A Two Year Journey: Introduction
This is the first part in a series of articles basically journaling my thoughts and other details relating to our competitions for the last two years, starting from our return to competition (Camp Hollywood 2003) to our most recent competition (National Jitterbug Championships 2005).

I've had something like this on my mind now for awhile. I first got this article idea at the beginning of this year when someone asked me "how much time do you devote to your dancing?"

(The answer to this question spawned this article, aptly named: How Much Time Do You Devote To Your Dancing?)

At the time I wanted to create something more extensive (like a blog or journal) which I hoped would be at the least interesting, and perhaps to others relevant and/or inspiring. And perhaps helpful too by passing on competition tips we've gotten from the pros as well as a few tips we've come up with ourselves just from experience.

The main snag, outside of time, was that I never really thought there would be enough interest in something like this to warrant writing all of it down. In fact, I would not be surprised (or take offense) if some of you out there who start reading didn't make it all the way through. I do tend to be quite wordy.

What finally got me motivated to write this was not just our Lindy Showcase win at the most recent 2005 NJCs, but also what followed the next week which was some great (and deep) conversations we've had with lots of people regarding dancing, choreogrpahy, competing, and things of that nature.

So this past week, I've had a bit of time to reflect and gather my thoughts and, well, I suppose we'll see how it goes.

Before I get started, I wanted to mention that the NJC Lindy Showcase competition this year was incredible. We knew we had a great routine, but as far as winning or placing we were in the dark (more details on this later), especially after finding out who some of the other competitors were. The very stiff lineup of pros competing included:

Benjamin Ricard & Genevieve Kerouac (Quebec)
Marty Klempner and Valerie Salstrom (Cleveland)
Joel and Allison Plys (San Diego)
Ben Morris and Doug Silton (Los Angeles)
Vincenzo Fesi & Isabella Gregorio (Italy)
Zack Richard & Maryse Lebeau (Quebec)

All the above dancers are capable on any given day to bring the house down and win a showcase contest.

Another great surprise was Dan Newsome and Tiffiny Wine from Denver. I remember their routine from NJC 2004 which had great elements to it (they did not place). I was looking forward to seeing what they would come up with this year. We weren't able to see their routine (we were preparing for our routine) but heard from many folks it was outstanding. So keep your eye on them too!

Alright. Onward!

First, the "prequel" if you will. Here's a bit of an intro which will take you up to our return to competition.

We both started dancing in 1998 individually and met in mid-1999. With friends encouragement we decided to start competing in 2000.

The year 2000 seemed to fly by and we did much better than we ever thought we'd do. Out of it all, one very important thing we learned that year was to talk to the judges and get their feedback. Sylvia Sykes helped us immensely to that end. Bless Melinda Comeau for setting up judges meetings at her events (Jitterbug Jam and Swing By The Sea). Although sometimes I wonder if Sylvia gets tired of Sheri and I pestering her so much after each contest . Sylvia definitely is a true hero for us because whether or not she is tired of it, she definitely doesn't show it and is always ready to give us feedback.

The other very important thing we did that first year was get into choreography. Up until then we never thought about choreography. We didn't know about "Showcase" divisions or the US Open. We'd never seen competition videos or clips. After all, we had just started competing and to us swing dancing was improvised. It was when we had decided to compete at the 2000 World Lindy Hop Championships that Barbl Kaufer thankfully clued us in that the final fast round of WLHC was expected to be choreographed. So we choreographed something together in two weeks and that was our first brush with routines which definitely added a new dimension to our dancing.

After such a great year in 2000, we thought we were ready to really compete in 2001. We came out ready at Jitterbug Jam 2001 to win and to do well for all of 2001. However, the intensity compounded by personal issues were a bit too much and we did quite poorly all the way through the 2001 National Jitterbug Championships

After NJC 2001 we were done with competitions and ended our very brief foray into the national dance scene. We did attend Camp Hollywood/NJC while retired so we could watch our good friend Jenny Kim compete with the Hollywood Hornets, but outside of that we were basically "retired" and stuck to the local scene.

Then an interesting thing happened. As we sorted our personal issues out we realized what a great relationship we had and started dating in December of 2001. We were officially "boyfriend/girlfriend" in January 2002. Got engaged July 2002. And married May 2003.

Being performers at heart, we decided to choreograph something for our wedding. We definitely felt a bit rusty but had a tremendous amount of fun with it which is what got us into thinking about competing again.

