in Ohio!

Friday morning I left for the National Collegiate Dancesport Championships and the Ohio Star Ball. Five people crammed into my little civic for the 8 hour drive to Columbus, but it wasn't that bad of a trip. We had a pretty easy time finding the hotel thanks to Amy (the voice I like to use on my brother's GPS). Amy usually does a good job, except when her maps are outdated or there are two exits next to each other and all she says is take the (singular) exit. I had one big frustration due to that problem and the Ohio State Michigan football game that was the same weekend.

So we check in and get to the room. It's a nonsmoking room that smells of smoke. No one really seemed to be that upset about it; so we kept it. All of my things still smell like smoke... anyways. We unpacked and headed over to the convention center to check out the show and practice a little bit.

It was awesome. Some of the best dancers in the world, and certainly the best dancers from the US were there, and I got to see them up close! Friday night were the quarter and semi final rounds for the pros. And let me tell you, there is a big difference from a quarter final pro and a finalist pro. There were a few couples out there, especially in the rhythm, that I would look better than.

Then we went and warmed up a little bit. It felt pretty good, we both liked the floor (although most everyone else said it was slick...) Then we went through a bit of a fiasco trying to get everyone back to the hotel. Somehow we picked up a sixth person that was going to stay with us that night.

Eventually we did get back to the hotel though. We all get to sleep, and let me tell you, that was the best/deepest sleep I've had the night before a competition in a long time... at least until the fire alarm went off and woke us all up at 4 AM!!!! It was so freakin loud! and it was sooo cold outside. But, was there a fire? NO. It was a new system and incorrectly activated. The night lady at the desk didn't know how to turn it off. It lasted for at least 15 min. Maybe longer. Then, back to bed, and back up!

Since we now had more people I had to make two trips to comp to get everyone there... I'm not driving to the next comp. My car got a little beat up from this one, and it needs a break.

So we're finally all there with just a little time before we have to go out and do out thing. And Our Thing we did! I'm very happy with the results. We danced the gold rounds first. I wanna say there was an 8th round, but it may have only been a quarter for each set. Either way I kept getting surprised every time we made the next round... well not the first time. I expected to make it through the first round, but we made it all the way to the finals! We tied for 2nd place in our cha-cha rumba (the results show that we got 2nd in cha-cha and third in rumba) and then got 4th place in samba jive. Overall that put us 4th in Gold. Although every couple that was ahead, and some that were behind, us in the gold were also in the Novice final. So I felt good about that.

Then we had to dance the millions of rounds of silver! There were three rounds before we got to the quarter finals. Now, somewhere in here I should have eaten a meal, but I just never thought about it. Apparently ML ate a pb&j sandwich somewhere in there. I didn't see her, so I didn't even consider food. I was in comp mode, but it seems that affected me. I didn't feel it, but ML said my energy level was down through most of the silver. Now, I was actively conserving energy for the early rounds, but I admit I had a hard time getting back up for the semi and final. So, now that I've improved my endurance at the gym its time to throw some sprints in there at the end to get myself ready for a long haul with good finish.

We dominated the silver round... up until the final. We got 1st place in our cha-cha rumba, and second place in samba jive. The results show that it was a 2nd place in jive that hurt us, but it was very close. As best as I can tell we tied in the final and had the same number of call backs in the semi, but in the 22 couples at one time quarter final we had one less callback. That's why we're second and they're first. Very Close. We still placed 1st overall for silver, so that was nice.

Obviously I need to improve my samba and jive. I already started drilling last night. Getting more into the floor, improving my bounce, and relaxing so the top doesn't telegraph the action of the bottom.

That's only Friday and Saturday, but I'm tired of this post now. So, in brief, I didn't dance standard on Sunday. I was well rested for the drive home. Made it back to my place at 3 AM, with only a few casualties along the way :(

Overall very good and very FUN trip!