Heritage Classic 2012

The Venue, and lots of Pictures

The Grove Park Inn in Asheville is truly a wonderful hotel.  This competition is so well planned and organized by Joy and Collin Hillary, the organizers and owners.   It seems like Joy is everywhere at all times.  She is a beautiful and gracious lady but that doesn’t stop her from putting on her plastic gloves and along with a helper, going around periodically during the competition to collect debris from the tables of performers and spectators to prevent clutter and keep the ballroom clean and pristine.

Not many dance competition organizers think so much from the competitors’ perspective as the Heritage Classic.  You are greeted at the airport and transported to the hotel.  Vouchers are provided for buffet breakfast and dinners.  Plastic containers are provided for those who must consume their food in the ballroom because of competition schedules, which was true for all of the serious contenders.  None of the greeters at the door of the dining room “hassled” you about how much you were taking out of the dining room; everyone was helpful and gracious.   

Dinners were well planned and the assortment of food was decent….not the best but good.  A few dinners followed cocktail hours that were held at the expense of the organizers.   On those evenings, I travelled to dinner a little light headed.  The dining area had a dance floor with live music, and students and teachers were socially dancing comfortably and happily during and after dinner.  Balloons and festive decorations adorned the ballroom on the last two evenings that were formal in attire…. Of course, I forgot my tux (God how I hate wearing tuxedos) but got away with my favorite dark suit that thankfully was recently saved from being separated from itself – (refer to previous blog…I lost my whip and lost my pants).  I asked a few ladies to dance and they were willing and happy.  I must have scared one nice lady when I asked to escort her to the dance floor.…she turned to her dance instructor for permission.  He checked me out and consented.   Hummm….did he show good judgment?

Of course, I like this competition for a lot of reasons.  No longer invisible as I am in Honolulu, most people make eye-to-eye contact and acknowledge your existence with a nod, a smile or even a greeting as your paths intersect during normal human encounters.  The workers call me sir and everyone is formal and respectful including most folks in the south.  My late wife was born in Mt Airy, North Carolina.  She and our daughter went to Duke University and we even owned a cute house in Durham that we bought for no good reason except it was cute and built with excellent quality by a female contractor.  

Asheville is nestled in the beautiful Carolina Mountains and is lovely.  The town is quaint with shops that sell nothing and everything that you need and don’t need but can’t help buying, curios and collectibles, an assortment of too many restaurants than you could never fill with just the residents, and a ton of microbreweries for the visitors and rednecks alike.

The competition itself kept to schedule and was flawless in execution.   I do not want to dwell on the mechanics, at least in this blog.  I will just highlight some observations and leave it at that.

It was nice meeting up with an old friend - Mark, and meeting new ones – Alan and Judy.  We had a great dinner on the night of arrival after a grueling flight from Honolulu in the Cattle car…see below.  It was a grand time and a good intro to the week’s events.

I also really enjoyed reconnecting with the competitors that I knew and new ones that I met.  I talked to all of the competitors in my age group and they were all very friendly and supportive….a bunch of young “old men” trying to stay young and do something new and exciting.  We shared our war stories; they all seemed oddly familiar, as the experience of learning to dance was strangely common.

My dance instructor, Yanna, was exceeding patient with me, even when her explicit instructions were not followed.   It’s those inner demons; I do not own my own body.  Nor does it always respond to wisdom and experience.  Sometimes, it cannot be overruled.   Huhhhhh…..not for a lack of trying….  But you can’t easily reverse the circuitry of more than 6 decades of programmed connections; these patterns are set in concrete, which aptly would require a sledgehammer to remodel.

I really enjoyed watching the few pre-pubertal youth competing at Heritage.  Unlike other venues mostly on the West Coast, the girls were conservatively dressed with full dresses coming to their neck.  They were cute and talented but they were not dressed inappropriately to mimic the scantily dressed tradition of adults competing in the Latin dance events.

The level of competition at all levels was amazing.   One amazing young lady (certainly < 20 years) competing in the professional rhythm competition moved parts of her body that seemed impossible.  The audience was riveted on her performance, her smile confident and beaming, her dance skills so advanced she appeared to be dancing all alone in the ballroom.  Indeed, she has reached a level of dance skill that few have ever achieved.  This was a great joy to witness, and of course she was rewarded by the judges appropriately.

The professional show was good but not great; some of the competitors in the show dance competition were more inspiring in their performances.

The vendors were friendly, generous and kind.   I love expensive dance clothes!

Hope you like the pictures…I will post a few more when I get them from the professional photographer!

Personal Reflections:

This second time dance competition experience in Asheville, North Carolina inspired this repeat documentation (see previous archived blog).  Lessons learned from 2011 were successfully incorporated this year but the dance baggage that held me hostage at the end of 2011 followed me (and dance instructor – Yanna Samkova) relentlessly all the way on coach class, enduring a long overnight flight propped up like a slab of beef on a meat hook waiting to unload me to another short convoy and to my final destination, Asheville.

