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Today was the Malaysia Open Dance Fest, organised by Teresa Liu, Emily Mah and Lane Lee under the World Dance Academy umbrella. The competition received overwhelming response, I guess partly because we haven’t had a neutral competition for quite a while.

I myself took part in quite a number of events – 3 team events (line dance team open, line dance team crystal, modern jazz team open) and 2 individual events (line dance individual crystal, modern jazz individual open).

The team had been training hard for the past month or so, trying our best to get our routine right and to be synchronised. Unfortunately, today, we didn’t do as well as we would like to – we came out only 3rd in all our events. I know that sounds pretty good, but not when you hear how many teams actually took part in the respective events. I shall let you guess.

We were disappointed not in the results, but in ourselves. Still, it was a learning experience for us all. I’m glad to say that every individual in this team did put in a lot of effort, and we haven’t been working together long enough as a team; so hopefully in the future, with enough consistent practices, we’ll make ourselves a better team.

As for the individual events… well, to tell the truth individual events have always been frustrating for me because I can’t seem to get into the finals, even when my friends say I deserve to get in. Either that, or something will go severely wrong (not my fault) and I’d get booted to last place. I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to be able to stand on the podium, with more than 3 people competing in the event.

So anyway, I MADE IT INTO THE INDIVIDUAL CRYSTAL FINALS!!! Yeahhh!!!

The finals are tomorrow night. I hope I’ll have some rather good news to report tomorrow.

As for the modern jazz individual open… I GOT SECOND!

OK, so there’s only 4 people competing. I know that doesn’t sound tough, but it is – you try it and see!

I was actually worried that I was going to get last, because the judges weren’t looking at me. I was quite sad, you know. There I was, smiling and pumping out all I had, but none of the judges seemed to be looking at me. In fact, one of them even walked around me to take a look at another contestant. :’(

After I got off the floor, Pei Ru said that I’m definitely in top two. Another friend, Joanne Ng, said that I should win (1st), and coming from her, it means a lot because she’s got a very critical eye.

But I was already convinced that I was going to get 4th (how’d you like it if judges walked around you to look at others???), so I tried not to get my hopes up.

And when we were waiting on the floor for the prize presentation… I had a few false starts. OK, they’re not really false starts. But you see, my tag number is 17. And when the emcee (who is Bronya, by the way) announced 4th place: “seven–” I was going to step forward, until she completed her number: “-ty-five”.

And then it would register in my head: “Oh! That’s not me!”

And then in 3rd place, it was “seven–” and I was going to step forward again, until it came out as “-ty-one”.

For the first time, I was actually able to hug the other remaining contestant as we wait for the results. (The other times I got high placings in line dance competitions, finalists weren’t placed on the floor like in latin competitions, we usually just run in from the audience back then).

I’m happy with second place. First place would have been nice, but it’s too much pressure to try to defend it in the future. I honestly know that I still have so much to work on in my dancing, so having the gold elude me is great motivation.  I know to some people, this may sound somewhat like sour grapes, but it truly isn’t. Besides, I don’t want people to start expecting me to dance like a superstar, and then see my dancing and go, “Haaa?? Like that also can win first place ahh?”

Anyway, I felt the first placed winner did deserve the win. I didn’t see her dance, but I saw her practising during her warmup, and she was super-flexible and rhythmic. And she’s really friendly and nice too

Tomorrow night will be tougher though. There are 10 finalists for the individual crystal. *sweat* I just hope I won’t get last.

Oh, by the way, there are no photos because… Pei Ru tried to take photos of me on the podium with my Olympus BUT SOMEHOW THEY ALL CAME OUT BLUR. Dammittttt!!!!!