Big Dance 2017

Last Friday I went to my 7th Big Dance, which was also my 5th all-nighter (9PM-6AM).

Big Dance was...quite interesting, and a wildly different beast than it ever has been before for me.

I arrived early while Richard and the Gang were still setting up, and was there for the first dance of the night (full credit!).  Unfortunately I could sense somehow that my feet were definitely going to cramp up later in the night -- muscles felt a bit cold and despite my attempts to stretch I ended up running into the aforementioned muscle cramps a while later which was quite terrible, ugh.  I'll have to do a better job of warming up next time.

I took part in both the intergeneration and ambi swing contests, which were both fun, and judged the ambi waltz contest, which was intensely stressful.  I'm making a note to myself that I should never ever get worried or stressed about entering a dance contest anymore because being on the other side is 100% more pressure for me.  Sheesh.  My main disappointment through the contests is that we didn't actually get to see much ambi dancing at all.  I hope that that might change someday.

In terms of lasting through the night, this was most assuredly the most difficult Big Dance to get through, probably for quite a few different factors.  Not only have we not done a proper all-nighter since 3 years ago, but I also wasn't able to do quite that much to catch up on sleep beforehand, and probably more importantly, I'm just getting old(er).  I never really had any doubt that I would make it through the night, and I knew I wouldn't need to take a nap partway through (cheating!) or anything, but there were definitely times where it felt more like a slog than anything, which has not been the case in the past.

A lot of that is also just due to my changing relationship with dance as well, now that I'm such a veteran / oldie / etc.  It's difficult to explain succinctly, but it's a different social experience, I think.  At the same time I -do- still care about dancing, improving, and all that.  It's a sort of odd middle ground that I feel like I've been in for a while, to be honest.  What I can say for sure is that I really appreciated the company and presence of the older dancers, especially getting to see and hang out with Gem which is one of the highlights of every single Big Dance that I go to!

Other notable things that happened during the night....I successfully made it through Dawn Mazurka as a lead with no real issues, we had a lot of great performances that made me smile, and omg, the best part is that we were able to have dance activities that involved something other than balloons, ribbons, and dodgeballs!  wooooo~

My new waltz song got premiered, and although I didn't get to dance it to my fullest due to my feet cramping up (lol), it was really well received and I was happy with it.  Even after making my entire Celestial Melodies album I still have never really made a good danceable cross-step waltz that I'm totally happy with, but I think this one might fit the ticket!  So that's exciting.

I don't remember too many of the dances that I had throughout the night, but some standouts were the first waltz I did with Gem which was super fun, and also dancing a WCS with Audrey which was a blast, omg haha.  Also a cross-step waltz in the middle of the night with Talia where I spoke "softly" like I used to in the past -- I think I'm going to start returning back to those ways sometimes.

I'm quite ready to take a break from dance for a while now, with no reservations about it, either.

My next big event is Fanime, in which I hope to mostly "take it easy" like I did last year (which worked to great effect if I recall correctly) and hang out with one or two friends whom I know are also going.  I'm excited to wear my Journey cosplay again of course, but also to go and see AiviSura perform live for the second time!

I've been spending most of my free time on website redesign and business card designs and my labor is starting to bear some fruit now!  I've updated the front page and nav bar of my main site at http://ddrkirby.com/ (you may have to force refresh to get it to load properly) and it's looking much nicer now.