IVDC 2006

The big one is over. The Inter Varsity Dance Comp 2006 was held at the Guildford Spectrum. Biggest ever IVDC with 160 beginners couples and 700 dancers taking part. You'd think it would be a good IVDC wouldn't you?

It was acceptable I guess. The day started with Latin. Cha cha cha, Paso Doble and Jive. I made it to the semis. Peter and Ly came third. However, Yoni and Liz only made the quarters and the rest of the team didnt fair very well. Was hoping to do better, but like I said before, don't really think we're good enough. I think Liz and Yoni didnt make it to the semis because *in my humble opinion* their paso is weak. I hated the floor. During the first round when dancing the paso, I might have been hit by somebody or I slipped but whatever the case, I fell. Luckily, I managed to recover from the fall quite fast. However, after that my mood just went out the window. I was really angry at how the competition was being run. Sure, they were trying to keep to schedule and etc etc etc, but to the expense of the dancers! In the first round, in each heat there were at least 30++ couples on the floor. It really was impossible to do anything. It's sssoo not fair to dancers. Quite a lot of shocking results, like me and Jo beat Liz & Yoni AND Matt and Becky and the Will from Cambridge who won intermedate Latin in SUDC two weeks ago. Although we were dissapointed for not making the finals, we took comfort in the fact we beat these couples.

Me and Jo only made it to the second round of the Ballroom *as compared to our fantastic outing in SUDC*. It was quite demoralizing in a sense, but I was again quite angry at how the comp was being run. HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DANCE A WALTZ, QUICKSTEP OR VIENESSE WALTZ WITH 30 OTHER COUPLES ON THE FLOOR?! It isnt a big floor. In the second round, me and Jo had so many problems in terms of dance space. We kept getting bashed into and everywhere we turned, there was a couple obstructing us. It was VERY frustrating because we could hardly dance in that Waltz. When I got off the floor. I felt like I hadn't even danced at all! We hardly moved at all and were trapped in a corner for some time. John (the Ballroom coach, who thinks we are one of the most promising couples on the floor), then told Alison that we would have a helluva time getting into the next round. He noticed the complications.

Anyway, the second dance in the round was a Quickstep. I decided to just get out there and have fun. Again, we kept bashing into people. It's got nothing to do with floorcraft. It's all got to do with the very limited space we had to dance. At one point, 2 couples crashed into us. I noticed one couple was a friend, so I got cheeky. He was dancing in front of me and I was going to run down the floor so I literally shouted "GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!" That remark really caught the attention of many... it was really funny.. It was probably the highlight of the day for me. Just to shout out like that on the floor.. felt very liberating.

Before the Ballroom section started I realised I had misplaced my wallet. I had quite a bit of money in it and got really worried. After much searching and etc I was really highly strung. However, Katherine was so helpful. She went through other people's fleeces and managed to find it inside someone else's fleece. After that my mood got better. We started cheering for random people on the floor. In the advance though, we cheered for Paul and Vesna (Cambridge) because of all the controversy surrounding their eligibility to dance. We thought we'd be supportive of her (we have no problems with her dancing for Cambridge) so started screaming everytime they went pass. After the finals, when they were walking off, they came up to us *mainly me and Alison* and Vesna said "Thank you guys!" They would always smile when they went past us cause of all our shouting. I actually think they are REALLY good. OOohh.. we also cheered for Chris who used to dance for Sheffield when I was a beginner. He too was very appreciative. Said that I was probably the only person shouting for him...

Anyway, during the team match, I borrowed Shaun's (Jo's bf) latin top. It's like bright red and matched her latin dress. We were hoping it would be more eye cathing on the floor. Think it was quite good actually. For the team match, our C team managed to get 11th place in the 2nd division and out A team came 8th. We emulated our A team ranking from last year which is pretty impressive. We even beat Nottingham A team which have been consistently beating us since the beginning of the year, Liverpool A (though under strengthed but who cares? they still lost! After all that bragging about Advance dancers... yea yea yea), Cambridge C (who we tied for 7th place in SUDC... YAY!!!), Imperial B team lost to us too! Other then that, London couples won the Novice ballroom (Mike and Katherine) and Intermediate Ballroom (Peter and Ly).

OooOhhh.. I bought a new Latin top. It's considered practice wear and I love it cause it's white. Don't tell anyone okay? *angel*