Monday, June 26, 2006

Sun, Sand and Salsa


Ooo boy. It has been an eventful 2 days. Pants were torn, shoes were ripped and windscreens cracked.

The last training session saw us finalising and refining our moves. We also tried to add in some styling and stuff to limited succes. At our present standard, i guess we won't making fools of ourselves on the floor but our chances of winning.... .... i dare not say. I wish we had more time to train and practise but..... oh wells

Anyways, training was going on fine ( well at least i tot so...hahah) until... ... I tore/ burnt a hole in my pants!!!! ARGHHHHH!!!! Well, i was EXPERIMENTING (I stick by my stand that i was being EXPERIMENTAL and not playful...wahahaha) with a new move involving a slide. So i was sliding on the floor and it seemed that the friction between my pants and the floor generated so much heat a hole was ripped and burnt through my pants at the knee area. The worst part is that i really liked my pants and i had only wore it twice!!!! 46 bucks down the freakin drain... So sad :(

Saturday and sunday also saw a salsa event, namely Viva Sentosa which was held at.... TA DA sentosa at the islander club. Well, it was jointly organised by Jitterbugs and Sentosa. The highlights were perofrmances by jitterbugs and liquid silver, salsa lessons, 12 piece live band and last but not the least, an open salsa competition. Oh yah, there was social salsa too... lots of it...hahah.


The place was filled with hot sizzling bodies

Saturday saw the heats for the salsa competition. Competition was stiff, featuring the likes of Tzee, luther, bernad, just to name a few. We arrived at 7 plus, missing group1 of the solo competitors. Group 2 was great. It was generally entertaining.

However as the night grew on and more solo and group competitors went on, i realised something that irked me. It seemed that certain competitors from a certain dance school keep recycling and reusing the same chereography and... GASP... song for their routines. It eventually bored me to death. To make things worst, during the group competition, a team sent out from that certain dance school fumbled pretty badly. Of the 2 couples involved, 1 forgot the chereograpghy!!!! Wah lau... in the end, it looked really bad...

Between an average cherography and one with lotsa stunts but highly recycled and totally unoriginal, i choose the average one. If someone ate haagen daaz belduim chocolate ice cream everyday for a month, i think even potong red bean ice cream would taste heavenly...

Liquid silver company also gave a free salsa lesson, from which i learnt a new move, and also presented 2 performances. Their cowboy routine totally blew me away. It was the first time they perofrmed it in sg... or was it asia?.... and IT ROXED!!!!!!!! WOAH!!!! I loved it :D


Golden cowboy

The atmosphere was jovial, music was groovy, thanks to the excellent band and dj. Saw many familiar faces, danced with most of dem. Shirine and gang, corina, xiao xiang, erica, josee and many more.

A very familiar face

I got to dance with a TALL gal from xenbar called angie. She's really tall but apparently 1cm shorter than jinn or so he says. She was seriously not bad. Her follow was good and it was so nice not having to bend much doing turns...wahahahaha. I also managed to dance with one of the gals from liquid silver. It was great except for the fact that the track that was playing was cha cha thus rendering me outta beat...lol


Ahh...

~


Sunday was the finals for the competition. We met up at 4.45pm, had dinner and took a ride to sentosa in alan's car. It was then that we realised that there was this wicked looking CRACK on the bottom left hand corner on the windscreen. Alan went like " KA NI..." and stopped halfway...lol. He said there were ladies around....lol

We managed to catch some of the competitors which we missed on saturday. The overall standard was quite high. It was still quite enjoyable to watch the rest of the other routines for the second time. I also learnt that humour is a powerful tool in performances.

Liquid silver again put up 2 different pieces both of which were highly energetic and electrifying :)

However for me, the objective of the day was to catch the 12 piece band which was the first in singapore. I didn't regret coming down again for it man. It was worth the heat, humidity and the wait. The music was awesome!!! 12 piece band man!!! WOW!!!!

The dance floor was packed. Really packed. I did have a couple of dances but sat around most of the time. In the words of alan, " It's quite rare to see young sit around." Must've been the heat, fatigue of saturady and the lack of familiar faces. Oh wells, I guess i must have used up all my mana on saturday...lol

It was during this period of socialing when... ... eilieen tore her dance shoe!!! More accurately, someother lady managed to somehow catch her shoe's heel onto one of elieen's shoe straps and accidentally ripped it!!! I could almost hear elieen's heart being ripped to shreds when she was lamenting about it to us... Awww take it easy oki.

By the way there are no pictures cos i was too lazy to bring along my camera...

~

Generally, that concluded our eventful weekend of salsa. It seemed that we were dished a bout of bad luck but like wad i said, since we have already fallen into the deepest end of the gorge, things can only get better.

6 more days left till my turn at orchid country club. After seeing how high the level of salsa is in singapore and how tough the competition can be, I seriously wonder if im good enough man...hahahah

Oh wells, we'll wait and see.....hahahahah

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Leaning tower of wad???

