A Day in the Life

It was 6:30AM when we landed in Atlanta.  It was a wonderful non-stop flight from Honolulu on Delta’s Airbus 330.  First Class was purchased to insure I could sit in one of the 36 recliners in the first class cabin.  I doused myself with champagne and wine and by the time I finished shoveling the vegetarian lasagna into my mouth, I was ready to pass out. How could they fuck up the lasagna I don’t know?  It was basically cheese soup with a few rectangular pasta layers that were tasteless. Not sure why I ate the entire meal, cause it sucked. It was certainly not good for my cholesterol.  I guess it was the wine! Everything taste better, everything looks better, and the most difficult problem is solvable after anesthetizing a hundred million brain cells with alcohol.

Back on the ground.  The pictures above are sculptures in the Atlanta airport that most people would never see.  That’s because most folks take the train from concourse to concourse.  “This train is moving, please hold on.  The next station is Concourse D as in David”  Yup that’s my name.  Anyway, I arrived at concourse E and had to get to T but, to my chagrin, that meant I had to take the train for the entire length of the airport….E – D – C – B – A – T.   But I decided to be brave and walk from B to T to stretch my legs as well as visit my favorite airport sculpture display.  It is located between A and T on the bottom level and only accessed by walking the length, which couldn’t be more than a few football fields of distance. 

Anyway, the path was populated by 20 odd sculptures from Zimbabwe.  Just a few of the many are displayed above by Gedion Nyanhongo.  Really quite beautiful and striking; they exude pain and emotion that I’m not used to seeing or feeling when studying other sculptures.  This display is something everyone should take the time to see when in Atlanta.

On my way to Washington DC shortly, or more accurately, Rockville, Maryland.  I don’t like to sit in airports and then sit in airplanes and then sit in the metro or cab and then sit or sleep in the room. But I’ve become such a slug in the last two weeks nursing an awful ankle injury that it almost feels normal.  I’m here to participate in a panel review of a few dozen-program grants called CTSA that will fund major universities between 16-25 million in grant funds over the next 5 years.  I’ve spend the last few months studying my assigned applications, collecting my thoughts, composing my review and trying to say something intelligent and helpful.  I just don’t want to come across like a moron at the meeting, the reviewers are chosen for their experience and expertise, and I don’t think my ballroom dancing will help me perform as a good reviewer.  All I can count on is my experience over the last 36 years in academic medicine.  I hope that will be enough!

I really haven’t had time to enjoy my blogging. The world has become for me – a full time commitment to completing this review and participation in this special emphasis panel of the National Institutes of Health.  The good news is its almost over – 3 days and then I return to my baseline.  The other good news is that I have learned a tremendous amount in the process. But I vow to never accept another invitation to do this again.  At least not in this life!  I enjoy too much the life I have carved for myself, and the freedom to veer in any direction at my discretion. This was too intense an experience, reminding me of the man I was – all work and no play.  Now its some work and all play – the way life was meant to be. 

Emerald Ball 2013 - Part 4

Pro-Am competition - Amateur lady with professional male

I promise this will be the last installment. I hear the cheers of joy!

There are so many levels to consider in ballroom dance competitions, there is something for everyone.

For the youth, it is an apropos beginning.  Not only do you hone in your dance skills at an early age but you do so on a competitive dance floor; competition and the culture of the competition becomes second nature.

For those at the other end of life, you get a chance to enjoy a new beginning, a new life, a new avocation. I have chosen to exchange the cacophony of the Intensive Care Unit with all of its beeps and harsh intrusions, gasps, hysteria, and unexpected outcomes for the melody and harmony of dance. To learn to dance, to learn to dress for dance, to learn how to smile, to learn how to stand properly, to learn how to navigate the dance floor, to learn the difference between foxtrot and tango..........so much to learn, there is nowhere to go but up.

But its different for girls than guys. Put us in a mixed group of men and women students dancing with their dance teachers and what do you get? You get the male students dancing with their teachers looking silly next to the ladies being led by their male instructors.  Especially true in International Standard.  To be sure, the women have to have talent, but I can assure you it is much different and a lonely road when a male student is put in a unisex dance heat to compete in.  

