Wag poh Koya!!

Last Friday, I was invited to watch this event by a friend of mine who competed in the Senior II Standard (which he won, Congratulation AviÜ). This was the first Dancesport competition that I have attended since I got here and makes me just miss dancing more..

I thought that maybe I could compete with some of the beginner’s level (though how much is just wishful thinking is up to you.. hehe) in either Standard or Latin. But honestly, I was really jealous of these guys because it must feel so great just to perform in front of an audience.

The highlight though was seeing some of the world’s best in their categories perform and wow the crowd. The best by far were the Amateur Latin Champions Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova. They are currently the third in the world in their class. Also impressive were the Junior Standard winners Stan Faynerman and Patrycja Golak, who are second ranked in the USA.

I uploaded some videos of the event on my Youtube account and I hope you could see them. That includes the Final of Amateur Latin and the rumba of Eugene and Maria (hot!). i will also upload the Final of Junior Standard in the next couple of days so watch out. The link is http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=coachrj

Also here is a link to the profile of the dancers I mentioned:

Eugene & Maria : http://www.dancesportinfo.net/CoupleProfile.aspx?id=2470

Stan & Patrycja : http://www.dancesportinfo.net/CoupleProfile.aspx?id=35844

Later everyone!Ü

Last Friday I entered my first live Poker tournament, a No Limit Hold’em sponsored by a group called NJ Free Poker. They hold free tournaments where people who get to the final table would get points and the top 200 at the end of the season would have a playoff and the winner would get a sponsorship to a WSOP (World Series of Poker) or a WPT (World Poker Tour) event.

I went with my cousin Erwin and we were just hoping to do well and also to experience live tournament style poker. There normally are around 2-3 tournaments on a given night with around 30-60 players in a tourney. There were some good players, a lot of regulars and a few newbies like us.

At first it was pretty intimidating as you got all these characters there and I admit it took me a while to get my groove. I mean I was trying to study my opponents, study my cards, thinking of what I should be doing, it’s a bit too much even for a genius such as me..Ü I did pretty well, meaning I did good enough based on my expectations, not good enough for me to be satisfied. What is important is that I know where I made mistakes and from there try to learn from them. (Lesson number 1: It’s bad to go all-in against AA).

Two days later, we went to another tournament with the hopes of doing better. There were less people on this one, maybe 30-40 only. And I did! I reached the final table (and getting points in the process) and I practically did it by winning 1 hand.Ü I eventually finished 9th place (going up against another monster hand) but at least I’m in the scoring column. Erwin did better by winning the 1st tourney.

I’m currently around 400th-500th place (with Erwin already in the Top 200 since he has placed 3 times out of 4) so I need to work on my skills in order to climb up the ranks. We plan to join the Sunday tourn ey again and hope we do well again. I will tell you about it next time if it goes well. If not, I don’t wanna talk about it, so don’t ask.

PS. You can check out their site at njfreepoker.com

It’s 12:46 am here and I just got back from a dance hall with my cousin Cecil. We checked out this place called Starlight Dance Center in Nutley, NJ (around 10 miles away) to inquire about taking Ballroom dancing lessons. We were going to join a class as guests before deciding if we will sign up. As you may all know, I used to dance Ballroom in college with one of my orgs, UP Social Dance Club (UPSDC), so it was one of my dreams to continue to learn Ballroom when I got here to the US.

So we got there and talked to the owner who also happens to be the teacher for the class, Katherina and she gave us a tour around the studio.

So we were going to join an International Standard Silver/Gold class. Ok here’s a little explanation of what that means. Ballroom Dancing is mainly divided into to kinds, the Standard dances, which include the Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot & Quickstep, and the Latin dances, Cha Cha Cha, Rhumba, Samba, Paso Doble & Jive. The steps are also arranged into syllabi according to their difficulty, from Bronze to Silver to Gold. Upon learning this, I was very excited because a) I like Standard better than Latin & b) We never really got to go beyond Bronze during my time at UPSDC.

Now as we were waiting for the class to start, we noticed our classmates coming in, mostly old couples around 50s and above.    Uh-oh Kuya Cecil and I were expecting the participants to be around our age. And then when the class started, another problem sprang up, there were more guys than girls, meaning we wouldn’t have any partners… My high expectations were one by one not being met and I was sarting to think twice if this was a good Idea. Its a good thing that the class is starting and we would be able to dance finally (me especially).

Right then, we found out that Katherina would not be handling the class. Some guy named Giampiero was going to take over for today since she had something to finish. Bummer.. To make things worse, he starts giving out these lessons, lectures, anecdotes, analogies etc about "learning to learn how to dance" cutting into our time for dancing. In fairness, everything he explained made sense and I learned a couple of things from it but the point is his talking has already consumed 1/3 of our time and we haven’t started dancing yet. Are we gonna dance or not.. nevermind if I don’t have a partner.

Finally after consuming half our alloted time (no thanks to some guys also asking all these worthless questions), we finally got to dancing. Giampiero was giving us a routine for Foxtrot which I did ok I guess (since I had no partner to bump into or step on). But let me tell you "Wow it feels nice to be dancing after 2 years or so."Ü

Later on, I found out that our subsitute teacher was Giampiero Giannico, who is one of the top Standard competitors in the world!!Ü He was in the Top 6 in Blackpool (considered the best dancesport competition in the World) in 2004 and was in the Top 15 last year. I guess it’s like being trained by Pacquiao in cockfighting.. este boxing.. hehe.

Anyway, we signed up for the class ($75 for four weeks, 1.5 hours a week) so I’m now waiting for next Tuesday to arrive. I’m just so happy that things turn out well. I can dance Standard again and a world-class competitor to teach us. For now, I’d better practice.

Slow.. slow.. quick.. quick.. slow..

P.S. Check out their website at www.starlightdancingusa.com and here is a profile of Giampiero Giannico at http://www.dancesportinfo.net/DancerDetails.aspx?Id=5147.