Gulf Regionals Overview

This past weekend was Gulf Regionals in Orlando, Florida. While I sadly did not have the money to attend the full day of workshops, I was able to attend the Saturday evening dance at Whirl and Twirl and watch a few of the competitions and get some good fun dancing in. There were so many talented people at the dance that I felt much more self conscious than normal of my amateur, intermediate level dancing. Of course, with so many great dancers to watch on the floor, it’s one dance where you don’t mind playing wall flower in order to learn by watching some of the great dancers from the area.

The competitions that took place on Saturday evening were the Amateur Lindy Hop competition, for people who had not previously taught Lindy, or competed before. It was great to watch new talent emerging in this competition. The next dance of the evening was the Jack and Jill prelims. It’s definitely interesting to watch how dancers react to a new partner and adjust their style according to the partner they are randomly paired with. Following the Jack and Jill was the American Lindy Hop Competition qualifying round for slow dance. There was some amazing dancing during this round and I was awed by the talent of some of the dancers who competed. A bit later in the evening, after some more dancing for the rest of us, the competitions concluded with the Jack and Jill finals, the ALHC fast dance, and the solo Charleston competition. There was some really great dancing during the final rounds, and the contestants really stepped it up when they competed in the jam format. I was incredibly impressed with what they were able to do.

I will probably take some time over the next few days, as videos of the competitions are posted on the Gulf Regionals website (www.gulfregionals.com) to go more in depth into each of the competition rounds and point out some good segments of the videos. Of course, until the videos are posted, it’s hard for me to discuss without saying “it was a neat move” a few thousand times

Pictures from the Saturday competitions have been posted at the following website. http://www.flyinfootwork.com/gallery/v/gulfregionals/2007-Sat/ but pictures don’t really do the dancing justice My favorite picture was taken of Joel and Lenka Green during the ALHC slow dance segment when they did this amazing move. If I were Lenka, I would have been scared out of my mind to do the move. It was quite impressive, as you can get some idea from the picture: http://www.flyinfootwork.com/gallery/v/gulfregionals/2007-Sat/IMG_1006.jpg.html

Stay tuned for more as I find the videos and pictures posted

~ by Spirit on August 14, 2007.