After few months of squeezing myself between day job, photosets and the gym, after all the late night staying on the stage, after all the hours spent practicing on that pole, finally the Italian Pole Dance Contest has come.
Last Saturday I've been judged with other 60 athletes (just in my category, the whole number of participants was much higher!) by eight of the most famous and well-known pole artists. The competition is called "Italian" because Italy is where it takes part, but dancers come from all over the world, really: I've seen people from Russia, Japanese athletes, someone from the US - and needless to say, from all over Europe!
It wasn't my first competition (here me posting about the first one, back in November!), but it was the first one with a more "technical" slant - don't get me wrong: it was a performative competition, where the theme choice and the way we danced to it played an important role, but we did have to present to the jury a number of mandatory figures. That's why I was so nervous! I'm good at playing the sexy kitten on my 6 inches platform heels, but I'm not the very best when it comes to perform strong and "clean" poses on the pole!
Getting on stage is always something that challenge me deeply!
I'm a grown-up adult who can deal with her anxiety, I know well what I'm able to do and what not - meaning that I'm able to figure out what can potentially go wrong and I can do something about that - but still I feel that tingling sensation in my stomach while waiting for the lights to turn up, behind the curtain. And for a fraction of second I ask myself why the hell I put myself in that situation, but after all that tingling sensation isn't what keeps performers alive?! :)
I was going good with my routine until the very end, where I messed up a bit and made it very clear with my facial expression - something even worse than making a mistake, for a performer: the audience doesn't know the routine and can't spot mistakes, unless we point 'em out!
Knowing this, I came back to the backstage not so satisfied about what I did: I tried that very trick even few hours before getting on stage and it was flawless - as it had always been in months of training >_<
However, I tried my best to enjoy this experience the most.
Today, when the ranking got public, I couldn't believe my eyes: I ranked 13th out of 60 people! I'm perfectly conscious the podium is still far away, but it blew my mind anyway! I'm happy :)
Oh, and talking about being happy... THANK YOU SO MUCH ♥
