Recognition and Validation

First of all, I want to own up that I have not been active enough trying to make my dream come true. I've been uhh preoccupied, yep, I've been distracted with my dancing.

At first I just thought it would be cool to have a dance partner. Someone with whom to help each other explore and grow as dancers.

I admit I still kinda choke whenever I find myself referring to myself as a dancer. Who me? I'm just a bloke who dances salsa for fun. That excuse doesn't wash anymore, it reeks of false modesty and blows back in my face how cowardly I can be. Calling myself a dancer would mean I have to continuously nurture dance as my art form, my passion. It looks like I have long ago passed the point where dancing was just a mere hobby.

Kathrine set our first goal which was to perform in a dance competition. This would mean we'll choreograph a competition piece and dance it. I've been wanting to try my hand choreography so I said yes before I realised she wanted to do it in the Swango dance style. Oh great, she just picked my two weakest dances, namely Argentine Tango and Swing. Oh and one more thing, we have about three weeks to be ready.

I felt raw fear for the first time in ages. Fear that what I could come up with in three weeks would not be to the standard that I imagine myself to be. Have you ever thought yourself to be good at something, say baking, and then want to have your opinion of how good you are to be validated somehow? You'd want your cake to be judged by a panel of experts and even rank you against your peers so you know how good you are relative to others.

Problem is if you over-estimate your own rank, you may think you are better than most, but what if you are wrong? Getting judged could confirm or dash your ego.

I chose to face my fear. I said yeah sure let's do it, sounds like fun. I had just seen Wicked (the Broadway musical), and one of the inspiring songs was called "Defying Gravity", so I thought, yeah what the heck let's try defying gravity.

We spent the first week picking out and trying moves to match the music. By the second week we had tested the moves in sequence to the music and fixed up the bits that didn't fit, didn't work, or didn't flow. Then we had a week to rehearse the choreography. On top of that we also got the music track edited so it's a digestible two and a half minutes instead of its 7 minute original version. And don't forget picking out the costume.

I didn't realise how many other creative minds have contributed to allow Kathrine and myself to express our art.

There were times in the process of creation that I would lapse into despair because I couldn't do a move or couldn't remember a sequence. I learned to offer my ideas and accept her ideas too. Last night, we performed it for competition.

I felt really good about our execution, we had one minor mistake that we were able to fudge because how do the judges know it wasn't meant to go down that way? We performed as good as I knew we were capable. Having the judges say so would be nice.

We were ranked 7 out of 10. According to the judges, we were only better than 3 other acts on the night. My personal assessment was that I liked only two other routines better than mine so in my mind we were ranked 3rd. Quite a gap between rank 3 and rank 7 don't you think? I was resigned to the fact that our expression of creativity may not be able to tick all the judgement criteria.

The way I understand it now, performing it has given me validation of how good I thought I was. However, we missed out on recognition, by not placing in the rank I thought ourselves to be. Yet I was okay with that, it just means that what we made did not fit the judges criteria. I didn't get outside confirmation but I got inner validation of my ability as a dancer. My ego was intact.

I was so pumped with adrenalin that even after getting home at 3:30AM, I couldn't fall asleep until about 5.

Tonight I made up my mind to compete in the Jack & Jill. That's when the competitors get paired up randomly and freestyle to a couple of random songs, the idea being that one is unlikely to end up with their regular dance partner and so it becomes a true test of lead and follow.

When I was asked to pick a category: Beginners, Intermediate, or Teachers. I chose Beginners. I felt the bitter bile of fear rising again. What if I went into Intermediate and got ranked below others whom I thought I was better than? Then I thought about how much fun it would be to compete with followers who are actually confident enough to play with their musicality? I went back and asked to be moved to the Intermediates.

Just before the competition I decided I was just going to have fun regardless of the outcome. There's an idea, perhaps I should try this after having a few drinks. I did two tequila shots and 3 Coronas before the heats. I was confident. I was downright cocky. I looked at the other leaders around me. I felt certain I was good enough to make it past this heat and into the finals. I danced. I connected with each partner and we danced our little arses off.

While waiting for the finalists to be called, I started feeling the tranquilising effects of alcohol. Uh-oh, methinks I overdid the booze. I dashed to the bar and secured a can of Red Bull. So now I was not only sloshed, I was on a caffeine hype as well. Geez, lucky they don't drug-test dancers. By the time my name was called to the finalist lineup, I was almost doubting my own merits as a dancer. I breathed a sigh of relief and I felt my chest swell because I deserve my place in the finals just as I suspected -er I mean just as I believed.

Then I was partnered with MJ from Melbourne. Of all the dancers, I ended up with the one I hadn't previously danced with, ever. Just great. I told her I liked blues, MJ then confesses that she doesn't like blues. Wonderful. We danced. We played. We smiled a lot, at each other. We just tried to enjoy each other and the music as best we can.

Later we came on stage to accept 2nd place. I was ranked higher than a guy I thought was better than me. As I polish the trophy I thought about what it meant to me: Recognition.

I don't know about you, but for myself, I accept I have an occasional need for validation. Validation is when someone whom we respect (including ourselves) expresses admiration or approval of our work. Recognition is when some body everyone else respects declares the merit of our work.

Validation is satisfying, recognition is valuable, having both together is very fulfilling.