Howdy Partner!

So, I did a thing! I bought a dance dress! I think people know by now that I'm a dedicated Brad Griffies girl and probably won't wear any other skating dress unless it's made by him. So, when he got this special burnout velvet fabric in, I immediately started thinking of getting a dress made with it. He has this fabric in grey, dusty rose, black, red, and teal but I could not stop thinking of the grey! I called him up yesterday during his office hours and told him what I wanted. So basically, I'm taking the W01 dress and using the grey burnout velvet fabric on the bodice. The skirt will be the double mesh skirt shown in the picture on his website but in grey and longer for dance length. Since it's a belted dress style, I'm only going to stone the belt but I'm going to use Swarovski Crystal AB of various sizes and sprinkle it with some flat back cream colored pearls. It will be my Diamonds and Pearls dance dress. Perfect for dance and classy AF. 

Dance Lessonz - Before we started our dance lesson, Christopher wanted to discuss partnering. I've been kind of dreading this conversation because I am straight up terrified of skating that close to someone. I have a skating bubble and I try to not let people in it. One of my biggest fears is a collision on ice so I'm always aware of where people are and how close they are to me. Needless to say, skating hip to hip with a partner violates all of my skating bubble rules. I was hoping to do all of my dance stuff solo but Christopher prefers that I partner. He knows best and I trust him so I reluctantly went along with it. After getting over the initial awkwardness of it, it's not so bad. I just...it's my bubble, you know? I'm really scared of tripping him or him tripping me and taking him down too. He explained the benefits and I get it but still, this will take some time to get used to. 

Dutch Waltzez - After discussing the Killian position and doing some progressives in a circle to get used to the hold and timing, we ran a sequence of the DW. I survived and I didn't kill him so that's good news. Also, he said that it was good enough to get a pass from the judges! Woot! He said I had good timing with the counts so I think this might be okay after all. We didn't do it to the music but he was calling out the counts as we skated the pattern. I have to say that partnering allowed me to focus more on my turn out and toe point and less on the placement of the pattern because he was there guiding me. So, yay for partnering, I suppose. 

Canasta Tangoz - This dance just seems like the easiest and most enjoyable out of the three preliminary dances. He explained the Reverse Killian hold and off we went with the pattern. I think I did pretty well. He commented on how nicely I did the end pattern with the cross stroke-swing roll (my favorite part!) so I think this dance might be okay to test in a couple of months. Again, we didn't use music but he called out the counts. I was able to stay on beat so yay!

We didn't make it to the Rhythm Blues because we ran out of time but hopefully we'll look at that next time. My biggest fear with this is the cross behind steps with a partner. Scary. That's where I feel like I might trip him. I asked him if he felt like I could possibly test all three dances after the new year and he seems confident that I'll be ready by then. During our previous lesson, I told him I won't feel like an ice dancer until I've passed my Preliminary Dances. He corrected me and said "You're already an ice dancer. You have to be an ice dancer to pass the tests!" So, yeah, I guess I'm an ice dancer :)