Hilary 8th Week: Blackpool

Cutting straight to the chase, I shall begin today's post by thoroughly rehashing the sequence of events comprising our trip to the national dance championships in Blackpool. At 2:00 last Friday, the OUDC (Oxford University Dancesport Club) boarded two coaches destined for the distant city of Blackpool. I should note, however, that Blackpool is distant only by British standards, requiring a mere 4.5 hour bus journey. While I spent most of the trip sleeping/chatting/singing songs with my partner and some other beginners, I did gaze out the window for a while to admire the lush, green rolling hills and the many peaceful flocks of sheep. Needless to say, the scenery was exceedingly picturesque.

Finally, we rolled into Blackpool after a beautiful English sunset (I reckon it would be strange if we had seen a French or American sunset, no?), winding our way through town towards an illuminated beacon known as Blackpool Tower. In spite of the Eiffel-shaped Blackpool Tower, the city reminded me of a deserted Myrtle Beach. Not only is Blackpool situated on the water, but the downtown area recollects a cheesy 1950s-1960s carnival atmosphere. Full of old arcades, flashy colored lights, and plenty of run-down chip shops, it seemed as if the city had been left somewhere in the past. All the same, our coaches dumped us on a street with literally dozens of narrow hotels which resembled a bookcase of tightly packed novels. Nick, Latt, and I procured our key at the Fern Villa hotel, swiftly dumped our bags, and rejoined the other similarly-minded hungry beginners.

A short walk brought us to La Piazza, a family-owned Italian restaurant, shockingly located on a beautiful stone plaza. As we walked up to the plaza, my dance partner - cutely arm-in-arm - gave a large "oooooh" as she saw a gorgeous stone church lit with assorted colored lights. Looking up to also admire the church, I failed to continue navigating, catching a bollard square between my legs. I'm fairly certain it was the funniest moment of the weekend, although such realization came only after I assessed that I can still have kids some day!

The restaurant itself was quaint. The interior was (also shockingly) decorated like an Italian plaza. Our food - I had soup and a calzone - was really good, but the owner seemed to have a chip off his shoulder, continually trying to convince us to buy more food or drinks. Thus, as we finished eating, we trickled out of the restaurant to return to the hotel via Marks & Spencers, a grocery store. Nick, Latt, and I talked briefly but swiftly went to bed in hopes of resting up for the competition.

I didn't sleep well that night. The bed was hard, the air was too warm, and I had too much anticipation for dancing. Restless, I bounded out of bed at 6:30, ready for a nice hot shower. I turned on the water and ... UGH! Freezing cold! It turns out the hotel's boiler cannot make hot water very fast, so the girls upstairs - who had been bounding around their room since 5:00 - evidently took it all. Thus, I decided that washing my hair and face would be sufficient; never have I been so glad to have a shower wand instead of an American-style fixture!

After an excellent, albeit late, full English breakfast in the hotel, we walked over to the Empress Ballroom, located across the plaza from the pain-inducing church. It was so nice to not have an x-hour bus ride the morning of a competition. We were relaxed, calm, and excited for a fun day of dancing. As we walked into the main ballroom, I was blown away by the size of the space! The floor was easily over 200 feet long and probably a bit less than 100 feet wide. The ceiling was an elegant Victorian (I think?) vaulted arch roof, rising two balconies over the dance floor.

At last, at 9:30 am, the competition began. As couple number 545 out of 550 (about 180 of which were beginners), Jenna and I realized that we would be in the last heat for every dance. This gave us a little extra time to plot strategy before walking out on the shiny, flexible, brown floor for our first waltz. Unfortunately, our strategies were unsuccessful as we were repeatedly run over by Goliath and his partner. Mercifully, the first round is usually pretty easy to get through, so we were not particularly worried... just jostled.

After that dance, all the beginners were shunned off to the so-called Spanish Room to continue their competition. The Spanish Room was also a work of beauty, featuring a rounded sky-blue roof (unfortunately covered by dark-blue construction tarpaulin), overlooking a model Spanish town around the room's walls. Unfortunately, the small floor required the first round of quickstep to take 16 heats, whereas the first round of waltz on the main floor required only 10. Thus the morning progressed: in each dance, Jenna and I made it through the round of 16 heats, the round of 13 heats, the rounds of 10, eight, and five. At last we returned to the main floor for the quarterfinals and semifinals. Jenna and I were once again barred from the finals (sigh), but since we were having such an incredibly marvelous time simply dancing with each other, our only disappointment was that we were done with ballroom for the day. In fact, we were thoroughly excited to cheer on our teammates Aarne & Polina, Felix & Naomi, and Vincent & Rachel for their waltz final along with Louis & Bizzy in their quickstep final! It concluded an exciting morning of ballroom.

