Dear Dr. McMains, I recently read your book Glamour Addiction. It took me all of a few paragraphs for my eyebrows to go up, and all of five pages to grab a pencil, defacing the margins with comments like “YAASSS” and “yes this!” Allow me to explain. We have similar back-stories, Dr. McMains. I started [...]
Tag: competition
MIT Open 2016
Hello internet! I hope the place from where you are reading this is as blue-skied and sunny as the place from where I am writing this. (Is the above grammatically correct? It seems suspicious to me.) Last weekend I had another one of my weekend ballroom adventures! The SU Ballroom club and I piled into [...]
Punching
Hi everyone. Time for some more Real Talk. I feel a bit like a wilted puppy--a phrase that sounds like a mixed metaphor unless you have ever had a dog and scolded it. Their whole body melts down, tail drooping, eyes sad, ears tucked back. That's how I feel right now. I read a lot [...]
MADjam 2016
Hi everyone, happy Wednesday. Time to talk about my eventful weekend. I wish I had better news. So this weekend Steve and I drove down to Baltimore for MADjam, one of the larger West Coast Swing competitions in the country. I've never been to Baltimore before, and I had imagined it a dingy, run-down place--not [...]
Competition Q & A–with MIT info!
Happy Leap Day, everyone! I hope this rounding error of a Monday finds you well. Today we're going to talk about collegiate ballroom competitions. Every semester, I take the SU kids to at least one comp, and I get the same questions from newbies every time. I figured I ought to do an FAQ post [...]
Freedom Swing 2016
Hello everyone, welcome back to the work week. If you live on the East Coast of the US, did you survive the storm? Speaking of the storm.... Amidst the screams of OMG SNOW-POCALYPSE and frantic calls from family, the Sven and I made our way south to Philadelphia. It was fine. Yes, the roads around [...]
Dance Goals 2016
(Clearly I don't know what a hiatus is.) It's that time of year again, where people name out all kind of things they want to accomplish in the calendar year. Historically I've ignored the 'resolution' thing, being a bit cynical about people claiming to be instigating drastic changes in their lives without thinking through the [...]
Swingin’ New England
Hello readers, and welcome back to my life. This weekend I attended West Coast Swing comp #2: Swingin' New England in Newton, MA. I'm gonna say right now that this re-cap is not going to be as long or detailed as either of us want, on account of the Attack of Mucus Brain I am [...]
Cornell Competition Recap
Hello again readers! Today I'd like to relate the events of this past Saturday--a stint in Ithaca, NY at the Cornell Dancesport Classic, an annual college-hosted Ballroom competition. Myself, my partner-in-crime, my partner-in-Standard, and four other SU students got up before dawn, shambled into cars, and drove down to Ithaca College. As unpleasantly early and [...]
Liberty Swing: The Competition
Good day dancers and enthusiasts, welcome back to my life. This weekend has been another great adventure, which I'm going to relate in two parts. So we drove down to New Brunswick on Friday afternoon, found the hotel, and I was instantly overwhelmed by the numbers of people. l got signed in, looked at many [...]
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