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From the damp cold night s of Brean Sands to the Glamour of Killarney, it's all in here in glorious detail.
Against all odds
Maybe its just me, but I seem to have the knack of walking straight into the strangest of situations and meeting the most fascinating people. Only today, I thought I would pop into Spec Savers to have my glasses looked at as the little rubber ends had fallen off the arms.
I joined the queue behind three other people, a man and his wife at the front, then a young girl and then little old me. The man at the front had demanded to speak to the manager, having only had his sight test some three weeks ago, he was having trouble
seeing long distance, the following conversation ensued; Can I help you sir, yes in a very arrogant and angry manor. I came here for an eye test and now I cant see long distances Through my glasses, ok sir, when did we make your glasses and Ill look you up on the computer, you didnt make them. But I thought you said, No, I said you did my eye test and I cant see long distances, the lady told me that when I had my new specs, I would be able to see that clock, pointing above the managers head and across the road. Ok, So can I see your new glasses, No, why not, if you want me to help I need to the glasses, Ive lost them, well can I see your prescription please, No, Ive lost that as well, it was in my glass case Right, so what would you like me to do? I want the glasses replaced and a free eye test Before the Manager could say anymore, the customer said something like oar locks and stormed out of the store ranting and shouting dont buy anything here, you cant get any sense out of the Manager if you have a complaint! I was then seen to in a very professional and courteous way by the same confused Manager, however, whilst I was being served, someone did ask about drops for dry eyes, the Manager informed the customer that he had this product as he presented the customer with a box and it is priced at £13, however, Boots the chemist do dry eye drops and they are cheaper, the customer them muttered that he would go to Boots for the drops, he then promptly walked to the rear of the queue and got £15 out of his wallet, I will leave you to complete this Dudley mystery, it must be something in the water?
Anyway, where was I?
Not everyone needs leading to the nearest watering hole, sometimes, people who are self motivated winners just come to the top like bubbles in a fish
tank and so, I give you a tale of a true hero of dance. How many times in your life do you say, I wish? For that matter, how many times in a day to do you utter those two words?
During the nine months of a pregnancy, all of our mothers planned out our lives, if it was a boy he would play football and if a girl, she would dance. This is life and nothing will change human nature. Now picture yourself over the last nine months, you live with the dream of a Disco Kid Final, every night you dream of seeing yourself up there on the podium with your big gleaming trophy! The planning that went into the year, the excitement and anticipation of the big day, then on the day, your number doesnt get called back to the final and you stand there on the stage feeling like the last person in the World!
Now replace your heartbreak with the feelings of Janice Davidson some seventeen years ago, when her long Awaited arrival, which had been her only thought during every waking hour for nine months was born without her right arm, makes a semi final misery at DK pale into insignificance!
Its a fact of life, that, some people will not lie down and intend to fight on come what may, Chelsea Strachan is Freestyles Miss Resilient and deserves every success she has achieved to date. Being independent is Chelseas greatest strength, even from the age of four she was determined to tie her own shoe laces! Five years ago she joined Victoria Knights School of Dance in Glasgow and has never looked back. Currently studying in sixth form at school, with a view to going onto college later, Chelz as she is known to her friends was on a roll and then disaster struck? In early 2006 she was diagnosed with spondylosis, (spinal osteoarthritis) a degenerative disorder, which may cause loss of normal spinal structure and function.
Six months of heart break followed, with twice weekly physiotherapy being the only hope. As always, Chelsea refused to go down and was determined to again triumph over adversity and following six months of Physiotherapy, returned to the world of freestyle dance. Most would return and make up the numbers, not Chelsea? She had success after success, finishing 2nd on the first night in Craig Tara in 2006, (her first comp back), 2nd at The British, and 5th at Dancer of the Year and finished 2006 with a podium placing at Disco Kid in Adult Intermediates. Im sure I speak for everyone in freestyle, this is one special, tough and talented cookie and mom Janice has lots to be proud of.
Freestyle Magazine 2006
A Dancing Mums Life
Every year we promise ourselves things will be different next year and every year we are wrong, life repeats itself like a BBC sitcom!
