Competition Fever

We spent the weekend at a hotel in New Jersey for J's dance competition. She did 3 solos on Friday, 2 group numbers on Saturday, and 4 group numbers on Sunday. NINE numbers - the most she's ever done at one comp. The scoring for this comp (from lowest to highest) was Honorable Mention, Bronze, Silver, Elite Silver, Gold, Elite Gold, Platinum, and Platinum Plus. Here are her scores for this weekend ("Open" means the dance style falls into more than one category. "Production" means it usually includes a combination of different-aged teams from one studio):

Jazz Solo - PLATINUM - 2nd place in category
Musical Theater Solo - PLATINUM - 3rd place in category
Vocal Solo - PLATINUM PLUS - 1st place in category
Lyrical Small Group - PLATINUM - 1st place in category, 5th place overall (out of over 40 small group numbers)
Open Small Group - PLATINUM
Tap Small Group - PLATINUM
Open Large Group - PLATINUM
Open Large Group - PLATINUM PLUS - Best Costume Award
Production Large Group - PLATINUM - Most Entertaining Award

J (and only about 15 others out over 100 solos that night) was selected for something called "Power Pak" which is the competition's own touring group of dancers. It's similar to the other performance team ("Team Rave") she was on a few years ago. Basically for $$ you spend a week with them taking master classes, doing various activities, and performing. As wonderful as it sounds, I couldn't get another week off (I already have a week off for Nationals) and the price is fairly outrageous. But she feels honored to have been chosen based on her solo performance.

The hotel was nice and J bounced around to all her friends' different rooms. She went to the mall with them one day and out to eat another. The competition venue was a local tech high school that had a really nice auditorium. Dressing rooms were 2 flights down - which kinda sucked, especially for me with my rac n roll costume trunk. But it all worked out great.

W had a great time out in Long Island with my parents. He went out for breakfast, bowling, to the movies, to dinner, played with his cousins and the neighbors, and just had such a better time than if he had come with us. He gets so bored at J's competitions and feels obligated to play with the other little brothers who aren't nice kids at all. I'm finding that a lot of traditionally-schooled kids (boys mainly) W's age (up to like 11yo) have something they feel they need to prove to their peers, try way too hard to look cool in front of others, and feel good about acting as nasty as they can and laughing about it. I saw so much of that at the competition this weekend. Thankfully W sees right though that, although he does give too much "benefit of the doubt" in my opinion. I love that W has an incredible sense of self with no pretense or showing off. He is such a good person, with his head and his heart always in the right place. I sometimes wonder if he had stayed in school, would he be just like these other boys? Thankfully I'll never know.