The dancing exam

If you read my blog when I was prepping for the TCRG, you'll know how much I struggled with the practical dancing element. (If you're new to the blog, go read the posts. They're hilarious, I'm such an idiot).

I took my first-attempt TCRG exam a full 6 years after my last competition, and while prepping for the exam I suffered a serious illness that affected my legs very badly.

The chronic injuries - shin splints, Achilles, plantar fasciitis - were also REAL, on both attempts.

And I think it was partly a mental thing, because for the most part when I started teaching, those chronic injuries just...went away. I get the odd flare-up, and am in the midst of the worst plantar I've ever had in my life, but it's manageable.

So when I started thinking about the ADCRG exam, part of me was dreading the dancing exam as I couldn't imagine putting myself through that shit again.

But then I looked at what I'm physically capable of now. I do treble combinations I would never have dreamt of attempting. Things that didn't exist in 2012/13. Things I'd always been frightened of. As my dancers have improve I've needed to go with them and I've done that. Little jumps, spins, leaps. Rhythms, not just the individual moves but the way I combine them.

I look at videos from when I was first prepping and I'm amazed I ever thought I could dance to the required standard, when I was dancing like that. I'm so much better now. I imagine kids I danced with as a competitor wouldn't recognise me. And though I'm massively out of fitness right now, I could easily pull it back if I needed to.

Except I don't need to.

99% of my brain is glad I never have to dance in front of that panel, any panel, again.

1% of my brain was kinda looking forward to being the person who got better marks in dancing on the AD than the TC.