“You find that you have peace of mind when you know that it was a 100% effort that you gave, win or lose.” – Gordie Howe
A few weeks ago, that quote was tweeted to me by Sabrina, my dance partner for the Strictly Come Dancing at Deele College.
It wasn’t the first time since we’d started rehearsing for the Strictly that she had sent me a motivational sports quote and they were always timely and appropriate.
Several weeks ago in this blog, I had outlined how taking part in the Strictly was, for me, a huge deal. A personal Everest as it were, a real case of facing my fears.
In the time that intervened since then, Sabrina and myself set about really trying to perfect a routine that, quite frankly even astounded me at the finish.
Both from sporting backgrounds, it was never the case that we were competing with everyone else – after all the winning of these things is really outside anyone’s control – it was always a case of wanting to ensure that when we stepped out in front of the crowd, that we would be the very best that we could be.
And so, when we rehearsed, the small things mattered. Tiny, what seemed like fractions of a second, mattered. The details all mattered.
In sporting terms, I guess it was the equivalent of preparing for a final and we knew that it was only if we worked hard with the preparation and gave it our all on the day, that we would be content afterwards.
And that’s why when we rehearsed we stopped and started, rehearsed and rehearsed again. It’s why we’d say – “let’s do it just one more time before we go.”
For me, the whole dancing thing was completely new and there is no doubt in my mind that Sabrina’s love for dance and her ability to help me over the weeks was a real blessing.
But this was new to her too though. Learning new dances with new people and a dance partner who – if maybe not quite as bad as he thought – certainly took more than a few weeks to loosen from a robotic counter to somebody who moved to the beat of the music.
In her ability to spot a new approach to getting the steps through to me, Sabrina demonstrated a lesson that everyone could learn from. Quite simply she took a step back, and then described things in a way that she knew I’d understand.
In this case it was sporting terms and once she had explained in one of the early weeks – what seemed like a bemusing footwork pattern as the equivalent of training ladders – I knew we were on our way to becoming a good team.
As the weeks progressed, the teamwork did too and by the time it came for us to take to the floor we were like any good team. We were on the same wavelength, working hard to cover up any mistake the other might make, and above all giving our all in the performance.
Scoring a ten from each of the three judges on the night was really just a bonus.
We already knew we had given it our all, whatever numbers they had held up, we were always going to have peace of mind.
PS – If you’d like to see our performance on the night, just click here.
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