Your first competition !!!

[malakawa]

I'll start by describing my first competition.  + pictures. 

it was in 1996.  couple of days before the competition i bought my first dress and a dance shoes. a dress was cute and pink and my shoes supadance.

my teacher told me that i need to have a tan, so my mother bought me a tanning lotion. i hated it. it smelled  and i was orange.

it was interesting that i was not nervous, comparing to my partner whom didn't know where was his head and where legs. i think if you asked him at that time what is his name - it will be like a blank page. (on one of the competition later he was also so nervous that i smacked him to calm down )

we had a semi final. a lot of kids at that time. a system in europe is a little bit different than in here. you don't have a pro/am competition. you are either pro either amateur.

we danced three dances - samba, cha cha & jive. on a competition was 7 judges (if i remember well). we lost rhythm at the end of samba, but everything else was good.

all our friends from the studio cheered and yelled for us. on the video tape you can hear them, not the music. lol

when it comes to make up and hair style, my teacher helped me. i had a shorter hair, so she just put a lot of gel and hair spray, and we were not aloud to have a lot of make up. because we were kids. but i am proud that we looked like pro dancers. 

we won a 3rd place.

i came home, took a shower and fall a sleep as soon as i hit the pillow.  i was happy and very tired. and i think that i will never forget my first competition. 

here are 2 pictures of me. my fist competition in a pink dress and a little bit later in red dress (on a different competition).

 

[dream a little dream]

That is a wonderful first competition memory.
Mine is terrible.  My instructor and I were not happy with each other at all.  I made it through and promptly decided I'd never dance or compete again. 
I did change my mind on both, but it was sheer triumph of will that made me hit the competition floor to try it again a little later that year. 

[Rugby]

I bet your glad you did.

[ttd]

My first competition was St. Louis Starball 2003. I danced newcomer and pre-bronze smooth. I did not have a ballroom dress, so I used my wedding outfit (I had a long white skirt and a white top). I still wore my eyeglasses. And I just put some extra hairspray in my hair and did my own makeup. I have a few photos from it somewhere.

I addressed the first two issues by my next comp - I bought a $120 dress on e-bay and I got contacts. And the following year I had my hair done professionally and I learned how to do my own makeup.

[Lioness]

My first comp was only a couple of years ago...

We danced in the social/lower than bronze level, and we had only really been learning for about 3 months. We had no hip movement in cha cha, our waltz was strictly on time and BORING and our merrilyn didn't have arms. Big difference from everyone else on the floor, I tell you. Needless to say, we didn't win anything at all. I was wearing a straight purple dress I'd got from an op shop and decorated with beads, and I think my hair was in a ponytail with almost no hairspray. At that stage I was still anti-makeup so I went sans that as well.

It took quite a few comps to get our dances looking right (we just looked what the others did and copied it...it;s what we are doing until we get a new coach) and I fixed the dress thing by the next one - I wanted something that flowed. I still haven't entirely got used to the makeup: now I wear everything except lip gloss/stick and eyeliner.

[QPO]

Well our first official comp was at easter and that was nerve racking, but exciting all at the same time. I spend months before working out what I would wear and on the day did not wear half of it. I worked out all those clothe changing takes time and since we were not doing latin I could use the same dress for NV and Standard...
I did my own hair and makeup and it was ok still working on improving as most of the comps are on a Sunday and my hairdresser does not work on a Sunday.

We had a great experience and the nerves were reasonably under control.

The one that was most nerve racking for me was a spectator competition where we did a freestyle Waltz and  I was not good at picking up leads, when I got off the floor my hands were shaking so bad...but we won it and got our first ribbon....

[skipper]

I wore a red lace dress for rythmn.
After the hair dresser did my hair and make-up, I felt like a hooker. This would be becaue in my everyday life, I rarelly wear much make-up.

Time has gone on, I am more experienced and look FORWARD to that time of getting ready. Expeience helps.

[elisedance]

[nice topic MK ]

ee's first competition - where do we start. 
Well, it was not only my first but also my coaches first pro-am (he was all of 22 at the time) and teaching as an independent - and hence with no one to really discuss it with.  So my first was the Emerald Ball and after 6 months of working with him he decided to enter us in full bronze and silver single and multidances.  I was terrified - and only got worse when I spotted his pro partner and friend that had come to support me (I had never thought about the possibility that someone I knew would actually be watching)!  We did really well considering - coming 5/7 in the bronze multi and 4/7 in the silver... 

Here's a pic... I look surprizingly calm!

[malakawa]

i was a singer before i started to dance. so i was never nervous in front of the people. i have one picture from the wedding that my parents went when i was 3 years old.

only me on the dance floor in the middle of the night. my mother said that it was 2:00 AM and all kids went to sleep, only me still dancing. 

[SwingWaltz]

My first competition....I fell over after the music had stopped! Sort of as we were walking off the floor. 

More to come! LoL

[cornutt]

Our first come was a small local deal at our studio, which I was glad for since we didn't have to deal with travel logistics on top of everything else.  I bought a cheap tux shirt and bow tie for smooth, and wore that with ordinary black dress pants.  For rhythm, I wore the same pants with a square-tail short-sleeve shirt, worn tail out, and open with a black T underneath.  My DW improvised a smooth outfit by taking a black one-piece swimsuit, stoning it, and wearing that with a wrap skirt.  She put up her hair and did her makeup herself.  I don't even recall what she did for rhythm; I'd have to go back and look at the pictures.  I only had one pair of shoes and my DW only had two, one for smooth and one for rhythm.

We danced newcomer and bronze.  We were both nervous at the start; I wasn't quite as bad because I had played in a band in front of audiences before, although that isn't quite the same thing.  The smooth was okay, not great; at that time I was a pretty reserved dancer.  When we got to rhythm, the audience was noisier, and I started to really have fun with it.  That was the first time I'd really had fun with my dancing and started to express it in a way that was visible to the audience.  We won some heats, although honestly there wasn't much competition in our age group and level. 

[QPO]

Our first come was a small local deal at our studio, which I was glad for since we didn't have to deal with travel logistics on top of everything else.  I bought a cheap tux shirt and bow tie for smooth, and wore that with ordinary black dress pants.  For rhythm, I wore the same pants with a square-tail short-sleeve shirt, worn tail out, and open with a black T underneath.  My DW improvised a smooth outfit by taking a black one-piece swimsuit, stoning it, and wearing that with a wrap skirt.  She put up her hair and did her makeup herself.  I don't even recall what she did for rhythm; I'd have to go back and look at the pictures.  I only had one pair of shoes and my DW only had two, one for smooth and one for rhythm.

We danced newcomer and bronze.  We were both nervous at the start; I wasn't quite as bad because I had played in a band in front of audiences before, although that isn't quite the same thing.  The smooth was okay, not great; at that time I was a pretty reserved dancer.  When we got to rhythm, the audience was noisier, and I started to really have fun with it.  That was the first time I'd really had fun with my dancing and started to express it in a way that was visible to the audience.  We won some heats, although honestly there wasn't much competition in our age group and level. 

We had a similar experience with numbers on the floor, but you deserve any prize you get as you made the effort to get on the floor....

[elisedance]

i was a singer before i started to dance. so i was never nervous in front of the people. ...

well I thought I would not be nervous since I am very used to talking to large audiences - didn't do anything for my confidence at all.
Perhaps the difference is the 'performance' aspect?

[malakawa]

maybe. as i said, i think that i was nervous before the competition maybe 3,4 times. ( this can go in another topic lol)

[cornutt]

Good idea, I'll start one.