What are Your Goals?

By Joshua Dowell

When going through the partnering process at the University of Minnesota, they ask you a series of questions to determine your compatibility with other members of the team. These questions sometimes end up being a bit loaded, and I've seen that more than ever as I've started playing a more integral role in this particular process on the University Competition Team. The most important question is usually, "What are your goals?" My answer has always been pretty simple. To get better. Having fun and doing well at competitions is awesome, but what I really care about is seeing progress. Being able to attempt more difficult technique, learn cooler moves, and get better at dancing in general. Last September, I was put with someone who is a little more competitive than myself. Someone who cares about finals, and medals, and winning. I was ecstatic. Generally, doing well in events and becoming a better dancer go hand in hand, so being a competitive couple would make us better dancers, and by dancing better it would allow us to be more competitive. Elder members of our team saw us working well together and thought it might be a good idea for us to compete at a National Qualifying Event in Chicago. After talking it over and deciding to go, I found myself more than a little nervous. I'd been told amateur competitions tended to be more competitive than collegiate ones and I'd never done very well at a collegiate competition. I went into the competition with checked expectations. If anything, it was practice for other competitions, and I'd never been to Chicago, so it would be a new and interesting trip as well. I was determined to have fun, no matter the results.

In my opinion, we killed it. We finaled in bronze smooth and standard, got third in bronze rhythm, and qualified for nationals in all three events. I left Chicago happy with myself, sure that in the year I'd been dancing, and the short time I'd been dancing with my new partner, that I had made progress. A couple short months later, however, it was time for my partner and I to decide whether we wanted to cash in on qualifying and take the trip to Baltimore for USA Dance Nationals. We didn't know how stiff the competition would be, how we would stack up, or if it would be worth the plane ticket to go, and possibly not make any callbacks. We decided to go, and in my opinion took a gamble. Even looking at ourselves against the other couples going from our own team, we seemed a little out of place, but sitting at the tail end of that gamble, looking back, I could not be happier that I went. USA Dance Nationals was an amazing experience. I got to explore a little bit of Baltimore, by that I mean I saw a couple cool ships, and chowed down on some quality seafood the likes of which are not found in Minnesota. I got some great dance experience. I got to see some of the best amateur couples in the nation, and make some decisions on the kind of dancer I want to be when I grow up. Best of all, I finaled in one of my events. I got the chance to show myself it wasn't ridiculous for me to try to compete on the national level. I got the chance to prove that I'd made tons of progress. Lastly, I got the chance to forget about results for a minute or two and just have a ton of fun dancing.

A year ago, I was struggling to make callbacks in Newcomer and just last weekend in Michigan, I got a couple in silver. Looking back on this past year, I've made what I consider some great progress with someone I consider to be a great partner. Now, it's time to go make some more callbacks.