It was 6.30am. I just woke up. Gosh.. was I tired. It would most probably because I didn’t had much sleep the day before, was watching DragonZakura and also toppled with my car problem. My car.. broke down exactly the day before competition, the drive shaft just stopped working. Had it towed to friend’s workshop already, costing a whopping rm380++! sighhh… Ok.. Well, there were 5 of us sharing one hotel room, It wasn’t cheap .. really, It’s around rm450 per night after discount.. courtesy of the 5 star Shangri-La Hotel. So.. as I was trying hard to drag myself up.. the girls were busy with their makeup and hairdo. Boy, the girls need 2-3hours to get ready.. the guys took only 15-20mins.. I simply amazed with the time they spent on their face and hair!
Fast forwarded to 8.00am, we went down to register ourselves and get our comp schedules. In this competition, I’m dancing with, of course my partner – kahyee, and then there is my 2nd partner – xiao juin (XJ), in which we’ll be participating in Teacher-Student’s Event.. we arrived at the floor around 8.30am after putting our bags and all our stuffs down at one corner.. The hall is huge, the Grand Ballroom of Shangri-La Hotel. The large dance floor covered almost 3/4 of the hall. In the background, waltz songs can be heard while the floor filled with competitors doing their warm-up.. the amount of competitors we seen here really shaken us, making all of us a little nervous.. Without wasting time, we joined the other competitors in the warm-up session.. since it’s ballroom, and in this dance lots of movements on the floor, we banged countless times throughout the practice.. really, I lost count on how many times we went right through other couples.. Now, I really felt the tense behind the competition.. made lots mistakes.. forgot our routines.. inconsistent timings.. arghh…
10.00am sharp the MC announced to all the competitors to leave the floor and preparing for the first event of the day – the Teacher-Students Events. This event is a special event for A&C Malaysian International Ballroom Dancing Championship, a teacher will bring in a student to dance with in that event, competing with other couples alike. The event is only judged by the performance of the student, not the teacher. Started off with under21 event, followed with adult event – which I’m competing in, and the under 12. We did the Chacha and Rumba, for me it’s a warm-up round.. for XJ, it would be for her to show off her skills.. lol, We got 6th placing.
As soon as we finished that event, I had to change straight to ballroom costume, coz my event with kahyee would be soon in the line. Good thing the organizers provided the competitors a large proper room for changing and to put our stuffs, and most important of all, it’s near the hall. I took 10mins to put on the Ballroom costume coz the accessories for the ballroom were so troublesome. For kahyee, she already put on her ballroom dress long before the warm-up session. While waiting for the Marshall to call our number, we desperately warm ourselves up so we don’t get cramps here and there. Then it came. We were lined up with other competitors in Novice Modern category and prepared to move into the hall. Novice category – competitors will be doing the waltz and the quickstep.
My heart was beating so fast that it almost stop when we first stepped into the dance floor along with other competitors.. There were so many people watching haha.. As all the competitors were in place for their first dance, the waltz.. the MC plays the music. Then.. everything from here just flows through.. I smile at my partner and I said to myself, “what the hell.. just enjoy the dance”.. and waltzed around the dance floor. That moment was just kahyee and I. We knew we were enjoying the dance, so we felt less tensed and we did overall good all around throughout the dance. As it was real competition, there wasn’t many couples on the floor, roughly around 8-9 couples so we didn’t bang into anyone. Before I knew it, the music ended .. I was so relieved.. and then we bowed to the audience. We left the dance floor for the 2nd heat to come in.
As I was catching my breath, another 1minute and 45seconds has passed and we were called again to the dance floor for our 2nd dance, the quickstep. The dance would be very lively and requires a lot of stamina and quick running around, as the name implies – quickstep. Although it wasn’t as nervous as our first dance, but this dance it requires my full-strength.. in practices we had in studio, we never finished two rounds of quickstep routine. It was that hard! – harder than a 200m sprint.. and we did the best we could, we danced around the outer circle trying not to knock into our couples and surprisingly we did very well.. haha without any accidents of course.