So we started talking about competing. We went to NJC 2003 to watch Jenny and the Hornets compete and I pushed us to compete in the Jitterbug contest just to see how we would feel in front of people again. Sheri wasn't so sure about it. In the end, we did end up competing and BOY did we feel rusty rusty rusty. And nervous. And ..well, it was not a great night for us.

So after some more talking, we finally decided if we were going to return, we'd return in the showcase division giving us time to prepare and have no surprises. And we'd compete at ALHC 2003 (Showcase) and the US Open (Lindy Showcase).

And that's the "intro" (wow much longer than I expected).

Next article will be how we started preparing, choreographing, choosing music, and going over all the tips we'd received from Melinda, from Sylvia, and from others so that we could make as worthy a comeback as possible.

Cheers!
Ben

Trivia #1: Ben and Sheri's First Contest Though we count Jitterbug Jam 2000 as our first contest, we did compete once before that: December 1999 at the Derby. I believe Tip and Holly won. I suspect we finished in last place. We did horribly and I was too nervous.

Trivia #2: Ben's First Contest I did compete twice before that as well. The first time was at the Green Hotel in Pasadena during the summer of 1998 with a friend from school I had not seen in years and we entered on a whim and got fifth place. To be honest we actually sucked .. we sucked enough that about 30 seconds into our dancing the emcee said on the mic "Come on! Let's give them some applause!" ... and he repeated that a few times while we were dancing. Three interesting notes to put you in the right timeline: I had not started Lindy yet. Minn and Alicia won 2nd. Jofflyn and Megan won first.

Trvia #3: Ben's Second Contest For fun my friend Angie Bracinni and I started practicing aerials and later decided to enter one of the "Blast From The Past" contests being held all over Southern California. We entered the one at the Derby and won third place. We were actually quite stoked about this! Who knows .. perhaps we would have entered more contests but a few months later Angie was not able to make it out as much and a new gal stepped into my life. (That would be Sheri).

Trivia #4: "Shout And Feel It" Sheri and I did our first routine (WLHC 2000), to "Shout and Feel It". This also marks the first time I ever edited music. I used SoundForge Pro Version where I worked and was so blown away with it that I bought SoundForge XP (home version) and pretty much use it any time I can find an excuse too.

Trivia #5: Windows NT/XP ding.wav file With "Shout And Feel It", we started our routine right when the music started so I edited in two "beeps" as cues for the music. We have continued to use the same two "beeps" for every contest (except "Footloose" where we started on count five instead of count one). The "beep" sound is from Windows NT/2000/XP and is the "ding.wav" file switched to a higher frequency.

Triva #6: "Rhythm" Our second ever routine, Jitterbug Jam 2001, was done to "Rhythm" and we got second place. We were hoping to win first. Even with the change in routine because Sheri sprained both ankles, it still would have been difficult to beat Nick Williams and Erin Byrne who won first with "All The Cats Join In".

Trivia #7: "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" Our third routine, NJC 2001, was the "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" routine which Shannon Sheldon says started the entire "Ben and Sheri have crazy fun routines" thing. Shannon has told me that routine was the initial inspiration for her and Nick's routines the following year. While I consider that a very nice compliment, I don't know if we're worthy of it. Looking back on the routine: it's cute, has some nice elements, but more than anything I think it was the song choice itself which made it memorable.

And as far as choosing "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go", interestingly the inspiration for song choice and choreography had come from watching Tip and Holly's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" routine (Montery "Swing By The Sea" 2001) which no doubt was inspired by Jason Esparza and Tena Morales 2000 ALHC Pro-Am "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" routine

Anyway, the point being, we all are inspired by someone else. And the best places to draw inspiration are from competitions and traveling.

After a lot of So.Cal dancers went to ALHC 2000 you could definitely sense a change in the air for the future of Lindy in Los Angeles.

Trivia #8: "Kitchen Mechanics' Night Out" For our wedding, May 2003, we choreographed to "Kitchen Mechanics' Night Out/Shout And Feel It". (It's in our movie gallery). We choreographed it in two weeks specifically to be performed at our wedding at 10:30pm at night as a "finale". We were not sure what kind of shape we'd be in after a long day of wedding preparation and things like that so you'll see some cleverly disguised "rests" choreographed as us hamming it up.