The Beginning
One day, a male friend (an ex-boyfriend, in fact) invited me to a party at the studio where he was taking lessons. Being a major chain studio, where cultivating paying students is as important as the teaching itself, I was asked to dance by just about every male teacher there. Yes, I know I was getting primed for a sales pitch, but I didn't care: I had always thought I was too clumsy and uncoordinated to dance, yet in the arms of a good leader I was able to travel around the room and actually enjoy it. Something inside me said "Do This," and when the sales pitch came (it was very gentle) I signed up for the "Introductory Package."

The Early Days
After a month I was fortunate enough to be given Jonathan Wilkins as an instructor. The studio encouraged me to compete, and since I'd always done competitive things like swim and show horses, I thought it was a great idea. I took lessons and competed for a year and a half, but somewhere in all this I moved cross-country to San Francisco, where I stopped dancing for nearly three and a half years.

Starting Over
After not thinking much about dancing for over three years, I suddenly found myself at the Metronome Ballroom in San Francisco. A dear friend had rented out the "Block Party" for a college graduation party. Physically being in a dance studio again brought back all my old memories of dancing, and I decided to start again as soon as possible. At the time I was working in Sunnyvale, so started lessons at the Starlite Ballroom. But then I changed jobs to work in San Francisco, and so contacted the Metronome. I started lessons with David Weise in July of 1997, and danced in Pro/Am Standard and Smooth events with him until September of 2004.

I had also been dancing in all-amateur events, off and on, with a series of wonderful gentlemen.  However, in 2004 the dancing got really serious with Kyle Thornton.  We danced in a variety of Gold Syllabus and Novice Standard events, but Kyle kept having injury problems (knee surgery, then a torn calf muscle that wouldn't heal) so he had to retire.  I k now it's not really nice to play favorites, but Kyle was my favorite partner of all and I couldn't bear the thought of continuing on dancing without him, so I quit (for the second time) in February of 2006.

Quitting Never Seems to Be Permanent
In April of 2006, after two months of moping on the sofa, I got an email out of the blue from a dancing friend who I had kind of lost touch with.  He wrote to tell me he had turned pro, and asked me what I was up to.  I told him I had quit dancing.  He immediately replied that quitting was "not allowed" and that I should come see if I'd like to dance Pro/Am with him.

I figured "what the heck" and we scheduled our first lesson.  Years before my friend had joked that when he turned pro, we would do Pro/Am together, but I had sort of forgotten about it and never thought I'd hold him to it.  I am so happy, though, that my friend did not forget, because getting together with him and once again getting serious about my dancing has brought me a lot of pleasure, joy, and satisfaction.

Related Projects
I enjoy sewing, and love to think about fancy dresses for competition, so I've started making my own. I also will make or alter dresses for others. In an effort to help others learn from my mistakes I've started documenting my techniques.

In January of 1999 I decided that it would be a good idea if I learned a little about leading. I wanted to better understand how the leader's and follower's roles fit together, and I wanted to gain first-hand knowledge of what it is like to lead. I cannot even begin to express the awe and admiration I now have for the gentlemen ballroom dancers I know. Learning to lead and being able to perform as a leader is a world of difference from following, I found it order of magnitudes more difficult mentally and have gained a huge appreciation for what the men have to go through as they learn to dance and interact with their followers. I took a four-month long class in Bronze-level International Standard as a leader, which culimnated in a final exam, which I was fortunate to dance with the lovely and extremely talented Sheana Schreider.

I love to perform, so when I got a chance to be on a Formation Team in the Fall/Winter of 1999 I joined enthusiastically. Aside from learning some American Smooth-style choreography, I also had the challenge of costuming our entire team. In the Summer of 2001 I danced onstage in a ballroom showcase held at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason in San Francisco.