Male students can excel, and until my knees give out, or my ankles fail to recover from the next injury.....(I'm still worried about the present injury.....should I upload a picture of my swollen ankle?).....I will try my best to get to a level that is better than the present, always striving for more. It will be a hard road to travel as my dance skills come into a collision course with my aging body. When the day comes when that happens, it will be over for me. Basket weaving will be my next avocation.

The culture of ladies dancing with their male dance teachers is very interesting. If you are young enough....40's and 50's, and rich enough or come from Hong Kong, and attractive enough - the Chinese women are particularly lovely, ageless with beautiful skin, and motivated enough - what woman doesn't want to be the best dancer in the world? - you can get to the top. All you have to do is find a really young and talented male instructor, a dance stallion, someone who has strong legs and can move from corner to corner in a flash, has beautiful posture and frame and looks fresh after dancing unlimited heats including the Viennese Waltz, and whoopee, you have it made. 

Thank God I am not that young or I'd want a sex change operation because dancing as a male student is not going to make it to a level of competition that would be meaningfully competitive.  Of course, there are exceptions.

The truth is that when I was younger and in love with playing tennis, I realized that I had no real talent in tennis.  Part of it was learning as an adult rather than a youth, but part of it was I had no talent because I had no talent. That didn't stop me from trying or attracting lots of spectators watching me flail around on the tennis court lunging and scrapping, running to the side, to the other side, back to the baseline, to the net, and keep the ball in play. The stresses and strains on my knees caused them to breakdown in agony. Only surgery would bring one of them back to life, the other one miraculously healed.  In any case, I always fashioned myself as being more fit and in better shaper than the other gomers my age. I fantasized that if i couldn't win by any innate skill, that I could win by attrition.  

The relevance of this story is that I think it applies to Ballroom dancing as well.  Stay tuned, mark my words, I will be the best 80 year old amateur ballroom dancer in the world, or maybe the US, or maybe Hawaii, or maybe Manoa, or maybe Ferdinand Avenue in Manoa.  If not, maybe I will be the best 90 year old ballroom dancer in the............100, 110, 120????

Emerald Ball 2013 - Part 3

Personal Reflections - a hodgepodge of nonsense.  Here I am one day after returning from LA with my right foot swollen and in pain from an ankle injury sustained during the competition. At least I think that's where it originated.  Just so happens that several others in our Divino Ritmo contingency were suffering from serious and painful ailments. However, as usual, I WAS the only one that was whining and groaning about it - the others stoically sucked it up and performed as if there was nothing bothering them, hiding the truth, miserable inside.  

But for no other reason than I can't walk around my house doing things because of my darn ankle, I would like to share some nonsense with anyone willing to read it. Not in any particular order, not inspired by any particular event, things just happened at the competition that weighed in on me. I remember these things, not everything, but some that are either gratifying, embarrassing, painful or lessons learned, or whimsical. 

I did  try my best during the competition. Talking to another student, he confided that he felt rather confident when competing against students at his level, but uncomfortable when competing beyond his level.  That makes a lot of sense and is clearly the reason he usually takes first in all of the dances that fit this category. My brain talks differently to me. I am more worried when I dance against students at my level because I expect something of myself in terms of performance. Of course the stress incited by this pressure cooker is not ideal for dancing - maybe the reason I don't score 1st places consistently. But I really like the more advanced dances and couldn't give a hoot about the advanced dancers competing against me. I just dance freely and try my best expecting the worst. But the truth is that I really REALLY enjoy these dances and I usually do pretty well considering. For example, while I scored a bunch of 2nd places and some 3rd in the bronze closed dances, my scores for silver smooth were just as good or better and I won first in all of my open dances for smooth and standard.  Clearly there are other factors at play, as it may also reflect the number of competitors. Nevertheless, this is a consistent observation. If I just danced like I did in the silver and open routines when I danced bronze, I'm sure I would score higher in those dances.  Such is life.