While the offbeat competition ensued (think: cabaret style dance routines), I walked back to the hotel to grab my lunch. Having returned and consumed said lunch, the afternoon portion was just about to begin. Once again, Jenna and I waited through the first nine heats before heading taking our place on the floor for the cha cha. Here, it might be good to mention that we learned an entirely new cha and jive routine only eight days prior to the competition and - for various reasons - Jenna and I did not really practice at all leading up to the competition. Thus, it was no surprise when half way through, we ended up social dancing! It was a mess, but we totally laughed it off. Once again, the merits of messing up the first round spared us an early exit. Once again, we proceeded back to the Spanish Room for the same long afternoon of heats: 16, 13, 10, eight, five. As a beginners team, we were again much less successful in Latin than Ballroom, but we were dancing better than at SUDC two weeks prior. Thus, returning to the main floor, Jenna and I were excited to have some company for the late rounds. As is our fate, we only made the semis in cha cha (though congrats to Latt & Emma for their final!) but we did crack the finals in jive! Together with Vincent & Rachel, who were apparently on fire for Blackpool, we took the floor by storm. In the end, they won second overall, while Jenna and I placed fifth.

Having not had enough dancing (warning: theme emerging), Jenna and I chose to compete in the open Rock n' Roll competition. Unlike at Sheffield where the competition went directly to finals, there were many more competitors this time around. We did make it past the first round - pretty good for unchoreographed goofing off - but our run ended there. We had a total blast.

And thus the competition proceeded into the team match. Essentially, each university submits up to six teams (labelled A-F), where each team consists of a waltz couple, a quickstep couple, a cha cha couple, and a jive couple. Thus, the most advanced dancers comprise A Team, the next, B Team, and so on. Jenna and I have danced in the team match on several occasions this year, but due to the quantity of beginners talent this time around, the jive spot went to Vincent & Rachel. I was quite excited to see how they performed along with Felix & Naomi (waltz), Aarne & Polina (quickstep), and Latt & Emma (cha cha) as "Oxford F Team." While they - unsurprisingly - could not crack the quarterfinals, they did beat some schools' A teams!! They were amazing!

By the time team match and presentations were finished, it was going on 12:30 am. Having not danced enough, they put on some disco music for everyone to just crash the floor. By 1:00, they kicked us all out and we headed back to the hotel...

...temporarily...

Having still not danced enough, the Oxford team decided to head out to a club, because that's apparently what you do after 15 hours of ballroom and Latin. So we meandered around Blackpool, carefully avoiding the drunken locals who were heading home for the night with their trays of chips n cheese, excited to squeeze every last ounce of fun from the day. At last, we found our destination by 2:00 and went in for a couple more hours of grooving to the music. Departing at 4:00 totally sober (although the same could not be said for others on the team, lol), we walked back to the hotel through the lightly drizzling rain. Sadly the main team took all the hot water in the hotel, so yet again a shower was not in the offing. Thus, by 4:30 I crawled into bed: with 18 hours of dance behind me, I knew sleep would not be an issue.

When the alarm went off at 8:25 for breakfast, I jumped out of bed - though stiff - with an energy that surprised even me. I ran (all 15 feet) for the shower, jumped in, and could finally enjoy some glorious hot water. Nick and Latt were a little bit less keen to get up, so they merely stumbled out of bed and the three of us headed downstairs for breakfast. At that point, I remembered "Twas the Night Before Christmas;" not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Nor the kitchen staff. Perplexed, the three of us stood around for a few minutes to ponder our course of action. When we realized that even a 9:00 breakfast was unlikely, Latt found a Fern Villa business card and called the hotel to inquire. The voice in the phone indicated that indeed, breakfast was at 9. Not three minutes later, the hotel front door opened, and in came one of the kitchen staff (/owner?), apologizing for her tardiness and telling us that breakfast would be moved back to 9:30. So we went back to bed. Well, Nick and Latt went back to bed while I packed. At long last, we had our amazing English breakfast, finished packing up, and boarded the coaches to return to Oxford. Indeed, the stories from the previous night were rather humorous, but hardly had 30 minutes passed before the coach was silent with sleeping students.

All in all, it was a thoroughly epic weekend. I am so excited to be part of OUDC and thrilled at our performance in Blackpool. More to the point, I am incredibly grateful to have Jenna as my dance partner. We had an amazing weekend and I loved every moment of dancing together. Thank you so much Jenna!

Next comp: Varsity Match, May 12. Oxford v. Cambridge. Iffley Sports Complex, Oxford.

YOU'RE GOING DOWN, CAMBRIDGE!!!