Blogger Site Not Working So Well for Me!

Not much about designing pages on Blogger is intuitive. I'm a creative person, not a computer person. I have found that terribly frustrating. A friend told me about the Tumblr site and I found its set-up much easier to use. So, for anybody out there reading and wanting more, I've shifted to the new site:


http://prettytoughdancesport.tumblr.com/

Competition Photos: Latin, Standard, American Smooth

 Link to Competition Photos 2010

Bronze Standard

Pretty Tough

Sparkling rhinestones under the bright lights of a ballroom competition floor wink “look at me!” To the judges, to the audience, to, oh, anyone with eyes to see. Only 90 seconds per dance to capture and hold attention long enough for the viewer to decide you are the one. So, sparkle plenty and flash vivid fabrics and create the longest lines you can and take the biggest strides and hold the biggest shapes. Execute precise movements, bursting with verve. Emote the most engaging facial expressions you can. If it’s Latin, show as much skin as you dare, shying short of the border between racy and raunchy. Articulate those feet! Everything is noticed and judged in a flash.

Whether elegant and light for Standard, powerful and emotive for Smooth, or sexy and earthy for Latin, the female dancer is always pretty. Pretty like a girl on a Sunday School picnic? Scrubbed skin, cotton frock, shy eyes, hair gently wafting to and fro in the breeze... um, no. Pretty in an uber-feminine way: coordinated, dazzling and staged to the smallest detail. Gaudy? Of course! You have only to see a couple of women dancing in the ballroom without make-up and coiffed hair and vivid colors under those hot, harsh banks of lights to know it is a terrible, terrible mistake to go for “natural” in this venue. The “naturals” look pale, ill, almost corpse-like. They may have left their mini-vans in the parking lot, but they did not leave their workaday selves at the door. Hyper-reality is called for, a unique variety of prettiness sanctioned by the elders, who have paid their dues in a lifetime spent training, competing and teaching. It is a contest, after all, and you cannot win if you do not play by the rules. Prettiness is the lovely surface you present for the viewers’ delectation. It need not make you feel small and objectified, as the “pretty girl” label might, out on the streets of real life. Without strength and will and drive, ballroom prettiness gets you nowhere. All that make-up must be sweat-resistant, for to compete at the highest levels, even as an amateur, requires gallons and gallons of sweat equity. Bring the heart of a lioness and the single-minded focus of a champion and the conditioning of a superb athlete. You just might win. If you are tough enough.