Yesterday I explored the difference between counseling and coaching on this blog. Because of some interesting questions and comments, I decided to add another element, consulting, for consideration.
So bring it on, folks, I'd love to hear your reactions to this one.
On the morning of August 5th Kimberly and I practiced (out of costume) for the first time on the actual stage that was constructed at the Dinah E. Gore Aquatic and Fitness Center on the campus of Brunswick Community College. We were concerned about the floor size and surface due to our combination of tap dancing (slipping) and tumbling (room available so I wouldn't throw her off stage when she did the walkover in our routine).
Here's the stage we saw. Clearly they were going to great lengths to make the place look elegant and in keeping with the Hollywood theme.
This video, made the morning of the dress rehearsal, has almost our final choreography. It turned out that during the actual dress rehearsal that evening one of the tumbling moves just wasn't working right and there was too high a possibility of a fall, so we took it out the next day (Kim did). However, in this video you see what we originally intended (the first tumbling move is the one later removed).
Below Kimberly is seated during the dress rehearsal Thursday evening. This is, indeed, the costume she wore during the competition.
It's two weeks till the competition on August 6th. The excitement and tension around having a great time and putting on a super performance are growing as we practice our routine.
Here's Kim before we started practice:
And, as you can see in the short video after practice, we both worked hard:
I had a few things to say as well:
And here's our weekly Not-What-We're-Really-Dancing video:
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Another week another fun practice. We're getting down to the wire, just three weeks left till August 6th!
Kim had a great surprise for me today - some new steps! I was delighted because they replaced some of the steps I'd already mastered, so this way the entire routine will be fresh. Actually, her new steps are really cool and I'm excited to see how they look once we really get them.
Of course, we're still not unveiling the actual routine we're going to be doing during the competition, but at this practice we did practice some cheering.
And Kim and I also had a few things to say about each other:
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
New location, same dancers, and a new 'not-what-we're-really-doing-in-the-competition' video.
Dance pro instructor Kimberly Boggs and I are a team for Dancing With the Brunswick Stars. This week we moved our practice site from Brunswick Community College to an off-site location so we can go full out during the final month of rehearsal and preparation.
Here's Kim:
Last week we did the hula, this we we decided we needed to get tougher.
Kim explaining what we were just doing.
My just catching my breath.
So we had another good workout and are getting closer to the big date (August 6th). Today we also talked about costume and other preparations.
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Our practices continue as Kimberly Boggs and I get ready for the Dancing with the Brunswick Stars fundraising competition for Brunswick Community College on August 6th.
This shot was taken by Melissa Everitt, from the BCC Foundation office, who came to shoot a promo video for the college.
At yesterday's practice we captured this quick video at the end of our 'real' practice. It should be apparent to anyone who's following this series on my blog that the videos we put up are NOT what we're actually doing in competition. So rest assured I won't be shaking it in a hula in August. We do have fun with these quick videos, however.
We had another video shot on Friday when Melissa Everitt of the Brunswick Community College Foundation came to our practice to capture some footage of us welcoming people to the competition (it will be shown that night). Melissa also got about 15 seconds of us practicing our 'real' routine. (At least that's what we told her.) In the photo below are Melissa Everitt with Kim Boggs.
In this short take video I comment on our workouts and practice and on Kim's moving parts during the hula.(Don't worry, it's safe for work.)
After Melissa shot the promo video I got to pose with her as well.
Kim invites all of you to Hawaii!
Next week we'll start practicing at a new location. So far we've had all our practices in one of the exercise studio rooms at the Dinah E. Gore Aquatics and Fitness Center on the campus of Brunswick Community College. Starting next week, however, we're taking it to a 'secret' location off campus so we can start to practice full-out. Even though I've never shown any of our steps or parts of our routine in these blog posts, we have finalized our choreography and are now ready to go full-tilt (I think we'll even start to wear our 'costumes' in a week or two).
Of course I'll take still shots and capture videos at each practice session for this blog, but Kim (who is clearly in charge, right Kim?)insists that no footage of our real routine goes out, so we'll have to come up with other dances to capture. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (I was thinking one of those 1930s style synchronized swimming routines would be fun but Kim told me our new 'secret' practice studio doesn't have a pool).
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Welcome back, Kim! Kimberly Boggs was on vacation for a couple of weeks so I held off on blog posting about my preparation for the August 6th Dancing with the Brunswick Stars. (Trust me on this, you don't want to watch videos of me doing our routine alone. I'm counting on all eyes being on Kim when we compete in August before judges and a thousand or so people.)
And here's Kim from Friday, as you can see she's ready to dance - she's even wearing the t-shirt!
So yesterday we practiced. And it was good. I can tell you flat out straight right now that the videos we've been putting up on this blog aren't quite what we're really working on.
But here's something we tried:
And then here are our usual quick commentaries. I'll go first (I've learned it's wise to let Kim have the last word):
And here's Kim:
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
We are still working hard at getting in shape and on our moves. Sashaying and pivot turning in the practice room.
