Dancing – it is the best fun!

So… my weekend was fun… how was yours?

Last weekend was the annual Balboa On The River dance camp, set in beautiful sunny Brisbane in Queensland.

My dance partner John and I have been practicing hard for the last two months and I’m ecstatic to announce that we have successfully defended our title and are now the Australian Balboa Champions for the third year in a row. Woooo!! :0)

Here’s a quick peek at what we do…

Yep. That’s a pretty fabulous skirt… even if I do say so myself! It’s a vintage, full wool number that on this occasion was held together by safety pins as I ran out of time to fix it before the competition. Oops. :0)

I also entered the Jack And Jill competition which is where you are randomly paired with a partner. You line up, follows (girls) facing the leads (boys), the dice is rolled and the follows move that many places to get their new partner. You then dance for a minute and a half. Line back up again, dice is rolled and so on. This happens three times. It is basically a test of how well you follow or lead, incorporating musicality and responding to your partner.

Of course girls can and do certainly lead and some guys can follow, but I haven’t seen the reverse in competitions here in Australia. It’s all a little nerve-wracking but a whole lot of fun.

Here’s the second heat of the Jack And Jill – I had a ball in this one, dancing with a guy called Lindsay.

I was lucky enough to have a really great night and I ended up taking home the trophy for this competition as well. Some nights you’re on, some you’re not… I was lucky enough to be on… and I had an absolute ball. So much fun.

I think my favourite part of the weekend is the fact that the judging was done by five of the balboa dancers that I most look up to in the world. They are all from the US and they are all just wonderful. Actually… I’ll show you two of them in action here..

Wow right? This routine just… wow….!! I love their dancing SO much – and they are both really lovely people too.

Anyway, enough of that.

Balboa – it rocks! :0)