Please, a little less drama!

(If you know what that line's from, I salute you!)

Now the quest is on to find cute, upbeat floor music, preferably no longer than a minute -- there are only so many epically long routines for non-dancers that my imagination can conjure!

Baby likes to rock it

This weekend my five-year-old niece visited from North Carolina. "Alexis has been waiting for you," my mom announced when I entered the kitchen. "She has big news."

"I'm starting gymnastics," Alexis said proudly. Then she raised her arms, reached back into a back bend, and kicked over with both feet.

I wonder if I can legally steal her for my team.

Ye of Little Faith

After the Natalie situation yesterday, Kelsey said she'd found floor music online and her mother had purchased it. It's from one of those sites that re-orchestrates music and cuts it to routine length. The problem is that often the music sounds cheesey: digitized and stripped down.

I worried.

But today I listened to a demo of the piece and then found a full version on YouTube. And what do you know? It's great!

Los molinos

As I have a private today with one of the young Level 4's, I'm researching beforehand:

Calling all maestros

Today I headed off Potential Floor Disaster 2010/11. On Monday, Natalie brought in floor music that was, well, not really music. It was more like beats with some semblance of a melody. Kind of what you'd hear at a club, but not as cool.

I tried but the creation process was labored, the dance skills having nothing to do with each other, and when I woke up at 8 this morning, I immediately kneeled on the floor to revise a section I'd pondered last night. Better, but still not right.

Luckily my boss saved me. "What do you think of Natalie's music?" she asked this morning.

"I'm not a fan."

"Yeah, it sucks," she said. "Her mom hates it, too. Let's change it."

Out of all the Level 5's and 6's, Natalie deserves a good IGC season after a disastrous first year of Level 6. But I don't want to hurt her feelings.

"Do you love this floor music?" I asked her after warm-ups.

"I like it," she said, and I think she already knew what was up.

Good. "You're a really good dancer and I think we should look for a piece that shows that off more."

"Okay." She shrugged cheerfully.

At least I wasn't lying. Natalie's tall and flexible, and when she actually straightens her legs, her leaps and kicks are dynamite. You won't find those at the club.

After running through a few ideas, I remembered Bond. My boss searched iTunes and liked what she heard, Natalie agreed, and so did her mom.

Thank you, fiddling women!

Now I call upon Friends, Coaches, Music Enthusiasts: Any suggestions for floor music? I've compiled a small collection to bring on Monday and while the girls are supposedly looking for music on their own, I like to be prepared. (Emeline, I'm looking at you.)

Rock on, tiny dancers!

Sebastian

In the corner of the gym rests a long, rounded stick. Duct tape circles in increments. A tuft of orange yarn on top. Meet Sebastian.

Sebastian came along in response to the alarming lack of shoulder flexibility in some of the girls. His purpose is simple: grasp the stick with both hands, raise it above your head and pull it behind you with straight arms, then roll it back over. Your hands hold on the duct tape markers. The closer the markers, the more flexibility demanded of your shoulders.

My boss came up with the idea of naming the stick. She thought it might entice the girls to want to use it. One practice, they scribbled their name suggestions and Greg read out loud the options. The most popular names were placed in a hat and the winner drawn at random. Sebastian won. That was my name. You can see I'm making good use of my writing degree.

Next, Sebastian was to be sent home for a week at a time with the girls deemed most dire. I believe this is when my boss added the orange yarn as hair, because the girls complained loudly. Laurel ended up taking him home, and then maybe Amy, and then at some point he was passed to a Level 3 and went underground for a while.

Now he hangs out behind the freezer. He looks forlorn. So I took him out the other day and instructed the girls to use him as one of their stations. Every little bit helps, right? And they did use him. For a bit. Then I looked up from watching front handsprings and saw one of the girls swinging him around as a sword. He can't catch a break.

Upstate Girls

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting up with two of my finest ladies. One of them, the incomparable Emeline, was my teammate in college. We were injured together (to the point where she dislocated her elbow the day I got knee surgery - is that destiny or what?), rehabbed together, ate peanut butter puddles together, and, senior year, finally competed together.

Before we took on the town, we started talking gymnastics. This led to: stretching ideas from Emeline that I'll attempt to implement on my inflexible lasses; floor routine demonstrations on our friend's carpet; and, inevitably, rolling around the floor in splits and "dramatic ending poses" that had our friend looking weirdly at us.

Emeline has found a practical outlet for her years of training. Besides coaching, she breaks hearts every weekend on the salsa dance floor. Me, well, I keep it tamer in zumba class. My forty-year-old classmates haven't fallen prey to my grapevines. But that's the thing with Em and me (Em Squared?). We're not competing these days, but we keep moving.