Alea iacta est (the die is cast)

Unlike Suetonius, in his famous comment to Julius Caesar in 49 BC, I don't plan to cross the Rubicon in defiance of the Roman Senate.  But in a similar sense, my fate is now defined.  I will compete at ISI district IV's spring competition.  There's no turning back.  I've paid my $55.00 for (maybe) 45 seconds of skating time in front of my adoring public--oh, how they love me (big news for them).  What was I thinking?

For the sake of my two dear constant readers I should back up just a tad and provide the back story from this afternoon's lesson with my long suffering Coach A.

As noted in a previous post Coach A., as befits a good coach, was busy imploring her students (which includes moi) to consider the upcoming spring comp.  Up until now I have resisted the notion of competition.  Testing is one thing but competition seemed beastly and undignified for a person of my considerable gravitas.  However this cunning woman had a card up her sleeve:  She said "I know you want to dance the Canasta Tango rather than the Dutch Waltz but in order to do that you must pass ISI Dance 3 no later than today."  I've been trying to pass Dance  3--like forever.  As an organization, ISI is a stickler in that skaters must have passed the level which contains a given skill prior to competing at a level containing that skill.  USFSA, in contrast, allows skaters to "punch above their weight" so to speak.  But this is an ISI competition and the CT is a Dance 3 level skill.  I had previously  passed Dance level 2.

Dance 3, in addition to the CT also demands that students pass the Rhythm Blues--an evil dance which posses a series of  tricky tuck behind steps in the end pattern.  Many times has your diarist crashed and burnt while attempting "blues expression" in this particular dance.  I was in a grim mood.

But Coach A. was insistent.  And so we gave it a go.  And much to my surprise I pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.  We somehow managed to skate the RB cleanly twice and with that I passed!  With that hurtle out of the way we shifted gears and spent the rest of our time cleaning up my CT skills.  No, I can't show you the Dance 3 badge today but "soon come, Mon, soon come" as they say down in the islands.

I now have roughly a month to make the CT competition worthy.  Coach A. threw me one last curve:  she prefers Hernando's Hideaway over Besame Mucho.  The things I suffer for my art.