Dancing

Dancing

Hey!

Since I already wrote about all my important parts of my life – Au pair staying, Exchange, master program in Amsterdam, family, friends, parties, travelling and food, I thought that it would be also nice mention dancing because it was an important part of my life for 8 years. I had been dancing social dancing – latin and standard in pairs

I started to dance thanks to my mum – naturally. She was the one who gave me the opportunity to start and she was the one who went with me to the dancing classes four times per week and who shared my feelings about dancing.

The beginning

I started as a small child and in the beginning it was just one of my activities I did during the week. It is nice to see my pictures when I was young in a dancing dress and high-heeled shoes. My first dancing club was in Nové Město nad Metují where we were living for a long time – my whole childhood. At first, I was going to the classes alone and then I had my first dancing partner. I guess it was someone from my school. I think that my mum liked the fact that if you do dancing as a sport, girls look nice in a pair with a boy. By contrast, if a girl does basketball or tennis or whatever, it is just about sport and not about appearance. In Nové Město nad Metují, I already started to do dancing competitively. There are two main types of competition – you can dance as a hobby or registered dancer. Hobby competitions are mainly for fun and they are organized in the whole Czech Republic. If you want to dance as a registered dance, you need to pay yearly fee to be part of the Dancing Organization. Hobby competitions are for beginners and if you are more experienced you basically start competing in organized competitions by Czech Dance Sport Federation.

Czech Dance Sport Federation

Time went fast and competing as a hobby dancer was not enough. When I started high school, I decided to commute to Hradec Králové to dance there. The dancing clubs in Hradec Králové were naturally the way better than other ones in small cities. I remember that I experienced quite busy times. I was going by bus every day to Náchod to study in my high school there and after the school I went to Hradec to dance there few times a week. Later, it was convenient to apply for another school in Hradec to have everything in one place. It had many advantages and disadvantages. On the one side, it was better because I did not have to go to Náchod and I was “only” going from Nové Město to Hradec because I had dancing and school in one city. Moreover, my mum was working in Hradec so we could go together many times. On the other hand, I lost many friends by moving. I had many great friends at the grammar school and when I moved it was naturally harder to keep contact with them and I would say that they also did not like the fact that I chose another (better) grammar school in the middle of our studies. Actually, I was worried that I might not find such great friends in a new city and it could be hard for me. Bullshit. It was not hard at all. When I changed the school and when I started commuting to Hradec, everything was exiting. I loved the city, I loved my new grammar school and I loved the dancing club. I found another likeable friends quite easy and I was so happy.

Dancing clubs in Hradec Králové

There are two main dancing club in Hradec Králové – Bonstep and Krok. Of course I tried both of them. I started in Bonstep. An important issue related to dancing is a dancing partner. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone who would suit you! If you want to take it seriously, you see the partner almost every day and you spend a lot of time with him or her. Therefore, you cannot dance with someone who you don’t feel comfortable with. I would say that the best scenario is dancing with someone who you get along well. Unfortunately, it is not easy at all. For me, as a girl, it is naturally harder because there are many girls who want to dance but not so many guys. It was a problem since beginning. I almost don’t remember when I felt happy with my dancing partner. There was always a problem.

First amazing Dancing partner

When I was in Bonstep, I was changing my dance partners quite often. We started to dance as a registered pair. If you are registered, then you collect points and finals at competitions and then you can make progress and you can get to the better group. Everybody starts to do competitions as a class D and then you can continue to the class C, B, A and M. Class M is the best one. The rules are following: for every pair you beat, you get one point and then there are extra fixed points for getting into the semi-final round or final round. In addition, there are extra fixed points for first three places. Therefore, if you are the first one you can get a lot of points for one competition and if there are many pairs competing with you, you get even more points. By contrast, if you are last one, you receive no points. Then, you just participate in competitions and if you have 200 points and you got into the final round five times, you are allowed to compete in better competitions. In the beginning, it was my dream to be in class B.

I was still in Class C and it was quite hard to get to the better one. Then, it came an important part. One dancing couple broke up in our club and one guy was without a dancing girl. It was my chance! (haha). I mean it can sound funny but it was a normal procedure. I immediately sent him a text because I liked how the guy danced a lot! I remember that we took it so seriously with my mum. We did not talk about anything else and we were just hoping for the best. After few days I received a positive answer! His name was Lukáš. I was so happy! Even now, we make fun of this with my mum because when it happened we did not have time to celebrate and I just jumped into a new dancing relationship with no hesitation. Therefore, we always say: “we should go celebrate than Lukáš chose you. ” It has been a long time when this happened but it was so important for me. I liked dancing with Lukáš a lot. I appreciated he chose me and I liked our dancing classes.

