Riot and Frolic

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

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about

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.

Category: Dancetastic

  • What the Hell is Going On: Dancesport Registration and Program Literacy: Age Categories

    Back in the day, I went on at length about proficiency levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Open) in ballroom dancesport competitions.  This time, I'm going to BRIEFLY tell you about age categories. Ready? DANCE YOUR AGE CATEGORY. Sign up for the age category that you fit into RIGHT NOW.  Not the one you wish you were…

  • American Is Not International

    This is a highly-opinionated post. This is not going to a political discourse on foreign or domestic policy.  Nah, people, I'm talking dancing. Here in the U. S. of A, there are two styles of competitive ballroom dancing: American and International.  They are similar, but not the same.  Sometimes, there are dances that are named the…

  • A Little Explanation of Judges’ Marks – Je Ne Sais Quoi

    Yes, folks, it's about that time to round up this long running series (read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 here).  Today, I'm going to get existential on your dancing.  The Je Ne Sais Quoi While it's hard to say that judges mark you on something as vague and uncalculable…

  • Dancing On The Fringe

    Maybe if you were here a couple days ago, you remember how I was no longer populating my Comfort Zone.   Yeah.  That. Along with pushing my professional "I 'know' what I'm doing stuff" boundaries, our super amazing Smooth coach asked The G and I to be in her Fringe Festival show…  where she was…

  • Danger Zone

    To me, dancing has always been pretty tame.  The teaching, the performing, the competing; it didn't rate high on the fear factor scale.   Until recently.   The G and I have had a lovely reputation for being "clean", "technically sound", and "classic" as professional dancers.  AKA, boring. Tired of holding our teacups with our…

  • What the Hell is Going On: Dancesport Registration and Program Literacy: Proficiency Levels

    I get a lot of questions [read: complaints] about the levels, age categories, dances, and general WTF-edness of dancesport competition entry forms and the ensuing competition printed program.   First, understand that the number of levels, the precise name of these levels, the ages in a particular age category, and the dances available CHANGE from…

  • Checklist for Ballroom Dancers

    I Can Stop No, not "I can stop" like the "… at any time… It's not a problem, really… I don't need to dance" conversation at your intervention.  I mean, the "… at any time if there's someone in the way… I just feel like resting… There's a nice pause in the music… My partner is…

  • Inspiring/Cheesy Dance Quote

    Get moving.   Happy Friday. Three years ago: Unpaid Programming, in which I heavily hint at gifts.

  • LLLL

    – Zoo has twirled her hair into dreds since she was little, hence her relatively short hair.  After having a bald spot pointed out by a friend, we decided to shave her head. She giggled through the whole process, then didn't like it while she was in the bathtub ("I don't want this hair."), then…

  • LLLL : Sundays

    – Things I hate on Sundays: waking up showering makeup contact lenses moving pants – watched American Hustle and then had to cleanse my Christian Bale palette with some Equilibrium. Whew. – Suit Day at our studio was excellent. I had my boys and I dress up a la [competition] mode and do a mock…