This weekend I was lucky to get the opportunity to head down to the Waterfront Hall in Belfast to watch the championships. The competitons that I watched were the Ladies 20-21, ladies over 21 and the Men over 21. The standard of talent at this level was unbelievable to watch live and there was a real atmosphere of competition in the air.
There appeared to be a "trend" within certain dance movements. For example, in the soft shoe round there was a lot of 360 degree spins in the air, and other turns with one foot coming off the ground in the middle of the spin. Of course high jumps and travelling across the stage as much as possible was as predominant as ever. One thing that surprised me, was the lack of competitiors performing rocks in their dances, as this used to be a very popular step. In the heavy shoe round it was all about toes and heels. Travelling them whislt creating a variety of ryhthms and speeds made it very interesting to watch. My guess is that as toes have become a strong component of the dances, core strength has had to play a big part. As I walked around the practice areas I noticed a lot of competitors using stomach exercises as a form of warm up.
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