But insecurity often translates to a broken down frame that rapidly deflates with the slightest pressure - Yanna's attempts to correct me are to no avail....examples below.

• Most of the time, what Yanna tells me on the dance floor floats from one ear out the other.  My body doesn’t easily convert verbal commands to any meaningful kinetic energy of movement.
• The best advice that I was able to process from Yanna was….”dance like you would in the studio”
• I have so many dysfunctional body parts that it’s difficult to prioritize what to focus on.
• Head up, not bent, facing forward, not too much to the left, stretch up till your cervical spine dislocates and your head shoots up so high it butts against the ceiling, dislodging the asbestos covering the ceiling which finds its way on to your dance clothes and into your nostrils, eyes, mouth and lungs.
• Tummy in, tummy in! tummy IN!…..ouch, OK, I get it.
• Left side up, NO, not left arm, left side.  Do not compensate with your arm when its your side that is slumping down like a de-innervated cripple.
• Heal lead, NO, toe heal, no foot turned out, NO, this is not Latin, brush your feet, and while you’re at it brush your teeth!
• No toe leads, everything is heal….this is Tango, not Foxtrot
• Knees soft and slightly bent, NO, not your upper body, just your knees.
• Toe leads for everything…drag your feet; never let them leave the floor.  Push down hard with pressure and feel like you are pushing the floor into China.

MORE Later....need to get some ice for that lame ankle.....

Emerald Ball 2013 - Part 2

The beauty and elegance of International Standard Ballroom

Just to get an idea in this blurry picture of the movement of these
youthful dancers: there is no pussy footing around

I told Yanna this was a most beautiful dress

Yanna, Anna Mae, Lucas, Marie & Paul

Rommel winning the hugest youth student award. 

This is the morning after. My head is not throbbing from the aftermath of the evening but I am still aching most everywhere. Still my muscles are beginning to relax knowing the most difficult thing I have to do is get to the airport, check in my luggage, and find my way to the gate at LAX. The Saturday evening competition offerred an amazing assortment of professional rhythm and International Standard talent. The speed and complexity of movement with perfect stop-and-go sequences of the rhythm dancers stood out as the almost impossible spectacle that is unimaginably hard to do. The flexibility of these young gifted dancers is also a spectacle in itself, especially as I sit in bed with aching muscles and joints reacting from the slightest movement. And the standard dancers were flowing peacefully and effortlessly across the ballroom dance floor like undisturbed waves in the ocean. Of course, the more difficult the dance, the easier it appears to the spectator. Contrast this sharply with the fractured movements and the bumper car look of the student dancers, especially in the less skilled categories. 

Last night was also awards night, and although most of the Divino Ritmo students did not win any awards in such a large competition, we were pleased when Marie Laderta was included as a top 20 student.  We were also delighted that Rommel won the male youth student award. 

I think everyone in the Divino Ritmo group enjoyed this competition immensely. I asked them to grade it from 1-10. Everyone graded it at least 8 and several gave it a perfect 10.  That is pretty impressive given the discerning nature of our group! 

More personal reflections to follow.

Emerald Ball 2013

The Ballroom

Just completed four days of an intense dance competition at the LAX Hilton Airport Hotel.  This year was a big one for the Emerald Ball.  With over 15,000 entries, hordes of competitors filled every crevice of the ballroom, making it oppressively congested and claustrophobic.  Wayne Eng is the genius with this Dancevision enterprise that made all of this happen.  

This unfortunately is not a good example of the crowding.  When really
crowded, there was no room to even take a decent picture.

Some competitions provide more competition than others. At the Heritage, many of my heats were contested but not nearly as much as Emerald.  Indeed, at Emerald, some heats would start with semifinals, others with quarter finals.  And the competition among the women was an order of magnitude larger...it was quite amazing!  Basically, where you end up on the list of competitors is a decent indication of where you are nationally, give or take a few places up or down.  That is the positive of this event.  And there were other positives as well.

