Hello there! My title is Charlotte Manfield, and I’m competing within the Senior Solo Mixed occasion and the Worldwide Solo Sample Dance occasion within the 2023 Nationwide Solo Dance Ultimate in Chicago, Illinois! I began skating after I was 4 years outdated and am now a junior in highschool. These previous three years, I’ve competed in solo dance, and within the 2021 Nationwide Solo Dance Ultimate, I positioned second within the Gold Solo Sample Dance occasion. My wonderful teaching workforce over on the College of Delaware FSC consists of Suzy Semanick-Schurman, Colin McManus, Anastasia Cannuscio, and Anne Militano. I’m so grateful to be competing in my third solo dance nationals this week, and I’m excited to take you all together with me for it!
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
This morning, I needed to get up, go to highschool, and take a quiz in first interval. Thankfully, I believe I did fairly properly on it contemplating I made certain to organize for this quiz, and afterwards I attended three extra lessons and ate lunch with my college associates. All of them mentioned goodbye to me for the week and wished me luck with solo dance nationals, which was a lot appreciated. I then received picked up by my dad who was working from residence, and we went to Saladworks, the place I ordered a customized favourite of mine. I ate that within the automotive since we had been restricted on time and I used to be solely going to have the ability to do two classes at my residence rink, the College of Delaware Ice Arenas.
I received to the rink and shortly placed on my skates to have my final lesson of the season with my coach, Colin McManus, and we did a free dance runthrough and a Yankee polka runthrough. Each runthroughs felt strong to me, and after his lesson, I did my final two runthroughs, which had been my rhythm dance runthrough and my rhumba runthrough. I ended my session with tiny sections of parts I needed to work on and instantly jumped into the automotive afterwards as we needed to get residence to choose up my mother and drive to the airport.
Fortunately, all my packing was performed, so leaving the home wasn’t chaotic, giving me time to say bye to my grandmother and to my cats. From there, we drove to the Baltimore/Washington Worldwide Airport and waited for our flight. We received some sushi for dinner, which was scrumptious, however then discovered our flight was delayed. It was already previous 8 p.m. at this level, and the flight is about 2 hours and half-hour, so we had been hoping we may board quickly. After we had been lastly capable of board our aircraft, there was barely anybody on it, so everybody received to unfold out, which made all the things simpler. Nonetheless, the pilots had some routing difficulties as there was an enormous storm in our approach, and it took about one other half-hour till the aircraft took off. We received to the Chicago Halfway Worldwide Airport at round 11:30 p.m. CST, and as we had been leaving the airport, I discovered one among my coach’s favourite popcorn locations however sadly they had been closed. It took round an hour to get to our resort, and after we arrived, I received prepared for mattress and deliberate out my day tomorrow as I’ll solely be skating on observe ices and don’t have any occasions but. General, it was a really tiring journey day, however I’m so excited to skate on my practices tomorrow and see my associates once more!
~ Charlotte
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
We had a while between my practices, so we stopped at this bakery referred to as Tous Les Jours, which was completely stunning, and grabbed some pastries and low as breakfast/lunch. Afterwards, we drove again to our resort, the place I frolicked with a few of my associates who had been staying in the identical resort as me, and we had enjoyable chatting and taking part in video games. Everybody needed to begin leaving for practices, so I went again as much as my resort room and did my competitors make-up for my official observe ice. My coaches needed me in my hair, make-up, and gown for my rhumba to do my official observe ice in, so after I received again to the rink, my pal’s mother helped do my hair, and I become my rhumba gown. I put my skates on and went to my second unofficial observe ice at 2:30, which rolled proper into my official observe ice at 3, on Rink A, the rink everybody will compete in.
Within the first observe, I set my parts for my mixed applications to verify my patterns felt good. Then on my official observe ice, I did a runthrough of my rhumba, labored on it afterwards, and labored on my polka. All the pieces felt fairly strong, and I received off the ice for half-hour earlier than going again on to Rink B for 2 unofficial observe ices from 4-5. My pal and I went to Walgreens, the place we picked up a bunch of squishmallows nearly as good luck charms, after which we went to a Lululemon outlet 20 minutes away to buy a bit, which was tremendous enjoyable, and ultimately we made it again to our resort. For dinner, we ubered Panera to the resort, the place I received a Fuji apple salad with rooster, after which I showered and received prepared for mattress. Then I went by means of my schedule for tomorrow with my mother and father to type out driving, occasions, and all the things else. I’m so blissful to be right here at nationals, and I’m extremely excited to compete my worldwide solo patterns tomorrow!
~ Charlotte