Dance Team came first and second in both of their divisions today—we had four dances, one with the whole group and three small-group numbers (one which turned into a solo for our boy L).

This was their first competition, so that’s pretty great, but from where I’m standing, it’s icing on the cake.

The cake, meanwhile, was the fact that they deported themselves like professionals. They ran their dances on their own while waiting to compete, listened to the stewards and made it to the stretch area, the warm-up area, the on-deck area, and the competition floor on time, and they cheered for each-other and, even more importantly, for other teams.

Edit: They also rolled up to our meeting place, their middle school, at oh-dark-thirty in the cold and windy morning, ready to rock, with their hair in neat buns and all their stuff neatly assembled.

Not that there weren’t a few minor hiccups (these guys mostly still need to learn how to put keep all their kit together, so we don’t have to go off hunting for someone’s jazz shoes at the end of the day or what have you), but overall they once again showed us that they can really pull it together when the chips are down.

Tonight, we catch the show at Suspend, and then I’mma sleep like a boss because I woke up at 5:30 this morning after a bizarre post-apocolyptic Zombie dream.

Tomorrow I’ve got Sunday morning class (with a teacher I haven’t had before, yay!) and whatever else. I have a new dance belt to test drive, so I’ll try to report back on that. It’s one of Sansha’s models. Wound up with white (the least practical color for a dance belt: potentially shows under black or white tights), because that’s what they had in my size.

Dr. DanceBelt mentioned that Sansha’s models tend to be high-waisted, and an initial trial fit suggests that’s accurate. I won’t know whether that’s a good thing or not ’til tomorrow.