30 Day Challenge & Bootcamp auditions

I know I said I wouldn’t reblog here all the posts for the 30 Day Lindy Hop Challenge and yet it seems like I’m doing it every day. But so far, it seems like every day is about something that my non-dance readers would enjoy as well. So there.

Day 6: Your favorite group dance (Mob Dance)

As it turned out, I was gonna blog about the Summer Bootcamp audition anyway, and it ties nicely with today’s subject -as you’ll find out if you read my post over at the Swing Dynamite blog.

I may seem silly that I got so excited about the audition. I was part of the teams before. But for some reason, I thought ALL team members needed to audition again. You see, Swing Dynamite is going through a process of major changes in its teams. Some teams will be no more and some new teams will be created. So I got a little confused.

In any case, I thought the level of the audition was going to be a lot higher than it was. So given that I’ve trained, performed and competed with the teams before, I was well prepared for it.

: Rhythm Blasters at CSC 2010. Traditional pre-competition photo

: Rhythm Blasters at CSC 2010. About to perform

: A gig at the War Museum. Summer 2010

: Dynamite Girls at Followlogie 2011. We placed third.

However, I didn’t know this before the audition. And on my way to the studio, I was feeling nervous and even a bit anxious. I had to stop training in February last year after a foot injury during training. Several X-Rays and one MRI later, the sports medicine specialist concluded one of the little bones on my foot was bruised and he said it would take 6 – 12 months to heal. However, by the end of 2011 I discovered I needed major abdominal surgery. In total, I had to stop training (or even social dancing) for 14 months.

Naturally, I got rusty. I started social dancing in late March and joined an audition-only Intermediate/Advanced class at the end of April. I didn’t think that was going to be enough training for the audition.

I really didn’t need to worry. The big audition will happen in September, but by that time, I’ll have trained the whole summer and will be more than ready to join the Lindy Hop team. I’m still thinking about the West Coast Swing one. We’ll see.

What I REALLY want is a Balboa team but right now there aren’t enough people interested in Balboa -that are at a team level, here in Ottawa.

And a Blues team. Same thing.