But at this moment, I'm pretty exhausted and drained.  My tank is empty; I feel like someone pulled the plug from the intertube of my circulatory system, forcing blood to gush out, powerless to react. My body has deflated into an amorphous mess of mush, tattered and battered flesh and hot inflamed joints.

So I will set my mind at ease at least for tonight, the last night of the event.  There will be a wonderful dinner, a magnificent professional show and perhaps a few rising star and professional competitions.  I need to shower, put on my suit, get down to the bar, and hope that alcohol will replenish the vitality back into my being, or at the very least act as a surrogate to the blood that is now somewhere seeping through the floor boards of my room hopefully not raining down on the occupants below.

There is actually a lot to write about this competition. If I live another day, I will tell some of the stories.  If not, you will have to settle for this introduction knowing that you can look at the website and check the results of the Divino Ritmo students at anytime...they are all posted for the world to see.

Maybe I will have the energy to take a few more choice pictures to post.  More likely, I will sit at the professional show, content with the week's work and fun, pretending to concentrate on the wonderful dancing in front of me, while drifting quietly into an inebriated state of oblivion as my eye lids weigh down my eyes, while feeling safe and content in this strange world of competitive ballroom dancing. 

I Deleted My Facebook Account: Hooray!

Hooray, I just deleted my Facebook account!  I began it for only one reason - in preparation for my 46th post high school year reunion....so my classmates could read about the me that I wanted them to see before the big night.  Not sure why I continued it for so long after the reunion.  Maybe curiosity, maybe to create an image of someone I wanted to be to delude my "friends".  Or maybe it was to create an ideal image of myself that I aspired to, but could never realistically achieve.  Or maybe it was a place to organize some pictures of myself, my family, my "friends" and anything else that looked cute or interesting surrounding my life.

Who are these "friends"?  Are they friends or just curious voyeurs?  LIKE.....why does everyone seek validation of their posts from their "friends" whose added value is to jump the number counter another notch? Does anyone really give a shit about the quotations, the pictures, the inspiring or depressing comments that are made almost nonstop by these "friends"?  Are we truly addicted to social media to the extent that we  have adopted these moronic behaviors so passively, but without true conviction?   Are we that bored with our lives that we spend endless hours feeding these websites with endless banter to the exclusion of everything and everyone else?  Has reality for some become their Facebook persona?  Have we lost the ability to look in the mirror with the light brightly shining and see ourselves?  

Social media may be life saving for some but is dangerous and risky.  Just finished reading about two teenage girls who committed suicide after being raped by several boys that were classmates, who subsequently nailed their coffins by exposing videos and pictures of the rapes through text messages and on the internet.  How can you heal from something you have to re-live over and over again as it is cemented permanently in someone's iphone and/or cyberspace for the world to see?  

Yes, we have gone too far.  My Facebook account is deleted and I am going to celebrate.  I will never have any more friends to read about or be able to accept an invitation to have new friends.   And I will never feel any compulsion to LIKE anything anyone of these "friends" says or posts. What is wrong with me?

Now that I have buried Facebook in my life, my next goal will be to delete and destroy my Stepping Lightly Blog.  I'll have to think about how to accomplish this next goal because I think it will be considerably more difficult. In the meantime, I will continue to feed the site with the usual smattering of inane and verbose dialogue that somehow has attracted some curious onlookers.  

Sugino Good Will Festival - 2013

Another event at the Pacific Beach Hotel.  Started off bad, but ended on a positive note. Overall fun.  No parking to begin with.  Had to circle around looking for alternatives, finally resorted to valet.  Getting to the ballroom, the sound of the music gently filled the air masking the stale stench of the ballroom. The music was good and I danced an assortment of dances mostly with dance partner Emi but also with a few others.  The performances from Divino Ritmo were all very respectable; Bella continue to dazzle the crowd with her advanced skills and confidence.  A new student danced with Yanna as well as an older student......not me.  The Japanese professional couple was pretty amazing and they received two standing ovations for their flawless dancing, filled with energy and skill.  They simply mesmerized the crowd and even got Al Franz excited as he cheered on from the sideline.....