Back from Merced

As a follow-up to my earlier post and at the request of two of my biggest fans, I thought I'd give you an update on how the competition in Merced went this past weekend.

We arrived in Merced on Thursday night and settled in to get some much-needed rest for the full day of competition that awaited us on Friday. I think I was more nervous than the dancers. The deal with these Tahitian dance competitions is that if any of your dancers advance to the final round, you are expected to provide your dancer(s) with their own drummers (limit of five drummers) for the finals.

Our dancers were outstanding on Friday as I and the rest of the drummers sat and watched in anticipation of how many girls we would be playing for on Saturday. I was beaming with pride as I watched all of our young ladies display their dancing skills. They had most assuredly been paying attention in class for all the previous months, taking what our Kumu Hula (dance teacher) had taught them and polishing it to perfection.

At the end of eliminations on Friday, our halau advanced 9 dancers to the finals on Saturday out of approximately 30 who entered from our school. The drummers had their work cut out for them on Saturday.

We went back to the house that night with the nine dancers who made it to the finals and played for them so they could put the finishing touches on their routines. All of their families came along with them and we turned it into a real party with all of the dancing, music and barbecueing that went on.

After a good night's rest, we headed off to the fairgrounds for the final round of competition. We played for all nine of the girls and even had our drum instructor jump in and play with us for the last three dancers. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next dance competition. Of the nine finalists that we fielded, two of our dancers received third place trophies at the end of the day. Not too shabby, huh?

Our Keiki (young dancers) looking beautiful and ready to dance.

Shopping for drums at the vendor booth. We buy the majority of our drums from this guy.

Two of our drummers showing the girls how they think Tahitian dancing should be done.

(That's me in the background banging on the log)

Our dancers, showing the drummers that they should probably just stick to drumming and forget about the dancing.