Anyway, here is my account of the evening. My Mum & I travelled to Bristol and arrived at the Venue just before 5.30pm. The Venue was one of the best I have seen used for a competition (apart from the ceiling which I will come to later), it was clean, spacious and practical. Unfortunately the pole needed to be installed between 2 beams making Tamar's proposed death lay a tricky affair, the close proximity of the beams also meant that the neon light tubes were dangerously close to the pole and thus the performers but luckily no harm was done.
The comp was a little late starting but the show eventually kicked off at about 8.30pm, with a charming chair / pole routine by 4 instructors from Spin City. The judges; Co-Organiser Fay Warne (Pole-tastic) pictured right, Jolene Whiting (Purity Pole) pictured left & Josephine Ford pictured middle (Pole-play and PoleDivas originator) were now ready to judge the amateur section of the competition. A Lady called Reena won (excuse me if I have her name wrong), I personally would have given it to the lady who danced first but the competition had a strict set of judging criteria which I actually favour and despite my reservation over that result there was no problem working out who won the amateur advanced section. Karrie (again apologies if I have the wrong name!) wowed the audience and judges with a performance that would have wiped the floor with us professionals. Karrie's unique style, death defying tricks and originality kept us all mesmerised from start to finish, this lady is definitely one to watch. Our own SJ performed beautifully despite forgetting a bit of her routine, she pulled out some classic tricks and managed to smile and entertain throughout, I was most proud of her.
So then it was our turn, I went first and was generally very pleased with my routine. I knew I had not practiced as much as is required for a professional comp but pulled a nice little routine out of the bag anyway. There were a few mistakes but nothing drastic but I did receive a 5 point penalty for lack of floor work which I kind of expected - I hate floor work and end to get carried away with tricks but hey ho - here is my performance;
Tamar went up next and danced the best I have ever seen her dance starting her routine with a very impressive death lay and including some of classic back bending tricks including her Felix figurehead, Half Moon and The Dove. Next up was Hayley who wowed the crowd with moves such as the Bridge and Crescent, Hayley was highly critical of her performance but I thought she did brilliantly. The fact that all of us were scored so closely made me extremely proud of the art of dance. To see Tamar's performance click here, to see Hayley's performance click here.
One interesting discovery from last night was a new sports drink, now generally I am not a big fan of so called performance enhancing drinks a they are usually full of nasties such as caffeine, taurine and aspartame but yesterday I discovered a more natural alternative that is favoured by the British Triathlon team; Taut is a naturally hydrating drink containg only natural sugars, minerals and fruit. It is definitely something that I will be using in the future.
So now it is back to some serious pole practice as I have several showcases coming up over the next few weeks so expect to hear about some lovely new bruises and abrasions. Lastly a huge thanks to my Mum for travelling with me and supporting me throughout the event and a big thanks to Faye & Robyn for organising such an excellent competition. It was lovely to catch up with so many familiar faces too. Pictures to follow from the lovely James from Motion Stop Factory.
Stay Healthy,
Sam x
1 comment:
Hot DAMN ladies!!! Quite a set of performances there - we're very proud!! (What happened to the beginning of Tamar's video..?)
Amy & Dolly xxxxx
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