My old piano....

About 11 years ago, while still living in The Netherlands, an old wish came through. I bought an electrical baby Grand Piano and started to take piano lessons. We found a piano teacher with the same love for music as we did and Peter and I had a lot of fun during our piano lessons for about a year. But then her father suddenly and unexpectedly died and we never saw her again!
A replacement teacher took over, but she was like a school teacher for juniors and treated us that way! A second replacement teacher (Peter already had stopped playing) expected far too much, so the piano lesson became a stressful event and the fun was completely gone. So I stopped as well.
Meanwhile our life was busy and without us noticing it, the years flew by without touching the piano.

Before we migrated to Australia I still wanted the piano to join us, because you would never know, I might want to start taking lessons again? So, it migrated with us and took the long journey in the sea container.
We are in Australia for 3 years now and we noticed a music tuition school about 1.5 year ago and gathered some information. Again we were very busy and still I took no action to actually start taking lessons.

But then we rearranged part of our home which triggered the move of the piano. Again the question popped up…………. should I sell it?
In the same period we had visitors who saw the piano and they asked how it sounded. Peter showed a demo song played by the piano (it is electrical) and I was completely hooked again. No, of course I should not sell the piano, but in stead I should start taking piano lessons!
So ………three weeks ago (it was about time!) I started taking piano lessons and really enjoy it. They are using here the same type of learning books as we did in Europe and I am actually using my old Dutch piano book again to catch up the lost knowledge. It is amazing how much your hands still seem to remember after so many years!

Dancing: Blue Riband Championship

"Well, well, well, there is life after all ..." some of you might think. And you would be sort of right as well. It has actually been more than half a year since our last post. Now that does not mean nothing happened of course, but from our perspective it was all probably not worth while [considering the time involved] mentioning here. But now that I am also not working at the moment (hmmm, one thing worth mentioning is it not? ;-)) one should say I have enough time now.

So, to basically just continue with our most recent 'new' item: we have entered our first dancing competition here in WA, the Blue Riband Championships which is a yearly event (organised by the Australian Institue of Dancing, AID). Because this was our first competition over here we had to start (as anyone else) at the bottom. We were happy with that since we think that the competition here seems to be a bit more serious than what we were used to back in the Netherlands.

Now with the (current) system here you dance 1 dance in each type (Standard, Latin and/or New Vogue) in Level 1, 2 dances in level 2, up till the highest level (Open) where you dance all 5 standard, all 5 latin en usually 5 (out of 15 accepted!) New Vogue dances. Now you can compete in your own level but are also allowed to compete in one level up.
(Getting bored already? Hang in there, almost ready for the viewing stuff ;-))

So all of this together, we decided to enter not only in level 1 (which was our own level) but also in level 2 because otherwise we would only have 3 dances for the whole day. Oh yeah, one more thing: in our age group called Masters (as in: above 35) there are usually not too many competitors. So most of the competitions are straight finals. Hence our choice to compete one level up as well.

Now at these dancing competitions there is (luckily) a guy called Martin van der Poel who (besides competing himself ;-)) records the majority of the dances as well. So therefore we can now give you a very good impression of our (first) dancing competition.

So to start with an example (and I will start with the best examples to keep your attention up ;-)) have a look at the following highest level (open). Please note, if you can try to watch the videos in High Quality)
Standard:


Latin:


New Vogue:


Hope you're enjoying that!!
Now before (for those of you that are interested ;-) specifically showing the videos where we are to be seen in, some start competition dancing at a very young age, this girl would have been 4 at the most:


Now, 4 of the dances we competed in were video-ed as well:

Level 1 Latin:


Level 1 New Vogue:


Level 2 Standard:


Level 2 New Vogue:

Did you see that at level 2 all our competitors were actually wearing full suits and dresses? We are not there yet ;-).

Oh yes, and of course our results:
L1 Standard => 1st of 2
L1 Latin => 1st of 3
L1 New Vogue => 5th of 5
L2 Standard => 2nd of 5
L2 Latin => 3rd of 4
L2 New Vogue => 5th of 5

Then finally, if you are interested in even more movies of this competition, have a look under 'Dancing in WA' ;-)