DanceSport

For those of you who don't know, Steve and I LOVE ballroom dancing. Steve danced on the Back Up Tour Team (thats REALLY good!) last year and a lower team the year before that (when I met him). I have since started to take actually ballroom classes and this was the first year that I have been able to actually take a class with Steve in dancing--380.

At BYU, we have a competition every semester called DanceSport, where all of the ballroom classes get to compete against each other (with the level they are on), there is an opportunity to compete up in classes, and there are amateur events that you can compete in. This semester was easily the best competition for me because I finally got to fulfill a goal of mine of competing with Steve. On Friday, we began our competition weekend with Open competition of WestCoast swing. Steve and I have kind of dubbed this as 'our dance' because he originally taught me the basic steps and has lead me through many different steps prior to my even knowing if I was dancing it right or not. We did not even make it to the next round because we were pretty much competing against BYU tour team members. That was okay with us--we were only in it for the fun.
Friday night, we competed in our 380 class event with the American waltz. We made it really far in our competition and we had so much fun. We ended up getting cut just before the final round, but being in the top 12 is pretty dang good for a gold-level class. It was really nice to see our friend Greg make it to the final though. We were proud that he got 4th!

Saturday morning bright and early, I competed with my friend, James Scott, in our 284 International Waltz. The reason I couldn't compete with Steve is because he has completed upper level classes and it would have been cheating if he had been in this competition. So we danced and made it to the quarterfinal round which was called back for that night. So instead of sticking around dancesport, we headed home, did a little grocery shopping, I fretted a LOT about the upcoming competition, and we watched BYU beat New Mexico in football.

That evening, James and I also competed in the Tango (competing at the Gold level) and made it to the second round. I wasn't too disappointed at being cut, but it was frustrating.

The quarterfinal round for the waltz came, we danced and made it to the semifinals. We were VERY pleased when we danced well and made it to the FINAL round! I could hear Steve, Elise and her husband Mike cheering for us as we danced and we felt like we did a great job! When the awards were presented, we were very excited to accept 2nd place! My first earned trophy! Steve has three and I was happy to add something to our dust-gathering repertoire.