Wild Wild Westie, I guess the saying “everything is bigger in Texas” suites this one pretty well. The event was a lot bigger than I expected, but they still managed to keep the cozy atmosphere of a small event. Huge thanks to Tracy, Jay and CJ and all their volunteers for organising such a great event.

Thursday I went to the Teacher Intensive of Ben Morris which was awesome
(unfortunately I lost my notebook with all my notes in it ? …not so awesome….because also the notes of the intensives I took at Liberty where in there also …..
so I hope I remembered everything well enough when I tried to reproduce them on the airport last Monday…..)

Before the pre-party the event started with a Thursdaynight BBQ which is included for all participants. Nice opportunity to get to know new people, and also the kick-off of the AI-mentorship program. I was privileged to participate (since not everybody who signed up got in) and paired with Hieu Li. This program is a great opportunity where they match an Intermediate dancer with an All-Star dancer, and where some interaction moments are organised and the rest is up to yourself. Got some usefull feedback and also talked about community building with my mentor. But also had some usefull chats with other mentors and mentees. Thank you Taletha and Tracy for this oppurtunity and all your work for making this possible, and ofcourse Hieu for being my buddy this weekend amd cheering for me in comps.
It would be great to have this programm in Europe some day (and there are rumours people are working on that …..)

Competitionwise I didn’t have the best weekend. Definitetly wasn’t able to show my best dances, and I guess there is some work to do to get my basic level up ?
Thanks Maxwell for our fun dances in the Wild Wild JnJ, unfortunately the judges didn’t appreciate our awesomeness ?

Competition marshalling is very well organised, but because of the huge amount of participants the competitions on Saturday took forever. And because I didn’t do well myself but still wanted to be there to cheer for my mentor Hieu in All-Star division, this ment a lot of waiting.

The workshop schedule is pretty relaxed as in total there were only 4 leveled, one styling class and a critique session. (And one late night contemporary and early morning stretch class), so you don’t have a class from every teacher(couple) at the event.
Especially loved the critique session they had in every level, and I was very pleased Gary and Susan took care of the one in the Intermediate level.

The social dancing was pretty awesome. The DJ team made sure there was always a packed floor till sunrise, and there was such a great atmosphere.

So I had some different expectations before I came to this event, since I somehow thought it would be smaller and less competitive…but there is some great initiatives in this event like the “dance all night” mug challenge on Saturday (guess I left 45 minutes to early ?….), and the option to vote for the most Wanted Stritcly pro couple (to pair them up aswell as to vote for your favourite couple).

If you ever want go to a US event, this might just be what you ar looking for….