From UX Designer To Ballroom Dancer

If you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know that I’ve been learning to ballroom dance.

Back in November, I entered a charity Strictly Come Dancing style fundraising event for St. Luke’s Hospice Basildon & Thurrock.

This past weekend, I had to strut my stuff on the dance floor in front of a panel of professional judges and an audience of 600 people! Yes, there are videos!

Two Left Feet, To Dancing Queen

I was partnered with the excellent Nikita, a professional dancer, whose job it was to teach me both a Pasadoble and a Foxtrot, and to be my dance partner for the final event. A competition where 10 couples (one professional, one not) would battle it out on the dance floor, in front of a panel of judges and an audience of 600 people!

I’m definitely not a natural dancer and this was well out of my comfort zone, but as it was for a great cause, I put on my dancing shoes and gave the lessons my all.

In the meantime, I set to fundraising.

St. Luke’s is an amazing charity providing specialist palliative and end-of-life care. Fundraising is central to enabling them to provide these vital services.

As an encouragement to raise funds, if you managed to hit the £2,000 mark before the event, you got an extra 20 points on the board. I needed every bit of help I could get, and thanks to amazing donors, made up of friends, family, and our generous clients and partners, I hit that goal.

Strictly St. Luke’s

The big day came around so quickly, and the nerves set in. But the extra 20 points on the board definitely helped take some of the worry away.

St. Luke’s put on a fantastic event and the turnout was huge.

As well as the judging panel, there was an audience vote, where people could make a £2 donation to vote for their favourite dancers.

In votes alone, Nikita and I raised an incredible £1,328.00. Added to the Just Giving page where I raised £2,085, that’s a total of £3,413.00.

The Scoring

The scoring was made up of 3 areas and in total 110 points were up for grabs:

• 20 points for raising £2,000 prior to the event.
• 10 points for winning leaderboard on audience votes (9 for 2nd, 8 for 3rd, 7 for 4th and so on)
• 80 points awarded by the 4 judges. 40 points maximum per dance.

The Dances

Our first dance was a Foxtrot, with a little Toy Story twist. We even had a little guest appearance from my youngest son. The judges scored us 7, 7, 8, 7.

This one was tough, we were first out, the nerves got to me, and was a little rushed I felt, doing everything a bit quickly, but I could also see my little one out the corner of my eye with panic, thinking he was going to sprint across the floor, but in all was fairly pleased with the judges scores.

Our second dance was the Pasodoble, and I was much happier with this one. Nikita had put so much effort into teaching me ‘feet’ with both dances, and in the Foxtrot I felt I had let her down, so although i’d pulled my quad in practice doing the jump you’ll see at the end, I needed to pull out all the stops and was desperate for at least 1 nine for effort at least. We actually scored 9,9,9,9 from the judges.

This caused my face to make a strange shape and I think there were drips of rain coming from the ceiling… not from my eyes! But was very emotional after this one, as I wasn’t expecting the generous scores.

My kids all joined me on the stage, and I think they brought the cute factor which swayed the judges, or they were simply watching Nikita.

Theo won the evening and scored an impressive 10, 10, 10, 10 on her second performance storming to a very well-deserved victory.

We scored a very respectable 92 points out of 110.

The Total Raised

Wow, what an emotional rollercoaster.

Personally raising a massive £3,413 in donations throughout the journey and the evening, and helping the hospice to raise a record-breaking £52,000. The most they have ever raised for a Strictly performance!

Although I’m a little sad now that the hype and everything is over, I wanted to thank everyone who donated and supported me on my journey. The Hospice and myself are truly grateful for all the support.

Thanks to all those who came to watch. I’m told I did myself proud, but being the perfectionist that I am, I’m itching to improve it and do it again. I’m now left feeling there is a slight hole that needs filling and I wondering whether to take this up now as a hobby.

For anyone who watches Strictly (I’ve never really watched it) you can appreciate some of the beauty that a dance routine can deliver, but never really understand truly how difficult those people work to get to that level.

On the evening there was so much effort that went into the choreography and the costumes that deserves so much praise. The other couples were amazing and most put my performance to shame, because of how much effort they put in.

A very humbling day, for all the help from all that supported me along the way.

Thank you, I’m truly grateful.