Friday, November 29, 2013

Incredibly high expectations, or "I think you're just that good."

My dad is a groupie.
And when he latches on to a group, they're stuck with him, for good or ill. He is your most passionate unpaid PR guy.
I just need to learn how to communicate with him so I feel encouraged by his zealotry instead of crushed by overwhelming exectations. For example:

The Tap Pups: LIVE dvds finally came in from this past year's spring show. (The show was June 29, and dad's queries about when to expect the dvds started in July.) Vicki blessed us with the opportunity to share our first viewing together; often there's a bus trip or similar and we can see watch the previous year's show on the way up. This year, without having a road trip in the plans (for the week of Thanksgiving, no less), she rented Midtown Cinema and we got to see ourselves on the big screen. (Great new tradition! Sure hope we do that every year!)

Dad was beyond delighted to get his own copy of the DVD this year. My parents purchased one for themselves because 1) their oldest child, their only daughter, was in five dances plus the opening number, and 2) last year the whole borrowing-my-copy thing, which had worked in previous years, went sadly awry and there was much indignation about who had it when in its circuit thru MD, never mind that I-the-owner had it for a week before ceding it at Thanksgiving and getting it back at EOPS.

Dad's favorite dance of all time is Acapella. Which is, admittedly, fabulous and one of my favorites as well.
But his question to me about it was:

Did you memorize it?


By which he meant, "You could throw that down, right here, right now, couldn't you? Of course you could."
He knows I'm not in Advanced. It doesn't seem to matter.
My stupefied, dumbfounded, spluttery response was, "How? From seeing it?"
Dad, cool as a cucumber, pointed out that

"One" you knew even before you were at that level.

Somehow he missed, in all the conversations he and I had leading up to the show, that we worked our brains out for One. We worked our butts off for One. And those of us who learned it new for the 2013 show danced full-out but very much tucked away in the corner of the back row. And we still felt a HUGE sense of accomplishment just at that. For me it was an incredibly emotional experience.

Vicki, you have been warned. The bar is set very high. Evidently the Tap Pups are so good that people in the stands now think we learn by osmosis.

I better practice some more. That helicopter step in this year's piece...

I better practice some more.

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