Like I mentioned before my swing dance teacher Tiffiny Wine is a world class Lindy Hop dancer and the symbol Denver's swing dance seen. She also was part of Denver's 23Skidoo dance team who won many competitions and put Denver on the map.
During one of the dances I was chatting with Tiffiny. She was talking about 23Skidoo and how much fun it was. She also said that the dance scene hasn't been the same since that era ended. She then mention that she is going to start up another team of the best dancer that she is going to build up to become great again. I thought that was great to hear her plans and the sounded so much fun. To my surprise she ended with "I want you to be on the team and I'm going to partner you up with Lindsey". That was most biggest compliment for me, since I have only been dancing shy of a year. Of course I agree.
She chose Lindsey as my partner. Lindsay also only has about a year of experience but her foundation is solid and her style is amazing.
A few months later it was real when I got an email about this team. Keep in mind this only an exclusive team of dancers hand picked by Tiffiny herself. In other words you cannot try out for this team you have to be chosen.
In January we started our practices. In the first day, with no hesitation we jumped right into fast lindy hop drills. After trying to dance to songs with 280 to 300 beats per minute. I thought, "What the Hell did I get myself into". My motivation was still high so I worked my hardest to keep up with the everyone else. My classmates have been dance 5-10 years, so it was and still is intimidating.
The first 2 months were the most difficult but one day I had a breakthrough.
I just did a fast swing out with Tiffiny, and with frustration from repeatedly telling me to work a out a bad habit, She said "Emily... Show Michael how to swing out!!" I practiced swing outs with Emily while Christopher nitpicked and corrected every part. After about a half an hour of struggle, Emily and I were swinging out very smoothly over and over. At that moment I didn't hear any sound in the room. I stopped to see that everyone was watching. I looked at Tiffiny and with her hand gesture of approval she congratulated, "YES!!" That was the moment all my hard work and persistence paid off.
Rehearsal for our first performance
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