Riot and Frolic

a mostly ballroom dance, but also a bunch of other stuff, blog

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I own and rock people’s faces off teaching ballroom dancing at Dancers Studio in St. Paul, MN. My husband and I compete professionally in American style and wrangle eight children in our spare time. I’ve been teaching and competing in ballroom dancing for over 25 years and have lots of opinions on it. I am an expert by any means, but there are quite a few dancers who are better than me and I have a solid knowledge of basic technique, so suck it.

Dance Sarcastically

 

One of my favorite movies is The Other Guys, which besides starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, has one of the funniest lines ever in it:

    You learned to dance like that sarcastically?

Often in tough practice sessions, when things just aren't working or I don't feeeeeel it, I dance sarcastically.

I pick my favorite dancer to channel (Joanna!  Marzena!), or my least favorite, yet most expressive, over-the-top dancer (let's not name names!) and proceed with the following scene…

    Me (sarcastic tone): Hey Gordon, watch this [insert dramatic, confident, enormous, and silly-feeling rock step and spin combination, imitating So-and-So]

    Gordon (completely sincere): That looked awesome.

    Me: Shit.

The dance floor is not the place to be in my head, listing off all the things I did wrong and chastising myself and getting self-conscious.  (That's what the practice floor is for, sort of.)  The dance floor is where I go, "Look at me!" and if I have to say it sarcastically, then so be it.

LOOK AT ME!

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One year ago: One Thing, in which I do… one thing.

Two years ago: It's Getting Hot in Herre, in which MN proves it can get above 70 degrees in June.

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