SDI Exam 2008

I finally got my hands on my flamenco exam certificate last Friday. It was an early Christmas gift. Yep! I passed my SDI Preparatorio Level, together with Clea, Sania and Manuela. Now that it is over and I have completely forgotten about how nervous I was, I must agree that the entire exam had been fun. All of us were dressed up in standard black leotards, flamenco skirts, with our hair neatly bunned and adorned with a large flower.

As we got closer to the exam (which was on Nov 13, 2008), Joyce organized extra classes for additional practices. Although Joyce insisted that we were doing fine, we were all quite tensed and worried (who isn't?). But what I have appreciated most about having taken the exam is my speed of improvement within a short period of time. Somehow I guess its a human's nature that we can sometimes be too comfortable with our current positions. If things like exam never existed, we would never push ourselves to our maximum potential.

Nicola, our examiner was really sweet. At the end of the exam, she gave lots of pointers to all the exam candidates which I found to be very useful, eventhough it was clearly basic information. She also gave a workshop on Alegrias, which was difficult for us Preparatorios, but nonetheless of great fun. Once Fernando asked me, "Is your flamenco teacher Spanish?". He was quite skeptical about a non-Spanish teaching a Spanish dance but I told him I have a great teacher, and of her being Spanish or not was not of importance, I simply wanted to dance only!

Hopefully next year I'd be able to complete my Primer level too!