You may recall that at one point I had talked about one of my dance goals being to compete in a Jack and Jill competition. I'm not really ready for that yet, but this year's Atlanta Varsity Showdown had a two-tiered competition: one level for advanced dancers and one for intermediate. Once I found that out, I had been toying with the idea of competing in the latter, but still hadn't made up my mind by Friday night's dance. Then I noticed that a lot of the people I dance with regularly were signing up. People who are good dancers but not so good they're terrifying. So I thought, why not? and ponied up my $10 entrance fee.

This seemed like a good idea until I'd been through four grueling dance workshops (including speed Lindy and "extreme" partner Charleston) and was falling over with exhaustion. Then came the J&J prelims. I was first paired up with a guy I used to dance with regularly until he moved out of state to go to grad school. We did pretty well, I thought, even using some of the new moves from the first class of the morning. Then I rotated to skellington, another regular partner, and we did all right, though not spectacularly. Finally, I ended up with yet another one of my regular dance partners, who led me through some creative stuff that I only half managed to follow. At that point I knew I was hosed, and just wanted to go home and sleep.

Unfortunately, by the time I got home (on Marta, bc it was homecoming weekend at GA Tech, where the workshops were being held), I had about an hour and a half to eat, shower, change, and kiss my husband before heading back out to the dance. (I fudged it and took a 15 minute cat nap, figuring I didn't really need to be on time to the dance, as long as I didn't miss the J&J finals.)

First thing when I arrived, I of course checked the finalist list, and as expected, my name wasn't on it. I headed into the main room, changed my shoes, and then sat around moping. Between exhaustion and soreness from the daytime sessions, and discouragement over the contest prelims, my confidence was shot. I forced myself through a few dances, but I felt like I had a big glowing sign on my head reading "not good enough!" Eventually I realized I'd been so focused on my own shit that I hadn't even bothered to note who *was* on the finalist list, so I went back and checked so I could congratulate my friends who'd made the cut.

The finals were both wonderful and difficult to watch. At the intermediate final, I watched the dancers and *knew* I was probably up to what they were doing, knew I was a better dancer than I'd shown myself to be that afternoon, and felt a little better. It was good to be happy for my dance friends, too, especially the girl who was designated the alternate, and then got to dance bc one finalist didn't show up. (Next day, I found out she won! Cinderella story!) The finals included one girl I know who's been taking lessons and really visibly improving over the last few months. She was so nervous that she had to be talked into going out for the advanced division, but in the end she walked away with third place. :)

A few more dances didn't do much to restore my flagging energy and confidence, so I decided to call it a wash and go home to spend some time with my husband. Sunday's workshops didn't start til noon, so I figured what with going home early and sleeping in a bit, I'd feel better in the morning.

Not really...I sort of dozed through the Sunday classes (which were quite good!), and skipped the last one to go out and find a massage place that would take me on a walk-in appointment. This turned out to be the best decision I'd made all weekend. I showed up at the Sunday night dance, if not full of energy and brimming with confidence, at least ready to dance.

So in a nutshell: this weekend didn't kill me, therefore it must have made me stronger. More work needed. Still chewing.

I didn't really intend to follow car seat boot camp with dance boot camp, but the gods of scheduling decreed that I was to follow four days of exhausting mental and physical exertion with two more days of a different kind of exhausting mental and physical exertion.

Rather than spend yet another whole day away from home--and Z!--I opted to skip the afternoon workshops on Saturday in favor of a nap, a shower, and some quality family time at home. Then I went back out, refreshed, for the Saturday night dance. Sunday I did the full day of workshops, which just about kicked my a**.

The visiting instructor for this event was Andrew Sutton, an internationally acclaimed instructor from California. Well, when I say he's from Cali, I really mean he occasionally camps out there, bc he spends about 10 months of the year traveling to teach at dance events like this one. After taking one of his workshops on Saturday morning (where I learned two really cool "steal the lead" moves!), I followed him around like a puppy for all of Sunday--even though his last two classes were labeled intermediate/advanced, and were probably just slightly beyond my level. But it's good to challenge oneself, right? Oof. Right.

I also paid extra to attend a private group lesson with him Monday night before Hot Jam. There were 10 of us in the class, 6 follows and 4 leads. Andrew danced with each one of us and critiqued our dancing, and then had us practice working w/ the critiques he'd given everyone. And yes, that means he danced as a follow with the leads, which was something to see, and is part of what makes him so incredible. He can dance both parts equally well, and at the same time concentrate enough to critique his partner. As if that weren't enough, he asked each of us, "what will challenge you?" and then modified his dance style to provide that challenge. Versatile doesn't even begin to cover it.

