Lessons learned this weekend at Dancesport

Competition always has a little element of random.

Lots of people have terrible taste in dresses... I'm sorry, but heavy fabrics like velour do not belong on a standard dress (although the exception I've seen to that rule is Ashley's latin dress--it looks really nice. But that's also a very lightweight velour) Also, lime green looks good on almost nobody, so let's just ban that right now. I could understand having a bad dress because you can't afford a nice one or something like that (I have been in that sort of situation), but we're talking about girls that ship them in and spend hundreds of dollars to get theses dresses specially made for them... yikes.

It's never impossible to make it.

Andrew and I make a good dancing couple :) Three different coaches told us this week we looked together, which really makes me feel good. When we first got married I thought we could never dance together because of the height difference. So yay for us :)

Black seems to really be back in full force right now.

It's not a good idea to start practicing two weeks before a major comp. We danced below our potential, and is was evident in the results. It gives me courage too though, because if we made a pre-champ semi-final like that, I think we could do really well if we put in more time and effort. And I plan on putting more work into it now.

People get really anal if you dare stand to take pictures in the corner designated for photographers.

The high bun is in. Although I still hate the pointy unicorn bun, there are some nice softer ones that look very elegant. I almost did that myself this year, but my hair's a bit short in the back, it would've been kind of tricky. Plus I really like what Becky did--I'm a bit of classical person myself.

Hard work pays off. Most of the time. The couples that worked hard got good results that matched their input.

It's easier to lose to people that are friends/that you know a little about. If I talk to people in the warm-up/line-up area/dressing room, it feels more friendly than if you go into it with a very competitive attitude. I'm getting much better at having a positive attitude in competition too--I've worked very hard on not being bitter, and so far so good. It's OK to get disappointed, but I feel more calm about it and I get over it much faster now.

I'm still struggling with calling Standard dance "Ballroom". It's gonna take a while...