I will relive neither the challenging moments nor the accolades, at least for the most part.  And the gratifying moments cannot be identified solely by reviewing scores, as the field of competition was large in my age category and most dances competed were contested by multiple proAm’s, none of whom I had encountered before.   Indeed, this was one of the stiffest of competitions.  In addition to the “gentlemen” competitors, all single “open” dances and 3- dance championships were unisex adding considerably to my exposure to male instructor – female student couplets.  Further, some students that I had previously witnessed in other competitions were much improved, most notably my friend Janice (here, I am intentionally avoiding using last names).  Indeed, I was particularly gratified by my execution in the “open” single dances where I have expanded my dance choreography to more difficult and advanced routines in each of the American and International style ballroom dances.

But I do not want to forget the most gratifying moment in Asheville, 2012 that came when I was awarded first place in 4 single full bronze dances in International Ballroom.   I was competing against one other gentleman, who I had never competed against until that day, but whom I had witnessed from afar in other competitions and respected for his dance skills.  He is an elegant looking and experienced dancer who usually dances in the more advanced silver category (in fact, he won this year’s top silver student award at Heritage – for those who don’t know, you can dance in more than one level in the same competition).  Indeed, he is a role model for me as I gain more experience and hopefully graduate to the next level in attaining dance skills.  

I had competed against him in several of the open smooth dances and somehow placed higher than him.  Thinking that was a fluke, I was not surprised by losing to him two days later in a second series of international waltz, tango, foxtrot and quickstep single dances.  Seeing him and his instructor on the dance floor one hour later, I felt the eminent results were a forgone conclusion.  I focused myself on my dancing and was instantly relaxed by the discovery that for the next 4 heats, the dance floor would be occupied by only two competitors on opposite corners of the dance floor who were unlikely to come into close proximity.  This relieved me of at least one important burden….the need to navigate to avoid collision.

For some reason, the stress of the morning had passed, and this last series of single dances was fun and tranquil.  My movement was fluid, and Yanna and I were moving gracefully as a unit, coordinated and comfortable.  My face was devoid of stress or fear, and smiles emerged as I navigated the corners of the dance floor while enjoying the success of executing my dance routines to my present potential.  Confidence inspired calm; the movement was my most relaxed of the day and I felt wonderful.  Still, I have felt like this before, and so I wasn’t expecting the judging panel’s results to reward my personal assessment and contentment of my performance.  

Indeed, the judging panel sometimes brands you when you compete against someone who repeatedly emerges as the victor.  I wonder and fear that in these situations, they score you before they give you a chance to prove yourself worthy of consideration.   The award presentation came, and the rest is history.  I truly wanted to celebrate my victory in the manner that oversized goons playing professional football do in the end zone after a touch down.   At the very least I had a nearly uncontrollable urge to jump up off of the dance floor and groan loudly while thrusting my right arm in victory toward the heavens that rewarded my performance.   I repressed this instinct, but in its place, I experienced a physically subdued reaction when my heels left the floor, my heart rate instantly doubled, and a momentary adrenaline induced visceral contentment possessed me with elation.  

This was ephemeral and as I returned to earth I needed to focus on the dances left for the day and rest for a couple of hours in preparation.  Unfortunately I was not intelligent enough to utilize the formula that had led to such enjoyment and success and to capitalize on the wisdom that it had imparted.  The rest of the day was rather ruled by my inner demons, which possessed me like the devil.   Some heats I danced or rather raced as if I were fleeing from a mad animal - racing to failure, wrapped up blindly in my own world, leaving my dance partner and teacher behind.  When I looked back, it was not a mad animal; I could only see myself that I was trying to flee from.  Lessons I hope were learned by these last few dances, and I expect to overcome some of these demons in preparation for my next competition. 

But I want to leave this writing positive in mind and body.  Indeed, my cup is half full as my life is more than half over.  I am enjoying the moment and putting myself on stage for others to observe and to judge.  Whether they always see the same person that I see should not be the point.  I am good at many things, but dancing is something that I have had to work on…….every step of the way.  If we only did what we were good at, we could go through life on autopilot.  And if that is what makes certain people happy, that should be their choice.  For me, the moments of dancing on a stage presents the most stress and the most reward.  The stress is a good stress.  I feel I’m alive; I feel I am living.   I do not always feel alive, I have to fight the comfort of being a recluse at home, protected by the boundaries of my physical space and the tendency to limit my inner world with safe ventures that expose only my strengths and hide my weaknesses and vulnerabilities.   But I am brave even when I’m not always strong, and this makes me very happy.