So after back-and-forth to Conyers all week, then dancing all weekend, and Monday night, I sure am glad to spend all of today at home doing schoolwork--and tonight I'm not going anywhere.

You know when you play a computer game too long, and when you close your eyes to sleep, you still see the graphics in your head? Little Sims or whatever, running around? Last night I went to sleep with Charleston patterns painted on the insides of my eyelids. Even now, the darkness behind my lashes is populated with teeny little Lindy swingouts.

So what did I do this weekend, besides improve my Lindy, expand my Charleston, and learn a new dance form?

Friday night, I went to a costume swing dance at the GA Tech ballroom, sporting a hastily-thrown-together pirate costume as something I could safely and--more or less--comfortably dance in. I used a recommended trick of putting masking tape on the bottoms of my boots so they'd slide on the dance floor. Unfortunately, masking tape doesn't adhere well to rubber boot soles. But scotch tape does! And masking tape adheres to scotch tape! Here's to creativity! (It worked pretty well, except when I tried to practice on carpeting. Luckily I'd brought extra tape.)

And Saturday night, I reprised the appearance of the 1950s dress, with new accessories, at another dance at Emory. skellington took one look at the glasses and said, "I'm not dancing with you if you wear those." He did, though. :) I'm not sure about the pillbox hat--while it's definitely more dance-friendly than the cartwheel hat I originally wore, it still looks a bit big. I bought buckram and millinery wire recently, to try to make a smaller one. (Tinker, tinker, tinker...) And speaking of big, I think I want to add another tier of tulle to the top and bottom of the crinoline--it's not quite the right shape.

Unfortunately, what with a nap (necessary after a full day of workshops!), dinner, and changing, I didn't actually make it to the dance until after 10. Since the Jack-and-Jill contest was at 10:45, this didn't give me much time for open dancing--I got one or two in, and then sat down to watch the competition.

A Jack-and-Jill is a contest where leads and follows are paired up randomly. This was some top-notch dancing. Now, you'd think it doesn't get much better than the best dancers paired up with more of the best dancers, but you'd be wrong. Because after the J&J, there was some more open dancing (one of which was too fast for me, and two of which were too slow! I missed the blues/jazz workshop), and then there was the jam circle to end all jam circles. There was Lindy, there was Balboa, there was stuff I couldn't even begin to name. There were solo and tandem Charleston combinations, there were drops and spins and leaps and arials, oh my. Just when you thought, no, no, nothing could top that, nothing could possibly be more amazing than that...someone topped it.

And there I stood, on the edge of the magic, with my eyes glowing, clapping and cheering and stomping my feet...and a guy came up to me and shouted, "Hey, come on, you want to go in with me?"

"Oh, no, I'm not nearly that good!"

"It's not about good, it's about feeling it! Come on!"

"Well...Promise you won't throw anything too complicated at me?"

I almost let this guy talk me into the magic circle, but at just that moment--to both my relief and chagrin--the music ended.

The gym at the Decatur rec center was crowded with five or six lines of dancers, at least 10 people deep, all working on the same Charleston combination. It was like watching one of those documentaries on the making of a Broadway musical, or the opening scenes of "A Chorus Line," before the final cuts are made.

That was the beginner class for this morning.

Yours truly wandered down to see what was going on in the intermediate Lindy class--and stayed. Less than two months ago, I started Lindy classes at Emory with Ben Lovelace: basic footwork, swingouts, Lindy circle, and a lead into basic Charleston. This weekend, I learned to put the swivels into my footwork, and added at least three new combinations to my dance vocabulary. I'm no longer a beginning Lindy Hopper. Swing me out, baby.

I'm still a beginner at Charleston, but now I know more than the basic footwork, and I can do a tuck-turn into tandem. Yeah, I know, this will mean nothing to most people reading this, but allow me my little brag--this is the same combination that had me sitting down in frustration in an August Hot Jam workshop. Getting back out of it is slightly trickier, but is more of a burden on my lead than on me, so I'm safe as long as I have a solid lead. Of course, I can't do any of it consistently well, or even reliably get it right every time, but the groundwork is there.

As for Balboa, I'm a raw tyro, but after two hours in the tender care of Bobby and Kate, I can do the basic footwork, break time footwork, a turnout, and a lead into lollies. (Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your dance steps here! Got a lot of jolly lolly dance steps here!)