Chapter 4: Turn the
Lights Back ON!!!
During some competitions, my teacher Yanna tells me that
when the moment invariably arrives during dance competition heats when the
lights go out in my brain, I just creatively make up a step to fill in while waiting for some celestial guardian angel to whoosh down from the heavens to intervene, return my lucidity, and save the day.
What a job she has in keeping up with me. Not only does Yanna have to memorize my
routines as completely as I am expected to - but she has yet another six pack of
competitive students each with a unique variation of the same dances to remember
in addition to my own. Yanna also has to
be prepared for that moment when I interpose
an entirely new step, totally out of blue, into any routine during a competitive
heat…sometimes I will add a foxtrot step when dancing the waltz or visa versa,
or worse yet, the step I interpose does not exist!
Yanna has to be prepared at ANY moment to “play along” and
act like it was part of the routine and hope for the cerebral circuitry to
“reboot” after the computer locks up in its last screen, paralyzed and
unresponsive to even the most vigorous keyboard banging. At the competition in Las Vegas last December – the Holiday
Classic, I continued to replace a rather simple progressive forward step with a more difficult chassé in the silver American waltz. I did this
over and over and over, despite banging my head against the wall in disgust
with having made this mistake and promising myself I would correct it the next
time around.
Makes me worried that Alzheimer is showing it dirty face in
my life I was brain farting so often. But
thankfully, the “brain fart” happened only once this last week in the 71 single
dance events and the 6 multi dance events that I completed. It was unique and worth recounting.
Unfortunately, I was dancing the 3 dance
championship in standard – dancing the waltz…….a routine I have done a billion
and one times. After the second spin
turn in the routine, I encountered a dance couple that resulted in a near
collision, requiring that I stop and wait to continue my routine. For some reason, that brief and
inconsequential misstep acted to abruptly turn the
lights off to my brain. I was paralyzed in
dance position with Yanna whispering, OK you can go. But this was to no avail; I was unresponsive with no clue what step to do next.
While I continued to hold my frame, I must have looked like a freaking
moron to the judges standing there for God knows how many seconds waiting for
Him to rescue me from my absence. The
moment finally came and I suddenly regained my brain function.
The experience truly resembled the feeling
you would have if your room lights suddenly shut off and you had to
somehow find the light switch in the darkness with no idea where to “look”. I suppose this non-step had something to do
with my 4th place result. I’d
rather blame it on that rather than the quality of my dancing but maybe it was
both!!!
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