sadie Hawkins (which was a blast!!). We went to dinner and then we left the dance at about 10 because we could barely stand up for being SO TIRED!! We went back to the house and watched part of a movie and called it a night at about 11:30. It was a busy day but it was super fun!! :)
p.s. Sam and I will be competing a LOT more in the early spring (feb-mar ish). I will post the dates of competitions if anyone is interested in coming!!

Dancing With the Athletes

Just a few rough details:
october 1st probably around 7 p.m. at the high school. i don't know if i'm dancing yet. i'll post more details soon. i would love for everyone to come. it's gonna be fun:)

Back to School

Regretably I've returned to school. It's not like I have much control over that aspect of my life, but all the same, I am returning with less than a sense of enthusiasm. I've found that my classes are going to be a lot harder than I thought. AP Biology for example....... I probably don't need to explain. Most of you know what AP biology with Mrs. Russell includes. Pre-Calculus feels like rocket science and spanish 3 sounds like gibberish. Besides classes, ballroom will be a challenge this year too. I'm finding as a captain that getting people to cooperate is harder than helping people understand steps. It's getting people to show up to a 6 a.m. saturday practice with coaches rather than actually working once their there. It's getting them to show respect for the coaches and their extensive knowledge rather than making sure they all have the right skirt or pants. It's getting them to be quiet for more than 3 minutes rather than standing in proper dance position. We are trying to keep the name of "Lehi Ballroom" as clean and unscathed as possible and it's proving to be quite difficult. There are of coarse also good things about ballroom. As of last friday, we are going to be going to the Gem State Classic in Idaho to compete like last year. We will also be attending Nationals and going on a performance tour to Ceder City and St. George. I'm really excited. We are around half way done with both medlies and already have two numbers choreographed, finished and with places set. We really got a good start this year and I'm confident that we'll do a lot better. Mom is even working on costumes already:) anyways.... enough of that. That's what's up. So yeah....

just to clarify

i know that this doesn't mean much to anybody, but i just wanted to clarify. i was reading a few of my old posts and realized a lot had changed in my plans for competition next year and that a lot of the info you have has now changed. :( sorry.
anyways... so my partner and i decided that we were going to compete open standard 5 dance and open smooth 4 dance.
in competition you can either compete syllabus or open individually.

syllabus: when you compete any of the dances in any of three levels of difficulty. bronze (being the simplest) , silver (being the next in difficulty) and gold( being the most difficult). you wear a white top and black skirt/pants. no lifts no props. judging in priorities is technique and then performance.

open: when you compete certain categories like standard, smooth, rythm and/or latin. in each of the categories there are either four or five dances. in champ you dance all of the dances. but in pre-champ, you only dance 3 of the dances, and you do not compete with with the champ dancers. you dance in costume and can use whatever steps you want to some degree. no lifts, no props ect. judging in priorities is performance and then technique.

in open you can dance any of the four categories standard, smooth, latin and/or rythm

standard 5 dance: includes waltz, viennese waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and tango. even though it's open, you don't have a lot of freedom. you are in closed dance position most of the time and you rarely leave it. i will be in a formal ballroom gown. :)

Smooth 4 dance: includes waltz, vieneese waltz, foxtrot and tango. no quickstep. darn. in smooth you have a lot more freedom than in standard (aka you dont always have to be in closed dance position). you wear a different, more casual gown than in standard.

so my partner and i have already started our choreography lessons with our lovely coach nicole! :) she is wonderful. we are working on the waltz right now. i like it. and we are also working on finding a technique coach.... yeah.
so that is what is going on right now and if it changes again, which is likely, then you will all be the first to know about it. :) so yeah...

miss lehi!!!

my best freind sabrina jaco competed last night in the miss lehi 2009 show. her platform was about helping student's where english was their second language, just like her. and for her talent, she did a solo pasodoble/flamenco. she won the award for most photogenic and she also won the swimsuit portion of the competition. must have been all that dancing. :) she was named the second attendant to miss lehi 2009! it was way fun to go and see her compete she did amazing with her interview questions and She did great overall!! so yeah.

~THE END~

This school year is coming to a close, and as much as i hate to admit it, i would go to early morning ballroom every day during the summer just to be able to keep going to school. it's a relief to be done with homework and teachers, but i am very sad. this upcoming year, the school district is opening westlake high school to which saratoga springs and cedar fort and eagle mountain residents will be going to. so we are losing about a third of our ballroom team to westlake and another 10 are graduating. I find it ironic however, that my best friends are the ones who happen to be leaving. my best friend sabrina jaco is graduating :(
I am looking forward to next year because i get to be a team captain! thats the upside.
I feel very blessed to have had the chance to work with the people i did. and i am glad to be able to end the year having met some of the best people ever and made friends with them as well.