A mixed bag on proficiency

So last week I told you Imi and I were going to try proficiency judging for me at the Yankee Classic this weekend. Proficiency judging means the amateur is judged out of 100 as opposed to competing with others. The advantage is if you go to pieces over the results (as I do), you can avoid the whole lining-up-in-order-of-results/sweating everyone’s medals situation. As an additional plus, we thought it would be true that Imi could essentially drop me into any level at any time. Whereas it would likely be disconcerting to see me on the floor with a Silver group (I am Bronze, after all), it wouldn’t really matter, and I would get to sleep late. The more advanced levels go later.

This time around, there was some confusion on how things should work. So, the organizers put me in the normal Bronze heats, which started at 9AM, meaning I had hair and makeup at 6:30. That did not make me happy. They also did not judge me against 100, I just got 15 firsts as if I was uncontested in those heats (that’s me wearing my new Rhythm dress looking a little confused with the results on the right there). So we can’t say it really was proficiency.

I wasn’t feeling well when I did my Rhythm heats and my condition quickly got worse. I had to go home sick and miss the rest of my dances, including Nightclub and Smooth. I was sad to miss everything – the Queens and Jokers nightclub event was sure to be a blast. And we can’t yet say whether proficiency is the right choice for me since it did not really work this time. Imi did say I seemed a lot calmer this time but that could just have been me concentrating on not getting sick on the dance floor. (That’s definitely something that would happen to my protagonist, Ava, who is the queen of dance disasters. Maybe it will show up in book two!)

I’ve put some more photos and video from Yankee on my Gallery page. So check those out, too.