Chapter 12: the Joanne Saga

Charleston Training Continues

Joe's POV

Today was Wednesday. Dianne and I woke up early to catch the train back to London for our continued dance training. I was so excited. It was going to be fun again, now that we were back on the same level of communication that we were on when we were doing our Jive training! On the train back home, Dianne even snuggled up next to me. I was so happy this was back. I really missed this. I was so scared of losing Dianne, but I feel like we're stronger than ever now! We're a great team!

We got to the studio to begin training, and we were both so knackered from having to get up early. We had such a late-night last night. We started practising, and I felt the routine was getting even better. I even admitted to myself that the song was growing on me! Of course, we weren't perfect. There were still areas we needed to work on. Like that spin lift move.

I was getting really nervous about it, and Dianne must have picked up on it, because she asked me, "Hey, Joe, how are you feeling about that move?"

"I'm struggling with it quite a bit, I think, Di," I admit, "I just cannot grasp it."

"I think we might need to remove it now." Dianne suggested, "I'm not happy with it. And it's very worrying that we've gone half of our practice time and we haven't perfected it at all. We keep skipping it anyway, so it's not like we're gonna miss it. I think we should cut it before we have less time to practise a better alternative."

"Nah, I think we should keep it in for now." I reluctantly disagreed.

"Wait, really?" Dianne looked at me with a shocked and confused face, "Joe, you're really struggling with it, I know it's worrying you. Surely you'd want me to remove it?"

"Normally, yes, I would, but it's like you said, we keep avoiding the move in our practise runs. We haven't truly made a proper effort to perfect the move," I explain myself, "I feel our negligence is to blame for the most part."

I could see the silent debate in Dianne's mind. This was a move that could make or break our whole Charleston, and so we had to proceed with caution.

"I guess you're right there," Dianne finally says, "But are you sure you want to keep practising it? We tried every time on Monday and some on Tuesday and we still couldn't get the move right. And bear in mind that after today we haven't got much practice time left. Do you really want to do this?"

I thought about it for a while before nervously replying, "I just think we're out of practice with it. I just want to try the whole routine again for a while without skipping the spin lift and then see what we think. I don't want to do the dance and face the judges on Saturday thinking I didn't do everything I could. I get it's worrying but I don't want to give up when we haven't truly tried."

"That's very good of you, Joe." Dianne said.

"But... I also accept that our practice time is very limited at this point, and everyone else has probably got an "official" routine, even if last minute changes do happen." I add, "And the last thing I want to do is mess up our Charleston. This just makes it all the more nerve-wracking..."

The room was then slowly flooded with silence, and you could hear the cogs in our brains turning and turning. This was an incredibly important decision for us both.

"I've got a plan Joe." Dianne finally said, "Like you said, let's practise that spin lift proper this time. For now, at least. And if you don't like it after today, tell me before we start training tomorrow. I already have an idea of what move I want to replace it with. You ok with that?"

"Yeah, I'd like that very much." I say. I thought it sounded like a great plan.

"Ok, we'll do that then." Dianne says before turning to me and saying more seriously, "But, Joe, remember that I've asked all of this because nerves matter so much in dance. In a dance that you're doing, you don't want one step to make you feel nervous about the whole routine. On the night, you're gonna be nervous, and the nerves are going to affect you and the dance as a whole. You're gonna mess up the rest of the routine in anticipation of that one move, if we keep it in, I think."