Hmm... ... so what do people do to relax and chill after work, school or training? Catch a movie? Play LAN? Go shopping? Chill out at a nice bar or go chiong in a club?

For us, we .... .... BUILD TOWERS!!!!!! wahahahahaha


Leaning tower of Sakae..?!?!?!

Kong scales the tower to... ... get to that saucer of wasabi????

Anyways, training's a bitch. Tiring and energy sapping. Union after training seems more like a triathalon of sorts. Sorry gals... yesh all you sizzling hot ladies i danced with yesterday... My lead was crap. My bad... Paiseh r..... lol.

Anyways, have fun peeps.... :D


Budding architects

Friday, June 16, 2006

The limit

By young's standard, the maximum length of time for salsa training is ... ... 2 hours. After 2 SOLID hours of spinning, open breaks and dips, burn out sets in, resulting in various symptoms like fatigue, hunger, trash talking, hallucinations and other less than desirable behaviours.... Anyways usually by then, my shirt starts to smell funny....wahahahaha


Burnout sets in... ...

Training for the competition so far has been... slow by steady? As of now, it has been termed " technically ok"... ... Definately not good enough. Hopefully by the time we compete it'll be " VISUALLY STUNNING"!!!! wahahahaha

Well, training is fun at times... especially after burnout has set in...hahaha. We'll be all like lying around on the floor, slouching on the chair, hiding in a corner... ... wadeva and just laze around, watch the world slowly pass by, chilling to great music provided by moi...hahahaha

Toking about music, i love my speakers. The speakers are compact and the only chunky thing is the subwoofer. The whole speaker set is compact enought to fit in my bag. It's a tad heavy but considering the superior sound quality it produces, it's woth it. My Zen neeon provides more den enough play time and 5 gigs of choices... Throw in disco lights and we can have our very own "Salsa Fiesta"...lol


Creative ROXS!!!

Anyways, we will continue to work on our routines and stuff... We'll definately give the competition a run for their money...wahahahahahaha

:D

Saturday, June 10, 2006

The curve

Im watching the opening world cup 06 match as im typing this. Germany vs Coasta Rica. Im not much of a soccer fan but it just hapened to be on the tv so....lol Current score line is GER 3, CRC 1...

Anyways, i haven't been updating cos my life has been a bore. There hasn't been any alien abductions, union's covercharge is still 8 bucks from mon till thurs and i haven't developed X-ray vison or grew an extra arm.

Life has been platonic to say the least. Before i go on, i'ld like to wish sondha a belated birthday and joon a happy birthday... May both of yer dreams and wishes come through :)

Back to my life, the last week has been a downright boring. Monday went on as usual except for bachata lesson. Am so looking forward to dancing bachata, close contact leading, with mi mates at union. Problem is that by de time they place bacahta, my shirt would already be disgustingly wet...hahaha

Tuesday was normal. Slept till late, bummed around house and went down to union. It suxed... for me at least. Lack of space = constantly bumping into people = no nice moves = sucky dances... haiz

Wednesday was depressing cos of something. Don't ask me what. Didn't go down to union.

Thursday was gloomy too due to something related to wednesday but it turned out ok after a while, kinda like a silver lining.Union sucked too... I found de music a tad bit boring and i was a bit sick of my routine. My shirt smelled funny after a while too... sigh... Weel at lest i learnt a couple of new moves from greg and jeffery.

Friday was a bit better. Watched a new anime i bought. "Desert Punk". Seriously quite funny. Elieen treated clarence, jwo and i to cartel. 21st birthday treats. Thanks elieen:) LADC was quite sian cos there wasn't many people to dance with (think world cup) and i wasn't in the mood.

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..
...

I realised that my salsa follows closely to a sine curve. First it starts out real sucky then for some reason, like new moves or great partners, starts to improve slowly. I'll enjoy dancing more and more until it reaches a peak. Recently, it was the KL trip.

However, after a while at the top, my salsa starts to slip. I start to lose focus, my turn patterns become boring, and i don't enjoy my dances. I also start to pick on my dancing and find fault with my self. I'm at this stage right now.

Im getting bored of my own routines. I find my footwork screwed up no matter how hard i try to convince myself that it's ok. My focus and energy level seems to be ebbing away... ...

My salsa dancing seems bland to me now. I think it looks ugly and it sucks. I seem to have lost my flair... if i had any to start with... grumble grumble grumble

I need something or someone to give me a kick in de ass (figuratively oki.. pls dont come up to me in de middle of the street and kick my behind...lol). I need to get inspiration. With the competition just round the corner, i need it now more then ever.

I seriously need to get some " OMMPH!" back in salsa and my life...

Oh wells at least we are going shopping later for our competition wear. Time to buy new clothes and look nice :)

Btw, Germany won Coasta Rica 4 : 2.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Watched X men 3 today... was not bad.

*GASP* i didn't manage to finish the popcorn or drink!!!

Why do i always seem to be 2 or 3 steps late in life??? Rain clouds and thunderstorms hovering above my head... .... ....

grumble grumble grumble.....