one down only nine to go

holy potato.
what a way to start. top marks. madness.
at this stage the marks don't mean anything, but our intention was to go out there and set a standard we could be proud of and then work our bums off to raise that standard every week.
and so the day after the first insanely stressful and mind blowingly exhilarating episode we hit the studio hard for 4 hours of mambo mayhem.
we were booked in for a two hour session today but i awoke to a blissful sms from Mary saying that we had worked hard enough for now and had earned a well deserved day off. i played it cool but my aching and swollen feet wept with grateful joyous abandon.
the show itself went by in a dizzying haze of nervous delirium. i cannot describe the fear and anxiety backstage. it is palpable. like a thick fog swirling about our heads. everyone, even the old pro's (mary) can hardly contain themselves. if you could bottle the adrenaline pumping through the ether in that backstage area, it would be illegal at the Olympics.
i tried every trick in my book, the breathing exercises , the visualisation, the stretching - you name it - but when i stepped out to do the waltz all i could think was "What!!?? WHAT!!?!!? Wait , i'm not ready, i'm not ready, i''m not READYYYYY!!!! - oh my holy hecking heck i'm dancing, i'm dancing the waltz, what the hell am i doing?? What's my next step?? Seriously , what's my next step?????!!!"
i went completely blank about three times - the first two times thankfully only for a split second before the reflex motor action kicked in and my feet instinctively went to the right place - but the third time was the killer - i swept passed my posse sitting in the front row in the last quarter of the routine and one of my friends yelled out "you're hot!!!" (thanks Bev) and so of course i burst out laughing and then to my utter shock and dismay, so did my feet - mary (bless her forever) gripped me so hard i could hear her knuckles cracking and we weathered the rapid and took that waltzing dinghy to the calmer waters downstream.
in the interview with the judges all i wanted to do was cry. seriously, the relief - the excitement , everything - it just made me want to tjank like a lighty who dropped his ice-cream.
and then we went and sat backstage - endorphins oozing out of us like the slime on Bill Murray in Ghostbusters- and watched everyone else kakking off. It was worst on the girls who had to wait through the entire first half and the hour break (for Muvhango and the News) before they could shake their stuff. and boy did they. they did look like a bunch of zombies during that break though, the waiting and the nervous tension had just about wiped them out. I am not looking forward to that wait on Thursday. I am, however, keen on the whole safety in numbers vibe. bring it on.