How to Prepare for a Collegiate Ballroom Competition
By Kaylee Anderson
Snacks. Snacks should always be at the top of everyone's list. Is your lack of sleep catching up with you? Grab yourself a handful of grapes. Getting cranky because your dance shorts refuse to un-wedgie themselves? Chocolate-covered almonds are your friend. Mourning the loss of your dignity in the face of devastating defeat? Stuff yourself with cookies and call it a day. Food fixes everything, and it pays to be prepared.
Follows, check your heel guards. If you're a millimeter from wearing through them, you need new ones ASAP. No one wants to hear the unforgivable screech of your worn-through-to-the-metal standard shoes as you try to do a heel lead. Plus, it looks a little funky when you've got what's left of a heel guard riding up your shoe like a little plastic skirt.
Do your laundry. All of it. You'll thank yourself later when you come home with a hairspray helmet, sticky limbs, and an entire suitcase full of sweaty laundry. Clean pajamas will be a blessing after a car ride that lasted approximately an eternity. Plus, it helps to have all clothing options available if you're as particular as me about the right mix of comfortable and classy.
Make a list of things to pack. I am horribly guilty of packing the night before any sort of trip or vacation, but I make it work by drafting the most extensive packing list I could possibly create. I've got everything from socks and underwear down to every single item of dancewear I will be putting on my body in the coming days. Sure, it could be considered excessive, but have I forgotten anything yet? Nope (maybe).
Water bottles. Oh my God, please bring a water bottle. Hydration is on an equitable plane of importance as food, and even if it means excessive bathroom breaks, stay hydrated. It prevents headaches like nobody's business, plus you'll have something to dump on your bus-mate's heads when they start Disney sing-alongs at two in the morning.
Plan out your homework for the week. You're going to be gone from six o'clock Friday morning until eight AM the following Monday? You better believe you'll be doing homework on the bus, especially when everyone else around you is a college student too. If you're going to be without laptop or cell phone power for extended periods of time, make sure you get ahead of all the Internet-related things you may be responsible for. It will save your butt in more ways than you can count.
Bring your security blanket. Maybe it's an actual blanket, or a well-loved stuffed animal, or a book that you've read so many times that it's falling apart, but it's important to bring something comforting whenever you go to a competition. There's no telling what might happen in the heat of battle, so to say, and that's why it's important to take care of yourself. Sometimes all you need is a little bit of self-care and everything will turn out okay.