Time Heals Everything, they say

So I believe it is time to write a post that has been in my head for almost a year but was too painful to put into words.

<background>

As some of you know, I had to stop dancing about a year ago, due to generalized intense joint pain.

For those of you new to my blog, I used to train, compete and perform with, teach, deejay and do social media for Swing Dynamite, a Swing Dance school in Ottawa. In fact, Ottawa’s only dedicated Swing Dance school.

Anyway, it was as if all my joints had suddenly decided to give up on me.

My ankles, my knees, my hips, my elbows, my wrists, my knuckles, my shoulders… even joints I didn’t know I had* hurt.

Not that I was any stranger to pain, mind you. Pain can even be considered my longest lasting friend, considering it started when I was 11 and I met my oldest friends when I was 12 back in 7th grade.

Every time I danced, I was in pain. Every time. But I also got a lot of joy out of it. The joy exceeded the pain by far so I danced.

However, it got to be that the pain over-weighted the joy so I had to stop.

Vive la différence

Swamped in work and still at a very uncertain period of my life in all fronts so I really haven’t had a chance to do much writing. Well, that’s not actually accurate. I have done a crap load of writing, just not for this blog.

Plus I’m always very busy having 533 conversations with myself.

From the ADHD – Tales of an Absent-Minded Superhero FB Page. If you haven’t visited that page, you must do so as soon as you’re done reading my post, yo!

Did you know I keep three blogs and write for another three? And that’s not even counting Tumblr.

Some people, really!

Grrrrrrr

This afternoon, someone posted on the Ottawa Swing Dance Society FB group something about a “fun swing dancing event for single professionals”. He prefaced it with “fellow swing dancers”

As an ex-executive member of the society and a teacher & DJ for so many years, I pretty much know everybody in the scene so I thought it was weird I didn’t recognize the name. Besides, the whole thing smelled fishy so I clicked the meetup link.

Oh surprise. The event description had complete paragraphs taken from the Swing Dynamite website!

Even after contacting the person and letting him know he was reproducing our content without our permission, some of the content remains.

He rearranged some things but he is still paraphrasing. And our most recognizable bit which is basically our catch phrase (For complete beginners–no partner required! yes, double dash and exclamation mark included) is still there.

GAAAAAAAAAAAH

He also has a picture there that I am sure I’ve seen before. Not one of ours but I know I’ve seen it before. I am sure he’s also using it without permission.

 

And then I shagged

All weekend long, even.

Unfortunately, there’s no photographic evidence.

You may ask yourselves then, if one shags in the forest and there’s no picture of this, did one really shag?

You’ll have to take my word for it! I was so busy shagging I didn’t have time to take a lot of pictures.

This past weekend we hosted the 7th annual Shag Explosion, a weekend dedicated to Collegiate Shag.

The event wasn’t as well attended as in previous years but it was fun and people went back home happy. And I was ecstatic because this is the first Shag Explosion in 5 years that I haven’t been injured or convalescing from major surgery. I was very rusty but it was great to practice single and double time Shag.

I also did two hours of badass acrobatic training on Saturday morning and now muscles that I had totally forgotten they existed are screaming at me in lactic acid rage. It’s awesome!

I’ll leave you with one of the very few pictures I took. It’s of my daughter and one of the NYC instructors that came for the event.

It is not everyday that you see a room full of people shagging

The weekend was very stressful, for financial and logistic reasons, but I had a great time even if I now have to pay the consequences.

Long live Shag!

Elated

We didn’t win. We didn’t even place. But we got mad reviews from other dancers and great feedback from the judges.

But let’s rewind.

One of our teachers came to us with a project last November: A Short Showcase Competition.

We have several competitions during the year but they are mostly in the Jack & Jill format (you sign up alone and are assigned a random partner) or the Jitterbug format where you sign with partner but do improvised dancing. We thought a short Showcase competition was a great idea and went along with it. The date was set for January 19 and the number of entries was limited to ten couples.

