further reflections
We had a new teacher as tonight's ballroom lesson by the name of Dale. Right now he's one of the head coaches for the BU team (the other head coach is a woman by the name of Helle). He made a few remarks that really summed up what I've been feeling recently. I'll try to paraphrase them as best as I can. He talked a lot about the difference between being a good competetor and being a good dancer. Dale told us about how when he still competed, he was a very good performer. Helle on the other hand, who competed against him, was a not as good as a performer as Dale, but she was a better dancer. Whether this story may be true or not, I think it's important that he made the distinction. I really love to dance, and I want to be a good dancer. But I want to be a good dancer not for the sake of competeing, but because I love to dance.

I decided previously that I wouldn't compete in Harvard, and possibly for the rest of the year... but that I still wanted to go to lessons. The lessons are great, but I don't know if I'll be able to spend the extra 4 or plus hours a week practicing in addition to lessons. But I had so much fun dancing at tonight's lesson that it made me rethink my decision. I was talking to Kerry about the difference between dancing and competing/performing, and I think it's a little bit harder in this situation because you can't really practice ballroom without a partner. And since I'm not competing, I don't have one... but I still really want to dance, and continue to get better at dancing... but not neccesarily compete all the time. I feel like stressing preparedness for competitions take some of the fun out of dancing. I guess it's impossible to seperate the two right now though.