We enjoy the festivities of Christmas with our friends and relatives and then the day after, like most, we end up on all fours in the bathroom washing the dancing costumes, admiring our new designer carpet as it glitters from the fallen stones and then counting the remaining ss20s on the suit!
The New Year starts, with us getting out our 4th generation photo copy of this years comps, so badly printed, its hard to make out where we are meant to be going and when. Have you noticed how your favourite comp, always positions itself right in a crease in the paper, just like that tea spoon that appears at the end of the washing up when you empty the bowl?
Next up, is the highlighter pen to mark out the Big 4 and plan the trip to Lloret de Mar around them! Only, in 2007 we have a Big 5? With the inaugural, Worlds, taking place in Blackpool mid summer. Whats it like in Lloret, mid September you find yourself pondering?
After making the first draft of the competitions we fancy this year and cross checking how we did there last year? We prepare to consult and confirm with the travel committee at dancing? This is when everyone commits to driving further than you could beg them too under normal circumstances! But if its to a competition thats different, mothers take on this David Attenborough approach to circumnavigating the globe and doing the unexpected.
At this point, a team effort is put together for the biggest job of all, asking Dad which comps he will be coming to this year? Having built a strong case for Brean Sands and Blackpool, the fight ensues. Maybe throw in Killarney, a trip on a plane has often been know to diffuse extreme cases of resistance!
For most, having recently gone through the pain barrier of buying their latest designer suit for Blackpool, January is a lean month on the finance side, just as well, as Santa has just plundered the account and the flexible friend is not so friendly anymore!
Planning is only part of the story for the dancing Mum, there are the other menial chores like: Ordering those escaping ss20s,Preparing everything the night before a comp, shopping for food for the comp, filling the car with petrol for the comp, checking the make up, hair spray and ensuring all the bracelets, bands and head pieces are in the case, so as not embarrass our off-spring at the comp!
Next up is the cake your child in chocolate game! Out comes the Santropez, Amber Solaire and Extreme Fake Bake and to work they go, in twelve hours the finished article will come down the stairs looking like the creature from the Black lagoon, accompanied by a high pitched whining sound, There are no towels in the bathroom mom! Mothers are so idle when it comes to their childs needs! Not to mention, how you could let your child sleep in sheets that resemble a Monet is beyond me, white, pink, blue! All with a dash of brown smeared pattern, perhaps it should be called Freestyle art and hang on the walls of the Tower Ballroom during Disco Kid?
In the olden days, pre 2000s, our kids would go to bed with a head full of plastic rollers, or for the more progressive, bendy curlers? Now hours are spent, trying to straighten out the curls we spent ten years putting in!
Nothing changes when you arrive at your destination, apart from you get the blame for not having enough change for the parking metre and how youre preventing your offspring being number two in the queue and they will have to settle for number 8! You then get the blame for not putting enough or too much on the sandwiches, the crisps are the wrong flavour and why are you sitting there, when you should be getting my number?
You ask your offspring to pass the hair spray and get one of two answers? Just let me kill Zorg, you can see Im playing, as they bash away on their psp or, In a minute, the universal answer to every request!
If your offspring makes the final you get no praise, if there is a failure, guess what, you did the hair wrong, you put the number in the wrong place, the tan wasnt dark enough, I had white streaks and theyre laughing at me know and if we had been in the queue nearer the door, I would have had more time to warm up!
During all of this, you have to save a thought for the offspring, while youre wasting all of this precious time mucking about with food and make up, theyre under immense pressure to keep up with all those photo opportunities and texts!
Take a bow mothers you deserve it!
Freestyle Magazine February 2007.
Wrestling Gorillas, the story of a girl who couldnt break through, never gave up, and eventually, after contemplating retirement, made the decision that nothing was going to beat her, she would win that elusive champ of champs and the slow title that she coveted so much. At the age of six, she said I want to beat those big girls and she did!
The inside track on the world of Freestyle Dance in the United Kingdom, the pain, the misery, the elation and all those lovely big shiney trophies! Hot days and damp nights, why do they do it?