So now here's Kim making stuff up about Bruce.
And Bruce telling the truth about Kim.
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Kim and I had to skip practice last week (life happened to both of us) so we really needed to get prepared for this week.
Here was one thing we did.
And here's how we warmed up
And then Kim got a great idea and, gotta love it, she started right off selling it. I'm a big fan of people who are avid promoters and marketers, so I give her props for that part.
However, I have a slightly different take on her suggestion.
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
If you've been following this blog/journal about preparations for Dancing with the Brunswick Stars, you might already guess what Dancing Pro Kimberly Boggs was saying when I took the photo below:
"Come ON, Bruce, you've got to work with me here!", says Kim (quite often).
Check us out as we work hard at practice this week:
And of course, we just might change direction from "Dancing with Swords." Here are our current thoughts on the matter:
Mine first (only because Kim insists):
And Kim's:
I guess the jury (really meaning Kim, because she's in charge) is still out on The Minuet.
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Today was our 4th practice for Dancing with the Brunswick Stars. The real dancer, Kimberly Boggs, who's generously donating her time every week teaching me how to move around the dance floor, is doing an awesome job of keeping me motivating and teaching me steps. It's certainly good exercise and I know I'm having fun.
Here's a clip from today of us practicing. You can certainly see we have energy.
And also, in the spirit of the expose' video clips on lots of reality shows, here are some short clips. Mine is full of lies and exaggeration. Kim's is the truth, cuz Kim doesn't lie!
And in case you haven't heard about it before, Dancing with the Brunswick Stars is a serious, big deal fund raiser for Brunswick Community College. This year will be the third and final year of this event. Last year they raised more than $330,000 in scholarship money for students at BCC, so you can see this is a pretty big event. The actual event will be held August 6th, but you can go to the website today to vote, buy tickets, or even become a sponsor for the event.
Yesterday was our third practice for Dancing with the Brunswick Stars - the actual event is August 6th at the Dinah Gore Aquatics and Fitness Center on the campus of Brunswick Community College in Supply, NC.
My professional partner is Kimberly Boggs, pictured below in pink and blue. I'm the guy further below in black and blue (in more ways than one). Kimberly coaches the College's dance team and has been a teaching dance professional in southeastern North Carolina for two centuries (well, at least for part of two centuries).
We took the two photos below at the end of our practice yesterday. We needed three people to help get my leg up like that. For Kimberly it was easy.
Now what you can't tell from these photos is that after Kimberly stretched a bit more she left me with my leg up on the Step risers and took off. Fortunately one of the Aquatics center trainers walked by the studio and helped me down. Notice Kimberly's evil grin - you know she was planning the whole thing!
So here we are practicing our routine. You may notice that I talk a lot and try to be funny. That's my way of attempting to distract Kimberly from noticing that I'm not doing the steps correctly. It didn't work. I suspect that Kimberly's leaving me with my right leg stuck on the risers was her subtle way of letting me know that indeed she did notice I wasn't doing the steps correctly AND that she wasn't distracted for a moment by my mindless chatter.
Be sure to follow my weekly Adventures with Dancing with the Brunswick Stars. It's for a good cause (raising scholarship money for students at BCC) and a lot of fun (for me anyway - well, except the being stranded in the studio with my leg in the air part).
I'm thinking at today's practice we can maybe watch videos. (I'm also pretty sure Kimberly won't think it's a great idea.) I tried to find a YouTube clip of just Evan Lycasek and Cheryl Burke dancing the Argentine Tango on the "real" Dancing with the Stars this week, but no luck.
I did, however, find this pretty cool video of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise dancing.
Kimberly and I are NOT dancing the Argentine Tango, and we're not dancing whatever that was that Katie and Tom did.
I worked out kinda hard this week and after being up for two hours I can finally just move my shoulders (a bit) from yesterday's weight workout. So I'm really hoping maybe today's practice can be about the "zen" of dancing.
Brown - out!
If you've been following this blog/journal about preparations for Dancing with the Brunswick Stars, you might already guess what Dancing Pro Kimberly Boggs was saying when I took the photo below:
"Come ON, Bruce, you've got to work with me here!", says Kim (quite often).
Brown - out!
Now what you can't tell from these photos is that after Kimberly stretched a bit more she left me with my leg up on the Step risers and took off. Fortunately one of the Aquatics center trainers walked by the studio and helped me down. Notice Kimberly's evil grin - you know she was planning the whole thing!
So here we are practicing our routine. You may notice that I talk a lot and try to be funny. That's my way of attempting to distract Kimberly from noticing that I'm not doing the steps correctly. It didn't work. I suspect that Kimberly's leaving me with my right leg stuck on the risers was her subtle way of letting me know that indeed she did notice I wasn't doing the steps correctly AND that she wasn't distracted for a moment by my mindless chatter.