It Takes A Village! Pre Bronze Dances Passed!

It takes a village.  You hear that a lot.  It was definately true in this case.  Our rink recently lost our only ice dance coach Kendall Tupper LeClair.  Last summer I took a couple of group classes she taught and we learned the basic steps of the Dutch Waltz and the Canasta Tango while I attended.  At that time I didn't know I would be finding a dance partner and persuing taking dance tests.

A few months ago I started working on ice dance regularly with Mike Otis.  He's a member of our club and also a USFSA judge who skated from time to time.  I am happy to say I think he is thinking about skating as much as judging these days!  He partnered with me for my Preliminary dances on June 3, 2016.

We have been self teaching ourselves the Swing Dance, Cha Cha and Fiesta Tango (which I just learned about 3 weeks ago) without any regular coaching.  Mike had already passed the Swing Dance some time ago and he knew most of the steps of the other dances - and we often referred to our Ice Dance book and YouTube!

Each of us had some lessons apart from one another privately and we had a handful of last minute lessons trying to smooth out the rough edges (literally) close to test time.

I thank you all.  It really does take a village:

Kendall Tupper LeClaire                    - Lilac City Figure Skating Club, Spokane WA
Julie Nixon                                         - Lake City Figure Skating Club, Coeur d' Alene, ID
Peter Sasmore                                     - Redwood City, CA
Ryan Yearous                                      - Missoula Figure Skating Club, Missoula, MT
Marie Furnary.                                    -  McCall Figure Skating Club, McCall, ID

And to my many YouTube mentors ..... especially to

Kseniya Pomomaryova & Oleg Altukhov (their website)
Fiesta Tango  YouTube direct

And to

Daven Lee and Nick Hart

.... Now that I am done with all the THANK YOU's.  Here is our test.
Below that are MY judges critiques.  I did not post Mike's.