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????