"Confusing yet quite impressive"

Well well well.

That's how we did last night.

Both judges were really impressed with our dancing. Honestly I think that our switch leading had them both so impressed that they didn't look as hard at our Bronze 4 as they might have otherwise, because neither of us felt like we danced as well as we have been in those dances. If you don't mind my bragging, this is what they said about us that I'm really happy about:

Switch lead:
We had excellent timing in foxtrot. We're usually fast - but then, Zirpu's usually leading.

Timing is good in tango. I'm really happy about this because it's hard for me to hear the "one" in tango.

Zirpu's spotting on the under arm turn in salsa is very good (it seems to me that the UAT must feel squished to him, since I'm ten inches shorter).

Regular form:
"It's a joy watching you dance" foxtrot.

Our patterns and lead-and-follow flow beautifully in rumba.

The notes from bolero are MIA. But we know what we thought - our footwork is terrible in bolero, though we dance the steps well.

We got high marks for our frames and for our "unison" - that is dancing together - in all dances. The judge we met with to go over the notes said that we have good discipline as demonstrated by our willingness to learn each other's parts. In his opinion we are ready to dance in Amateur Three competitions, which are comps in which pairs of students dance in one or the other or both of the categories (Amateur 3 Rhythm consists of cha cha, rumba, and swing, and Amateur 3 Smooth includes tango, waltz, and foxtrot). They were very excited about our dancing, which makes me feel a little bad about my cynical remark at the end of Wednesday's post.

The hundred or so people at the event last night loved the switch lead too. I think I led particularly well and that Zirpu followed particularly well.

Our honor dance cha cha was a lot of fun, and we laughed a lot during it because we had a few foot bobbles. A few people told me today that they were touched that we were dancing to our wedding song.

It was a good night.