Monday, July 18, 2011

Quite the long day...


This weekend was quite hectic to say the least. On Thursday we had our last practice before the competition. Aahh.

Brandon also has an able-bodied partner, Lauren, and because they are championship dancers, they dance on the Friday. Brandon asked me to come and watch them to see how he does his thing at competitions. So we went. We arrived just in time to see their last two dances. I would have been in the dog box if we got there afterwards. At least it was a semi-final, so we would've seen him dance later if we had missed it. They came second...yay partner!

Chantelle, also a CSRC leg partner, was dancing on Friday. We got there in time to see her do Latin. She was amazing!

We left after Chantelle danced and that was at somewhere around 10. Not bad for a competition day.

Then Saturday came. We were told that we had to be there at 9 for registration. So, we get there at 9 and turns out we only going to be dancing at 4. What do you do for 7 hours? Basically, you sit, you wait, you eat...a lot. Most of the time we were on the brink of boredom, some of us were already off the cliff. Brandon only arrived at half past one. I think he's the smart one.

Our time to dance came, after a long wait, and it was incredible. The adrenaline started pumping before we even got to the floor. We walked out onto the floor and people started screaming (most of the noise was coming from our own people, but still).

In the middle of our Tango, I felt my eyelash lift off the middle of my eye (I was wearing false eyelashes. They were amazing). You know what I was thinking? If I lose an eyelash on the floor, I'm going to look ridiculous and I'll be winking at the judges and then I'll look even more ridiculous. Luckily, my eyelashes behaved themselves and stayed on my face. Go eyelash glue.

Our Quickstep was quite interesting. The floor that we danced on was very smooth...this is a problem for a wheelchair dancer because it's too smooth, the wheels don't have anything to grip on to. Now, the Quickstep is a fast dance and the turns are very quick. Hence the name. When we got to the far corner, we tried to turn but we ended up just drifting across the floor. Keegan knew that it was a mistake (he's our coach) but the audience just thought it was a really cool move that we came up with. It was a good time.

We had to wait until 10:30 for our prizegiving. That was a long wait. In the end, we won our section and we won all 5 dances. So, I'd say it was pretty well worth waiting for.

We left the competition at 11:30, only got home at 12:30 and only went to bed at 2:00. Brandon only left the competition at 3:00. Shame.

It was a long day to say the least. We should be training for competition survival!

Then we had Sunday practice. There were only 4 of us there (everybody else was too tired). It was not the most productive practice we've had. But, it was entertaining.

So, that was my weekend. Not a lot of sleeping was going on, certainly not by me anyway. But it was a really EPIC weekend!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Let's Go Dancing



I have been dancing for almost seven years now. The majority of these years, my partner was Jesse (I've spoken about him in previous posts). In February, Jesse and my partnership fell apart and we 'broke up'. I won't go into the details

So, I had about 2 months of being partnerless. I needed a new partner.

Then The Chaeli Sports & Recreation Club (CSRC), was introduced to Delta Dance School. The CSRC now has eight wheelchair dancers who needed leg partners. That's where Delta came in - all the leg dancers come from Delta.

It's amazing how a couple of people have completely transformed our dancing component of the CSRC. The club now has a vibe. And I have a partner.

His name is Brandon. He is 16 and in Grade 10. Brandon is a Youth Championship dancer - the interesting thing is that he only did Ballroom. He hasn't done Latin-American in quite a while.

Now we have to learn how to work together and make what we do look pretty. Simple.

Our first competition is on Saturday...we are only going to compete in the Ballroom section (it's always good to start with what you know), just for the first competition, so we can get into it slowly.

We have to be there pretty early, which is normal, and we'll be there the entire day. Hopefully there'll be something entertaining (other than the dancing) that will happen to make the day more memorable.

Wish us luck...

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Things happening

This is a bit delayed but it is completely blog worthy, so here we go...

Every year the Chaeli Campaign has people riding in the Argus Cycle Tour to raise funds for the work we do through the campaign. For the more daring - and somewhat insane - people, we have the 'Double and Again'. It's exactly what it sounds like. The Argus Cycle Tour. Three times.

This year we only had 5 people crazy enough to do it. There is a tradition of not training for this that makes it all the more entertaining.

One of these people is Craig Sieben. Craig did his first Double and Again this year and was the only rider to make it up the final hill at Zewenwacht. He had a six year old mountain bike. Everybody else had road bikes.

Craig is leaving in 73 days, on a Walk4Wheels up Africa, in aid of The Chaeli Campaign as well as raising awareness of the abilities of disabled people. To find out more visit his blog at http://walk4wheels.tumblr.com/

But Craig knows some incredible people and has put me in contact with them - John McInroy (founder of the RedSockFriday Initiative), Sonja Kruse (travelled around South Africa experiencing the Ubuntu of fellow South Africans), Tithiya Sharma (travelling around the world finding '100 Heroes') and Adin van Ryneveld (living without spending any money).

These people, along with Craig, have shown me that there is a lot to be excited about in life and in others. It's awesome to see that there are still people that believe this.

We had an crazy-hectic day at Chaeli Cottage one Friday. We made headbands at the weekly craft workshop (Craig is quite a skilled headband creator).

It was hysterical...

There may be some pretty rad things to come. One thing I will tell you is that there are mountains involved, but I'll tell you more about them when things are a little more concrete.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Rolling with the Inspiration

This last week has been quite bleak - weather wise. Not a lot you can do when the heavens are opening outside and it's too cold to do anything inside. So, why not write to you guys?

I'm on holiday now...until the 18th of July. It's amazing.

One thing I've been doing for the last three months is an article for Rolling Inspiration (a magazine aimed at wheelchair users). Rolling Inspiration is a bi-monthly magazine. I am one of two writers for a youth section in the magazine.

It's so exciting that I got the opportunity to write regularly. I appreciate it so much because it could open so many doors for me. My articles are about life as a differently abled person. It's quite nice to share my story with other differently abled people who are in similar situations to me.

This morning I woke up with that horrid feeling of "I've forgotten to do something important". I hate that feeling.

I found out later, when I got to Chaeli Cottage, that it was about my Rolling Inspiration article. I looked at previous emails from the editor and my deadline is TODAY! I had a little mini breakdown because I was still undecided about a topic and now I had to get it in by the end of the day.

But, the way I work is to only really work properly when under pressure. So, I got to writing. My article is finished now. I've emailed it. Now I just need photographs.

I hope what I wrote about is still the same as it was when I saw it so I can actually get a photo of it...