How dare any of you step into one the most hospitable dance scenes on the planet and behave in such a way that ricocheted so loudly ALL. WEEK. LONG. during the SOS Fall Migration, that by the time we'd hit - what, Wednesday? Tuesday even???... I could hardly stand the fact that I actually made the mistake of encouraging you to go!!!

 

It should NEVER have been a Shagger's duty to pull WCS dancers off the floor and tell them that they were being rude, disrespectful or injurious! It should have been YOU - one of our OWN - who pulled our own dancers off the floors and given them a good talking to!

 

I had a whole Weekly Note planned on where you could go to find great dancing outside of WSDC and Points conventions, and, let's just say - I can't even THINK of writing it now! I am SO embarrassed!!!

 

That's right - I'm embarrassed - no, wait - BEYOND embarrassed!

 

Look, I've been encouraging you guys to try out SOS for two years now, and this year is when the most of you so far decided to go - so the Shaggers know I sent you and they mistakenly thought - heck, I mistakenly thought! that you would have SOME kind of manners like mine.

 

How wrong we were. 

 

Dear Shaggers,

 

I truly apologize. I know last week's SOS was WCS's opportunity to make up for the last five or six years of arrogance, poor floor craft and poor dancing. I hope you know that I would NEVER have encouraged my readers to go in the first place if I thought ANY of them would dare to act in such a manner that so brazenly opposes my own core values and beliefs when it comes to our swing dance floors! 

 

I am broken and ashamed. I will be doing whatever is in my power to right that wrong. 

 

Dear WCS Fencewalkers,

 

PLEASE do us all a favor and UNSUBSCRIBE already! You don't help anyone.

 

It was NOT The Ten who attended SOS this year - it was YOU. And you left me with an ever increasing pile of complaints  all freakin' week long. I'm sorry, but 

there is NO WAY a person can love a Points convention AND an SOS event. 

 

Please, please, please! Do us all a favor and stay where you belong - at WSDC events. Points love you. They want you. And you will fulfill all of their expectations.

 

Please. Please go. I won't miss you. And I seriously doubt you'll miss me. Just the gossip, right? Well, I don't dig gossip - so get off my list before I throw you off! Ask around. I  mean it.

___

 

As for me? I'm severely re-thinking what the he-- I've been doing all these years. Like I said - it was NOT The Ten who attended SOS, but you - readers of mine - readers!!!

 

The blame rests fully and completely upon your shoulders. You can't say "they" did it. You can't say it was an accident, or you just fell into their rooms by mistake, or you were just following "their" example. No. You can't say, "they" told you to any single dang thing - oh, no, no, no, no, NO!

 

 

And you know what? So do I. For thinking for one minute that I could trust any of you to go over there and make us look good. Make us look repentant. Make us look like we aren't exactly the carbon copies that The Ten require us to be.

 

Wow, do I ever share the blame. Wow.

 

I am so, so, so, mad! and so teary-eyed too. To think that I will have to wear a bag over my head the next time I visit North Myrtle Beach, because I don't want to be pointed out as the "she" who filled their floors with the disgraceful fleet of WCS dancers.

 

Holy cow. All I have to say is that you guys were treated better than you deserved by them, and we - we don't deserve a second chance.

 

The more I think about it, and the more I write about it right now? The less I want to share any of the breakthroughs I've come up with to give you this week. So I'm not going to. No way do you get "Part 2" this week... of anything!

 

Go ahead and take the time to think about why you ever even read me at all. Because if it's not a safe haven for you - if it doesn't make you feel like a better person, or make you want to be part of a community instead of be "in" with a community, then you don't belong on here.

 

You know, I still remember the day I was pulled aside at the Press Box and told that I was wearing something unbefitting of the dance (jeans) - I never wore jeans there again. Not even when The Ten told us we other Champions should. I can think of only ONE other dancer who didn't follow that time. 

 

But I mistakenly thought that that kind of stupidity was limited to the ranks of All-Stars to Champions. How wrong, once again! I was... We have CLEARLY lost all sense of what is "befitting" of us as a community, nevermind representatives of a community!

 

I think this article above might be all over the page, and frankly, I really don't care. I can't think of a single dancer anywhere that's put as much time, hard work and dedication to bringing the swing BACK into our dance. I should've taken that as a sign. 

 

Maybe, when the chips fall, you aren't any better than a single player in The Ten. You'd better take a cold, hard look in the mirror, my friend, because I won't be here forever. 

 

Over and out,

Your massively offended and betrayed writer,

Katherine