Breaking point

As it goes in a real life, my happiness did not last ages. As the times passed, dancing in Bonstep was not enough. I told you that there were two main dancing clubs in Hradec Králové. We were dancing in Bonstep but I met a lot of new people and some of them were dancing in a rival club – Krok. I was interested in it and I found out a lot of information. My friends from the second club told me that they had many advantages. It seemed to be that the other club was better organized. They had a special dancing classes with trainers from Prague at least twice per week, they exercised before trainings and also they had an opportunity of having individual trainings with awesome dancers! I found this really important. I wanted to attend the classes but the problem was that Lukáš did not like the other club. Therefore, he refused going there even though it could help us a lot. I can´t say now if I made a mistake or if I did a good thing but I decided to go to the dancing class to the other club anyways. The problem was that I did not go there alone. I don’t even know how it happened but my friend Marek from the second club asked me to go some dancing classes with him and it the end he asked me to perform with him at the special dancing event. I don’t remember all details but I agreed and we went there. I was so shocked when I saw that Lukáš came to the dancing event. He saw us and he was so angry. I guess that he felt betrayed and I am not surprised. I regretted this move a lot but there was no way back. It followed with the worst training ever because after this we were just having normal lesson in our dancing club and our trainer just started to talk in front of everybody: “So, we are having someone who goes to train to the second club secretly and therefore we decided to kick her out. It is Bára. ” It was one of my worst moments in my life. I felt so ashamed and I felt so guilty even though I did not really do anything bad. I guess I cried a lot that night and I felt terrible.

Nevertheless, Marek suggested that we could start dancing together. In the beginning, I just felt sad because I really loved dancing with Lukáš and at that time Marek had a worse class in dancing and I did not want to go back. Then, it was also another important part of my dancing career.

Marek

We started to dance together and I did not take it so seriously. At the moment, I regret it because Marek was very talented dancer. He always wanted to have as many classes as it was possible and he was making progress really fast. I did not realize it at that time and I felt like we did not get along together well. I just remember that he was younger and therefore he seemed to me a little bit childish. Although when the time passed, he became an amazing dancing partner. Nevertheless, I was acting like an idiot. I remember that I did not talk to him much when we went for a competition and I remember I did not put enough effort on dancing. I just took him for granted and it was not a good idea, because…

Once I came to the dancing class and I just saw Marek dancing with another girl. It was a terrible experience! How could this happen? I immediately started to ask our trainer and I felt so betrayed that he already knew about it! I felt shitty. I guess that I did not realize that it was partly my fault but I just wanted to run. It is always a problem to find another dancing partner and I had to do it again. It took me some time to reconcile with it.

The funny thing is that Marek did not stop dancing and actually he is having an amazing dancing career! Seriously, I am amazed. For having a great results at the competitions in the Czech Republic, he even managed to get to many musicals. I am crazy about musicals! I love them so much! Once, Marek invited me and my mum to see Romeo and Juliet where he was supposed to dance. In the beginning, we were worried that it could be difficult to find him there but it was totally easy. He had the most important role as a dancer. He was dancing solo or with a girl and it was incredible! I don’t exaggerate but I felt so touched. He was the way better than every dancer in the musical. I loved the way he danced. Even though I hated him when he “broke up” with me, I am so happy for him at the moment.

The best dancing partner ever

Afterwards, I had some time of dancing with different dancing partners. I stayed in the second club, but I could not forget what Marek did to me. I was so angry at him. Then, one couple in the club broke. I did not know the guy well. His name was Petr Komenda. He was older than me and he had a better dancing class in latin than me and the same class in standard as I did. At first, I could not imagine dancing in the class A because it was really high and difficult class where there were many amazing dancers. On the other hand, it seemed to me quite challenging and I decided to try it.

I remember the exact moment when I decided to send him a message. I talked about it a lot with my mum and she was naturally in. I send a message to Petr asking if he already had another dancing partner because I was interested. It was so suspenseful! I was waiting for his answer and I was so nervous. When he said that he would think about it I went crazy. But first, he suggested that we could have a trial and then he would decide. It was a crazy day! I felt so nervous. I guess that I was totally red when I entered the room. Nevertheless, we tried to dance together and I was sure I wanted to dance with him. The question was: What about him?

