Allstar Life Crisis

There's that saying, "there's no place to go after allstar."
That's partly true. Allstar is where the west coast swing competitive divisions... stop. You either become a champion, you quit, or you stay an allstar. It's somewhat rare air.

Simultaneously, there are at least a couple of individuals who have managed to compete in allstar within a year or two of starting their competitive career. Wcs is far too deep and complex a movement art to even approach mastering in that time period, so simply based on that I don't think we can view 'competing in allstar' as some sort of final end point.

On a logistical level, anyone who can make finals in a medium-sized advanced division with some regularity, who competes enough in three years can make allstar. When looked at in this way, entry to the division isn't such a high bar in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, there are professional instructors of some repute and lifelong wcs devotees who compete side by side with those individuals, making allstar a seriously deep melting pot of ability and understanding of the dance with a stunningly broad range of skill levels.

I'm about to step into this madness and compete for the first time and I'm experiencing what my girlfriend Fae calls "the allstar life crisis." The realization that... this is it. In allstar, at least some of your competition on the floor is probably going to be very, very good at this dance. For lots of people, allstar is the time when they face dancers they've been looking up to for years and are being directly compared to them. For me, I have a rather short list of allstar leads who I really admire so that isn't as much of an issue. Most of my own trepidation comes from the fact that this is the lower (by far) division of the two that everyone wants to watch compete. Up to and including advanced, most of the people watching are going to be friends and fellow competitors, but even for an allstar prelim most wcs ballrooms start to fill with spectators. The pressure of entertaining and presentation combined with all the normal stressors of competition is something that I can feel even two months away.

I'm sure that some people love it and don't feel any pressure. Some people love entertaining, others love presenting themselves and their art. Some are just really comfortable on a competition floor. (Some people are on the far opposite end of the spectrum, of course, but they're less likely to make it to allstar in the first place.)

I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I've been competing at one thing or another since I was about 5, and first spoke in front of a crowd when I was younger than that. I've clearly been doing west coast swing at least long enough to make it this far, so I've been in my share of wcs competitions too. But I'm not a natural showman... I like being appreciated, maybe a little too much sometimes! But self presentation just doesn't come as easily to me as it seems to a lot of my peers. So I feel a pressure there that I didn't feel before.

 Regarding the rules for leaving advanced, I am choosing to leave the division as soon as I'm eligible, with an even 45 points. My reasoning is this: Personally, I have the most enjoyment when I feel that I'm having to elevate my dance to it's highest level, just really going all out with whatever I'm capable of doing at the time. This means pushing my competitive level and always competing as high as I'm allowed to go. In terms of--how does the saying go?--"being in the bottom of someone else's division" I'm not so worried about making a fool out of myself on the competition floor; I'm much more worried about what my partners would think upon drawing me. "He doesn't belong here," "I can't work with this" or "that guy held me back" are all thoughts that I am afraid will pass through my followers' heads when I move up a division.

Thus, I sought out (potentially harsh) feedback in order to alleviate those fears. I asked someone who I danced with recently who had competed in both allstars and, more recently, champions, what she would think if she drew me in an allstar prelim. She responded that she would be happy to draw me, that she'd rather draw me than most other allstar leads, and that no, I wouldn't hold her back. I also asked a champion follow for a connection assessment, albeit a very quick one; and she responded that I felt like an allstar caliber lead.


So if I'm not going to hold my partners back, I don't see a reason to not compete up. I don't get to go to very many events anyway and made finals in every advanced division (except my very first one, I was first alternate at TAP) that I didn't have some sort of issue with my medication or was literally physically injured. So my own stupid decisions aside, I don't feel that I have anything left to learn from or prove in advanced J&Js.

Where does this leave me? I don't know. Courtney Adair, in a recent 'dance therapy' session, told me that allstar is where you are pushed to discover yourself in your dance. (I'm sure I butchered her exact words, but that was the gist.) The primary question that I'm about to be forced to answer is who am I in this performing art that I've chosen? That, at least, I can definitely look forward to doing.