Hey all, a little more NetJets and a little more guessing game. Some of these folks have been featured before and so may be fairly easy to guess -- that's all the help you'll get from me.
Hope you're all enjoying the non-exo tennis this week. From the lively discussions on the other threads, I take it you are. I will be quietly counting the days till it appears on a channel I get once more.
However, since I do get ABC, I will freely confess that I will be watching Dancing with the Stars faithfully. Why, you ask? Well, if you open my storage closet, you will find two pairs of white satin ballroom shoes in a plastic bag with their wire suede brush and plastic heeltaps. They're right next to the white tennis sneakers and bad recreational racquet. Which are in turn next to the figure skates, which... come to think of it, I have a lot of sporting equipment.
Since I play tennis very, very badly but watch it very well, and danced rather better than I play tennis (not saying much), and since I haven't encountered any other pop culture tennis references this week, I will inflict my technical analysis of Monica Seles' challenges on you. Let me start by saying that I think Monica will do better with the Latin than with the standard or ballroom dances, because ballroom dances in hold require one position that you never, never have to hold as a tennis player: move backward with upper torso bent backwards. And twisted slightly sideways. It's supremely awkward at first for women. Nothing at all like backing up for an overhead, though that might be the closest tennis comes to it.
Picture yourself backing up for a shot. How do you do that little stutter step? Well, you more or less want to stay on the balls of your feet, keep your feet moving, and keep your weight balanced over them so that you can shift direction quickly and easily. That's kind of what Latin dancing is like: your weight usually stays over the ball(s) of your feet, even as one leg may be flailing about as if it has a mind of its own. Backing up in ballroom dancing is more like sneaking a foot backwards and then shifting your weight onto it. It requires a lot of core strength because your upper body has to stay so still while your legs churn backwards. If anything, this is the one piece of knowledge that should come more easily to Kristi Yamaguchi, because in skating the upper body often has to stay very still while the legs churn outwards to generate speed.
So it'll be interesting to see if next week, when they have the cha-cha, Monica does better and who knows, Kristi does less spectacularly. You can't unwire these muscle memories overnight... or in four months, however long they've been training.
Happy TV-watching!
[ETA: Don't forget to keep sending photos, please! We all love 'em. Don't forget those out-the-window shots, or the pets.]
