Holly Hughes, President of Ballroom and Latin Dancesport Society, gives us a run down of their trip to the national ballroom competition in Blackpool and highlights their next big competitions for this year.
From the 23 - 25 February, we took 23 members of the Royal Holloway Ballroom and Latin Dancesport team to take part in the 56th Inter Varsity Dance Competition at the Blackpool Winter Gardens. This was the biggest event in the University circuit with more than 600 couples taking part.
Having had a phenomenally good year so far as a team, including multiple finalists at previous competitions including regionals, we definitely felt the pressure heading to nationals. However, the sheer excitement of heading to the home of ballroom for a weekend seemed to outweigh the nerves and we all left in high spirits.
We took home a 6th place ranking for our group dance out of the 14 competing teams, a team match 6th place and one of our fabulous all girl couples finalled in their division, a fantastic achievement having been dancing together for only four months.
We spent the night before the main event bonding over pizza and exchanging stories from nationals past. We then headed back to the hotel where all the girls helped each other with final hair and fake tan preparations for the big day, before prepping for bed before our 6am start.
The Competition
The competition itself was incredible. The Winter Gardens is beautiful, and we felt so privileged to be able to dance on the floor of the Empress Ballroom – the biggest and most important floor in the world of dance.
The atmosphere was incredible and the support and friendliness of other teams cannot be understated. It was amazing to see so many couples taking part, and though Royal Holloway may be one of the smaller teams, we certainly proved we are mighty.
The final day in Blackpool was spent dancing at the Tower Ballroom, making friends with local residents and other university teams, learning new sequence dances and showing off our moves on the Tower floor. We left Blackpool at 3pm, making it back to Egham at 10pm, exhausted but exhilarated after such a brilliant weekend.
We’re now super excited to be dancing again at Kent Friendly on 10 March and then again bringing the fire against Surrey at Varsity.
Bring on Nationals 2019!
HOLLY HUGHES
PRESIDENT OF ROYAL HOLLOWAY BALLROOM AND LATIN DANCESPORT SOCIETY