Bob Waters Places First in Arthur Murray Dance-O-Rama
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Author: Bob Waters
Released 24 August 2005
Bob and Valerie in Swing Contest
Photographs Contributed by Bob Waters
The Arthur Murray Dance-O-Rama began Thursday afternoon in Costa Mesa, California. There were nine of us competing from Las Vegas. Dance partners consisted of a student with an Arthur Murray Teacher. All students had the same number of dance lessons and prior achievements under their belts to make the competition fair. My dance teacher and I performed a "Solo" for the 300+ attendees. We did our two minute Swing Dance and I had on my clown shirt, black trousers and socks, and dance shoes. My dance teacher had on a pretty white dress with 2-6" clown sparklers on her skirt. We really cut a mean rug and had a great reception.
Friday we were in two dance contests in the morning and two more contests in the afternoon. I placed first in all four competitions: the Swing, Foxtrot, Rumba and the Waltz. Saturday we had four more contests and I won two more first places in the Rumba and Foxtrot. Six out of eight isn't too shabby! It was tremendous fun competing but also very, very nerve racking. We didn't want to make any mistakes in the two minutes of dancing to the point where we didn't even place....one little mistake and "forget about it charley!"
Las Vegas Group
Every evening there was a dinner dance that went on into the night. We made several new friends and had a lot of laughs despite all the pressure of competing. We all took many pictures of each of our nine competitors attending from Las Vegas.
The last night, Saturday, the awards were passed out, and then we were entertained by professional ballroom dancers who showed us what could be done with enough practice. Then Sunday morning we had a Farewell Breakfast, checked out and left for the airport at noon, and arrived in hot Las Vegas in the afternoon.
It was an exciting, enlightening, and a harrowing experience, one that I had decided to partake in out of curiosity, but I feel much too old to improve and I am not making any plans to repeat the experience anytime soon.
Bob and Valerie, Swing Finals
There is an Arthur Murray competition about once a month, and if one had the means and the motivation to attend each competition it would be possible to improve from one class of competition to the other, for instance: "Newcomer", "Associate Bronze", "Full Bronze", "Associate Silver", "Silver", "Associate Gold", "Gold", "Gold Bar", and "Professional". These are not the exact names, but the different levels are based on the number of lessons, or the ability to dance a specified number of required steps for each category, and do so in front of an inspector.
So some old retired single ladies and men stay on and on and take in all the weekly dance parties, lessons, and attend Dance-O- Ramas all over the United States and around the world. At the Costa Mesa competition, there were folks from New Mexico, Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, New York, Arizona, Maryland and also Canada (Edmonton and Calgary). There were 61 Gentlemen Amateurs, 119 Lady Amateurs, and 118 Gentlemen and Lady Professionals (Teachers) for a total of 298 attendees.
The Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa was a very nice first class Hotel and the service was superb. All in all, it was a fun trip, but tiring, many sore feet, tired legs and backs, and even some leg, back, feet and toe cramps. We even had tired rumps from so much sitting between dancing and performing, and sore hands from clapping for all the performers and cheering each other as we performed. We each had our own cheering sections.
As we all said our good-byes, we hated to end the fun of forming new friendships, but we were eager to get back home and unwind and welcome ourselves back to the real world.