Miracle happened! He decided to dance with me! I felt so happy. It was unbelievable! I don’t know how I impressed him but it was the best news ever! Then it was the best time of my dancing. We got along perfectly! We were going to the dancing lessons like crazy. I remember that we had at least five lessons per week and we were commuting to another city to have individual lessons. We took it really seriously. Moreover, he became my really close friend. We saw each other really often, we talked about dancing, we were training a lot and we went for many competitions. After the competition, we watched our videos of dancing. I even slept at his place many times because it was convenient to stay there when we had a training late and then we wanted to train again the day after. I think that again I did not realize it at that time but we were quite close and I loved that time when we spent most of our time dancing. It had also a big impact on me in normal life. I could not go out often with my friends. I argued with my boyfriend because I spent a lot of time on the dance floor. I was totally exhausted because I had to get up almost every day around 6 am to commute to school and then I arrived around 10 pm after my training. It was quite demanding because we did not live in Hradec and I had to commute every day and basically I was not at home at all because I stayed in Hradec after school. It was exceptional when I had some time to chill at home. It happened rarely. It was also hard because we were competing in top dancing class and it was not easy to get to the final round in that competition.

Formation

In the meantime, I did not go only to the normal dancing classes, I started to do also Formation. It was amazing! Formation is a dance in pairs when you have a choreography which is synchronized with the music and you are dancing with another couples in a certain shape. Basically, we were six or eight dancing pairs and we had around two trainings per week. It was another type of dancing but I liked it too. We had amazing dresses and we attended many events. Besides having performance at many balls, we also travelled a lot. We had a performance at the Prague castle or in Brussels at the ball of the European Union. As the biggest event I consider the Championship in formation. It was an unforgettable experience! Seriously. It was the first time when I cried after the dancing competition because of happiness. I did not expect it but we got to the final round! It was a huge success. I cannot even describe my feeling but we were performing in a huge stadium and it was so emotional. Moreover, we became really close in our dancing group and we all went through it. It was awesome!

The worst moment

I was also dancing together with Petr in the formation. As it goes normally, he started to like one girl in our formation group. I did not think that it could influence our relationship so I supported him – naturally. I even remember that he told me he started to like her and I was so naïve that I told him to take her out. If I had knew what would have followed, I would not have suggested this! I mean, they started to date and it was quite fine for a while. Although, we were not so close anymore. I did not like her at all and I felt she did not like me neither. Nevertheless, I considered it to be normal.

Once, we were supposed to have a training and Petr told me if we could go to a restaurant. I did not understand it. We never went to restaurants together. Why? I quickly understood the reason. He wanted to break up with me. He started to explain that he is already at the age when he wants to take his life seriously and that he would like to set up a family and find a place to live together. He was talking about his girlfriend and about time and as a conclusion I understood that there was no time for dancing. At first, I did not believe it. I asked him: “Are you serious? There must be a way you can do both – having a family and dance. ” I did not want to leave it. I was feeling desperate and I just wanted to convince him to take his decision back. I could not believe it! I did not expect it at all. I naturally started to cry and I could not stop. It was terrible. I hated what he said and I hated that he decided to let me go with no warning. I tried to convince him but it did not work. I was powerless. I guess that I haven´t reconciled with it yet. It is still inside of me…

Nevertheless, I could not do anything. I had few partners later but it was not same as with him. I was never that close to another partners and we never worked so hard as with Petr. I missed him so much. Actually I started not to like him together with his girlfriend. It was so difficult. I had been crying many times because of it. I hate it again when I write about it now. Of course, it is past and I should not go back. Anyways, it has been a long time and I wish him the best!

Dancing as a sport

There is also one annoying thing about dancing. The competitions. I remember that it was quite hard for me and for my mother. During weekends, we had to get up really early – sometimes even at 3 am because we needed to prepare me and go to another city. Sometimes the whole process took three hours and then it was useless when we did not go to the final round! It was always hard and emotional. When I was competing in the best dancing class, I had to put a special cream on me to look tanned, I had to do a special hairdo and of course I had to put tons of make-up on me. Moreover, proper dancing dress and shoes were a natural thing. We even put a fake eye lashes before the competition! And it was even worse…

Many people think that dancing is not a proper sport although for me, it was more than sport. It was a way to relax, to stay fit, to meet interesting people, to enjoy myself and to be happy. Dancing is not only about doing a sport. It is a passion. I totally love it and I will probably miss it for the rest of my life. Another thing is that thanks to dancing, I met many awesome people. I was always so close to them because we saw each other so often and we always had many things to talk about. One of the best parts was having a whole week of dancing in summer. I always had a blast! We worked hard and we also had a lot of fun! It is difficult to describe everything if you don’t try it but I feel so happy my mum decided to put me into dancing classes. On the other hand, I should say that we spent a fortune on it! It is crazy how expensive dancing is! You basically pay for everything – for the lessons, for individual lessons, for clothes, for shoes, for competitions, for registration… I was always jealous when someone was just rich and they did not mind spending a lot of money on it. It is way easier when you have your own trainer. Anyways, I had a great opportunity thanks to my mum and I loved it a lot!

Photo gallery