A little jaunt

Last weekend the Thursday Studio kids had their first dance competition of the season.

What did that mean for me?

Staying behind to hold down the fort, that's what. Someone had to. There were classes that needed to be taught, and taught they were. Jazz for the five-to-sevens, followed directly by tap for the five-to-sevens, and if you'll remember from the last time I taught just one of those classes, the immediate aftermath is extreme exhaustion. I was prepared for it. My original plan was to go straight home and flop onto the sofa for a quick snooze before queueing up the competition livestream so I could support the kiddos from afar. It was a solid plan. I was looking forward to it.

Then Friday night happened, and one of the ballet teachers who is also my buddy (we'll call her "A.") sent me a text. "Yay! You are teaching! Are you going to San Jose? Do you want to ride with me?" How can one say no to such enthusiasm? And that, kids, is how I found myself riding shotgun to a dance competition after closing the studio up for the afternoon.

A reminder: I was not a competition dancer growing up. I was very much a pink-tights-only, snooty-snooty, absolutely nothing so gauche as all that gratuitous gyrating, I-am-an-artiste-thank-you-very-much ballet snob. This experience was a first. Because of Covid, the competition organizers had offered block scheduling, and our studio had the 1pm-3pm slot. A. and I rolled in right at one, missing nothing, because they were about ten minutes behind schedule. We weren't about to complain because it worked in our favor.

We popped backstage to let everyone know we were there, then settled in in the audience. It being the first competition of the season, we were prepared for the possibility of nerves getting the best of some of the kiddos, but apart from a few minor fumbles they did phenomenally well. Fourteen numbers out of thirty-nine entered placed in the top tens in their respective divisions. That's 36%. I did the math, because I'm a nerd. 

At the end of the day, my only real complaint was the volume, which was excessive for the size of the room and the number of sound-absorbing bodies in it, but no one listens to me about that kind of thing, so. Get off my lawn?

It was a pleasant day, all told. The studio director was pleased to have her classes taken care of, the kids who knew me were surprised and happy to see me, and A. and I got some quality time in the car. Oh, and I got to sport my schmancy new studio jacket, complete with hand-embroidered initial with rhinestone accents. So, you know, good time.