"Me and Yoni in the All Male Rumba... check out my rack! Pretty damn real huh?"29th April at Owen's park... 9.58am.. me, Alison, Ming, Min Hui, Vicki, Fung and Kat come running into the hall. They had already started the Mayfair Quickstep practice and were about start the event. Just before it started Alison ran back into the hall after changing, and we hopped onto the floor. We had spent the night at Drop Inn Hotel up the road from Owen's Park.
The judge would tap you on the shoulder to indicate you were out. We managed to get into the finals. It was great. I had never made a Mayfair Quickstep final before. Was a good start to the day.
Next were the other ballroom dances. In the Waltz we were a little unprepared cause we werent very warmed up or mentally prepared having to run in just before the first event. But we got progessively better I guess. Having to dance the Foxtrot was an experience. I was barely dancing it like a foxtrot. It looked more like me bobbing up and down at the wrong points, so when we got recalled for the finals we were laughing out heads off. Same for the Tango... really just laughing our heads off. I kept screwing up the routine because I was too used to the one me and Jo do but by the finals I got it right..hehe.. but the highlight for me was the Vienesse Waltz.
In the first round, me and Alison decided to take the piss. We started in reversed roles, i.e. in the ballroom hold, I was in the woman's hold and she was the man's hold and we would swap roles in throughout the first round. It was hilarious!! I told Aaron to watch it (he, Fennie and Agnes arrived even later then we did. They missed the Mayfair Quickstep, W and QS. Oh yeah, Ramen and Fides were there too, but they had arrived earlier). He was laughing his head off... so did quite a lot of people. However, we only kept swapping roles in the first round then decided to take it a little more seriously in the second and semis rounds. We said we'd only swap roles again if we made the finals.. which we did... hehe.. we kept changing roles throughout the dance again... our skill at making that tricky swap of the ballroom hold was getting better with each swap. At the end of the final the compere actually said "Thank you very much. That comes later by the way..." tee hee... oh, we also made finals for quickstep and basic quickstep.
In between the ballroom and latin, me and Alison took part in the non acrobatic rock and roll. Our first ever participation! We used the East Coast Swing we learnt at 'Move It' last weekend. But literally right before the event, I told her, "Right, we're going to start like this, and do this, then that, then at the end we'll do this, and spin, then start again." It was so last minute. We had the basic structure but we really needed to make it much longer and we hadn't even tried practising it yet when we had to hop onto the floor. We co-ordinated our attire the night before we left for Manchester. Both in jeans, me in white shoes and she in black. Black t-shirts and white wordings. Mine said "nobody knows I'm a lesbian" and hers said "I like you, I'll kill you last." hehehehe...
It was so fun. We even made the finals! I didnt know if we were good enough cause there were plenty of seasoned rock and rollers but we made it so woo hoo!
In the latin though, we made semis for everything except the Rumba. Think by that time we were really just really exhausted. Still, as always with Alison, our routines were fabulous, with bum action in the Cha, shimmying in the jive and even in the Samba... lots of people loveed our Jive once again. Basic Jive was a mess, but we didnt care. We were having fun.
Liz was being difficult about the team though. She kept insisting me and Alison should do team Ballroom. Like.. YEAH RIGHT. It's my last Uni comp. NO WAY am I going to dance Ballroom!!! She even told Alison we're letting the team down and that "she will regret her decision". Liz isnt the most tactful person... problem is, she's too competitive... London didnt need us really. They won the A team trophy without our help. Shoved a beginner couple in as A team waltz.. hehe.. and still they won! David and Nadia won the cha, Liz and Yoni came second in Jive and Peter and Ly were placed 2nd or something like that. Me and Alison were the B team Jive. We literally carried the B team on our shoulders to win the B team (tied with Manchester but still..) The other two couples didnt get a single recall, hence they couldnt have been awarded any points (only had 3 couples in B team). Me and Alison came 3rd.. so we were feeling pretty good.. sorta like a 'in your face Liz' sorta mood... hehehahehaehaaha...
The highlight of the Manchester comp every year is the All Male Rumba. This time I was in all white.. white top, white skirt.. even my partner wore a white top. Just too bad the judge was looking more for entertainment value... still, making the finals was good and quite a few people told me that I should've won because we were miles better then the other couples. Fides came over after the male rumba and complimented me. Said that I'm still the best follower in the male rumba there is and I even dance better then some of the girls.. dont know about that but I was quite pleased. Chris said I should've won too.. heh.. but doesnt matter. I had fun. There was a dance off. Each finalist had 10 seconds to dance on their own on the floor. It was fun.. hehe.. all the attention..hahaha... oohhh.. also in the finals, this other guy in drag came up to my partner and started caressing him. So I went over to him and shoved him off my partner. hAEhAHEhAe.. it as hilarious... and the stupid compere kept playing the entire song in each round so we had to keep dancing...
Anyway, after that, there was the musical jive bumps. Jive music played and you dance. When the music stops you have to sit on the floor. Might sound easy enough, but you really gotta hit the floor when the music stops so you're not the last to sit. Think we made it as far as the 'semis' and then got knocked out.
But anyway, the results of the day:
Semis for everything except Rumba
5th for Open Tango, Foxtrot and Quickstep
4th for Mayfair Quickstep, Basic Quickstep (we even beat Peter and Ly!!!), and All Male Rumba.. hehe.. fun..
3rd for non Acrobatic Rock and Roll (woo hoo for first timers!!), Vienesse Quickstep (woo hoo for beating Peter & Ly and Ramen & Fides! Our swapping roles must've been really impressive!) and also Team Jive! (woo hoo for winning B team purely on our efforts!! :-D)
After that we went for curry with the Manchester team. tee hee... fun fun fun...
