Every year in the United States there are two National Championships: one only for amateur couples, and the other for professional couples and pro/am couples. The second national championships, known as the United States Dancesport Championships or the USDC, just took place in Orlando, FL last week. Besides one of our teachers, Lukas Spisak, going to compete with his professional partner in the Rising Star and Open Professional Smooth divisions, one of our long-time students, Caroline Mao, went to compete in the Pro/am Latin division with her teacher as well. Caroline did wonderfully! She made the finals of both the Closed and Open B Latin Championship divisions, making her officially a United States National Finalist! And since she was so successful, we decided this would be the perfect opportunity to shine our spotlight on her.
Caroline dancing the Cha Cha with Simeon
First we want to give a little background for Caroline. She started taking lessons from Aria Ballroom principals Simeon and Kora back before Aria Ballroom even existed, making Caroline one of our longest-running students! But her joy of dancing goes even further back than that. During her college years she dabbled in folk dancing before trying out her skills in Salsa just after starting her career at Microsoft. She didn’t discover formal ballroom dancing until preparing for her wedding dance with her ex-husband with Kora as her teacher. This sparked a curiosity which led to her joining some group classes, but she found she needed a little extra help mastering the group class routines, so she started taking private lessons with Simeon.
After a few months of group and private lessons, Simeon invited a number of his students to compete in the Pro/Am divisions with him at the Seattle Star Ball, which was (and remains to be) the Seattle area’s largest ballroom dance competition. She thought it sounded fun, so she signed up and participated in her first competition at the Bronze level – the lowest level of competition – in 2010. After watching her videos from that first competition, she realized she needed some more help improving the skills she had learned, and continued to sign up for competitions in order to be able to evaluate her improvement. She was hooked!
We asked her what it was specifically about competitive dancing that she liked versus social dancing. Caroline started out as a social dancer, after all.
“Dancing is fun whether it’s social or competitive,” she replied. “For competitive dancing, the improvement is more goal-oriented.”
She had experimented with dancing with an amateur partner in the past, but she always returned to Pro/Am dancing. “More and more dancers are joining Pro/Am, as you can start at any age or come back to dance after a long break without (worrying about) a dance partner,” Caroline explained. “And after working on my dancing with my coaches little by little, I can really see the difference.”
Although Caroline dabbled a bit in the International Standard style at the beginning, she narrowed her focus into International Latin pretty early on. “I just didn’t have time to take it very far,” she admitted. “I love the drama, charisma, and short skirts in the International Latin style, and the freedom it offers while the partnership can help each other create unique, beautiful moments.”
We asked Caroline if she had a favorite dance.
Caroline performing her favorite dance, the Samba
“My favorite dance is Samba,” she confessed with a laugh, adding, “It’s not my strongest dance in the competitions, but I love the varieties of figures as a result of different timings.”
Her competitive drive has afforded Caroline the opportunity to travel around the country to train and compete, but she has consistently returned to Aria Ballroom as her home base. We asked her what it was about Aria Ballroom that made her want to continue training at Aria Ballroom.
“I can’t imagine a more welcome dance environment and community,” she said. “I am very grateful to have access to the training… the instructors are always very supportive of whatever their students want to achieve. Pro/Am and amateur (competitors) come to the studio to learn and to practice.” And of course, “to be able to practice on (Aria Ballroom’s) big floor.”
Next we asked Caroline what her goals for dancing were, but she doesn’t really have any specific goals. For her, it’s the journey of exploration and improvement that matters most. “Dancing is a different outlet for me, apart from my daily sitting job,” she explained. She does, however, enjoy “meeting dancing friends who have common interests, [this is] precious in life.” Then she added with a grin, “it’s nice to be able to make it to finals in the major competitions. That’s a bonus. There are a lot of good dancers out there.”
For Caroline, it was a gradual escalation to becoming a full-blown competitor. She didn’t start dancing with the goal of making the finals at USDC. She just wanted to learn a dance for her wedding. But somehow, the joy of constantly pushing herself to improve and the curiosity of seeing just how far she can take her dancing has stuck with her. “As a person who started dancing as an adult, I want to see how much of a better dancer I can become,” she said. “[I want to] enjoy the beautiful dancing moments. My body moves with the music and the music inspires different emotions from me. It’s a fantastic experience.”
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