Apparently, there was a void in Ottawa for showcase competitions (where you sign up with a partner and perform a choreographed routine) because as soon as we opened registrations, it got sold out in a matter of hours.

This were the Contest Rules:

• Entries are two people
• Any style of [swing] dance is welcome.
• Original choreography is encouraged.
• Music must be between 30-60 seconds in length.

My daughter suggested I did a Blues choreography with Stefan, one of our up and coming students. It’ll be a lot of fun, she said. I’ll help you with it, she said. So we registered.

Then Christmas came, I got very sick and my daughter went to Colombia.

That’s when I panicked. It was January 2nd and I didn’t have a song, I didn’t have a choreography and I didn’t have a daughter to help with.

‘Twas a great night

We had a fundraiser at the studio tonight. The goal, to buy medpacks to send to Cuban hospitals.

We had a band, Cuppa Soup. It’s a Dixieland band

 

We raised $1300!

Yes, ’twas a great night!

Happy New Year!

Can’t say that 2012 was a good year but in all fairness, it had some really good things. Going back to dancing and training was one of them. Finding Satchie, that adorable little craziness of a cat was another. My little DC vacation, a childhood dream come true is one of the highlights of the year, for sure.

I lost some friends but I made a few others. I laughed, I cried, I dance, I ate, I saw good movies but I was also very sick for a long time. All things considered, the balance is good, I think.

Nonetheless, I can’t say I’m sad to see 2012 go. I lost more than I gained.

Thankfully, the good things are so good, that they’re enough to allow me to look back and smile. I did win a medal this year, after all. Also, I didn’t break myself this year. This is the first no-injuries year in a long time. That must count for something, right?

And I got to perform the Sailor Girls routine again. That was cool!

The Hot Tamales & Friends

Plus! I got to be part of the Canvas of the Minds family. That’s pretty cool too.

Oh, and of course, how could I forget… We all survived the Mayan Apocalypse! D’oh!

So happy New Year! 

May 2013 be a good year for all of us

My First Lindy Hop Pro-Am Jack & Jill (as a Pro)

This happened last Saturday:

Pro-Am J&J winners with their partners. 1st Place: Stefan Fuchs. 2nd Place: Becky Lavoie. 3rd Place: Kofi Arthiabah

And it was SO much fun.

Incidentally I haven’t got the chance to do a Pro-Am Jack & Jill as an amateur. When I finally do, it’ll be funny that I’ll be able to say I’ve already done one as a “Pro” he he

When I was a sailor

We’re reviving this choreography for a little project. That was the first routine we took to the Canadian Swing Championships and we got 2nd Place with it!

It’s been a while since I last performed it and I’m very excited about donning my sailor costume again.

Can you spot me?

Footnote: Also, I thought it was very appropriate for my 300th post. Never thought I’d reach 300 posts when I started this blog some two years ago. A big thank you to all of you, my readers, for keeping me going with your encouraging likes and comments.

My Bootcamp Performance

Last weekend was very eventful.

On Friday, there was the 13th Anniversary dance of the Ottawa Swing Dance Society (OSDS).  As a former Executive member of the OSDS I usually attend these anniversary dances but this time around I was extra excited to go because they had my absolutely favourite band – the Ottawa Jazz Orchestra playing for the night.  It was amazing. I danced like crazy from 10:30 pm till 2 am. I wanted to stay till the end (4 am) but common sense told me I should go to bed because I was performing the next day with my team.

So, begrudgingly I listened to common sense -what a pesky little thing common sense is, and went home.

I made sure I slept enough and ate well.

It was a good night at Saturday Night Swing. All the teams did great and I’m overall happy with my own performance. Then I did a ton more of social dancing, deejayed the last set and went to bed at 2 am again, only to rise and shine early the next day because I had to be at the studio for a Blues workshop.

It was a good weekend.

Without further ado, here’s the video of the performance.  It’s a very simple routine because it is a bootcamp one. Competitive routines are longer and much more complicated. FYI, I’m in the front line, black dress, red flower on my hair.