After my novice modern event, there came my 3rd event which was with XJ, the teacher-student modern event. We danced the waltz and tango. Lots of mistakes here and there, routines also kelang-kabut.. but overall, okie lar.. best thing was we got 4th placing lol.. that was not bad for a starter like XJ. I really hope XJ would be happy with the results and she would be inspired to compete again next time when she finds a new permanent partner.
The results of the Novice modern event were out. We got into Final! Yay! We prepared and went in for the final.. danced the best we could, but not too convinced enough for the adjudicators and finally we got 6th placing. This was our first Novice attempt and we are really happy with it! Didn’t really expect anything at all since the beginning, but since we got into final and placed 6th, it’s a biigg plus for both me and kahyee! haha.. Next, the Pre-Am event. Boy, our level didn’t even reach that of Pre-Am’s yet. We went in and did 3 dances – the Waltz, Tango and Quickstep. Compared to other pre-am competitors, we were like nothing.. nonetheless, we didn’t get any placing but personally I’m really happy to be able to compete and dance in the same floor with my instructor Bren and Wee Hong.. a year ago we didn’t expect any of these and we thought we would still be in beginner event or even still doing social..
Fast forward again to the afternoon event, the Latin event. We participated in the Novice Latin category – Chacha and Jive. We didn’t get through the Quarter Finals. Personally, I thought we did good and we really surpassed ourselves already. We really did enjoyed the two dances to the fullest… since our evening event finished early, we stayed in the hall to watch the other events. The Latin Amateur and Professional Event is a must see! Some competitors especially in these categories were so good in their body interpretation of the music that they were dancing to. The latin events finished around 5+ and then thus the Day event ended.
The competitors will be returning again for the Night event, with expensive dinner tables and highlighted showdances. We went back to our room to rest and change into our casual tees and pants. Supposedly, we had to pay rm60 standing tickets to watch night event, but somehow we were finalists so we got free standing tickets for ourselves. That’s all good.. since we don’t need to fork that extra rm60.. the night event started off with the Pre-Am finals and also all other finals for the Under12, Junior / Juvenile events. The night’s highlighted event were the Amateur Latin / Modern and Professional Latin / Modern category’s final. The best of the best would be on the dance floor competing for the title. The professionals came from all over the world, Italy, China, Norway and so on..
During that night, there were several show performances. First was the dance formation from China. These dancers were okay, did a couple of stuns here and there, but the formation was perfect. Then, the 2nd show dance. This time around, not a professional competitor, but a 82years old grandma with her trainer performing the modern – waltz, tango etc. That was like “wow”, even with her age… she could do things that other dancers in their 20’s can’t do. When the couple finished their performance, the crowd roared, cheered and applaud the 82 years old grandma for her great performances.. she was one of many famous dancers around the world, because of the fact of her age of 82… and she still dancing.. Last but not least, the professional show dancers from blackpool. I don’t remember the name but all I could remember is one of the couples is from Russia and the other is from Italy. Their performances was okay but requires the audiences to think creatively and its really up to the audiences to interpret the meaning behind the dance. Overall, their techniques were flawless and some of their moves were very unique. Great show .. really..
With the two show dancers performed, the championship officially ended. Overall, the whole competition was pretty well organized.. hahah, the fact that it was our studio who were the organizer..even the medals are heavy and solid.. and it comes with certificate for finalists. There were little or none hiccups throughout the flow of the event.. I thought it would be the best competition I’ve been so far.. lol, this was only my 2nd hahhaa
I felt it was really good experience for everyone here and I myself felt really happy with what we’ve achieved and really cherish the whole experience. With this, I would definitely train harder to reach higher levels as much as I can now..
Gambatte!
.. stay alittle while more, got an ice lemon tea for free.. and then we had a little photo session after that..
