Her first competition was in 2009 at a professional amateur event, the Eastern Dance Sport Competition in Boston. Ten years ago, she invested in a blue competition dress adorned with Swarovski crystals, at a ballroom dance dressmaker’s trunk show in Burlington, Massachusetts.

The levels beyond bronze are intermediate bronze, beginner silver, silver (Alina’s current level in which she is capable of intricate footwork), and gold. Alina and Christian worked on choreography for the five dances of all ballroom competitions. She started where all dancers start, at the bronze level, but not the beginner bronze, where the focus is learning how to dance as a team, develop balance and rhythm. ”ĭespite her little voice, a short time later she asked Christian if he thought she could work toward competing. You know, it was that little voice we all have in our heads that tells us we can’t do anything. Then she attended a ballroom dance competition as all of the students are encouraged to do. So she began taking lessons here and there in Rockland. “When I saw Christian and his wife danc ing at Swing & Sway it reawakened the passion for dancing that style I learned as a child. Still, between 13 and 60, Alina kept moving, learning circle and line dancing, but these forms of dance were not the quickstep, foxtrot, waltz, tango or Viennese waltzes of her youth. She hadn’t taken dancing lessons since the age of 13 when the extracurricular standard ballroom dancing classes her mother enrolled her in concluded after two years. Alina wasn’t aware of a dance school in the Knox County town until her 60th birthday when her son Paul and his wife Mary gave her a gift certificate for lessons there. National Rising Star Professional Champion of the art of the dance, had moved there where he has family. That teacher was Christian Clayton, at his Rockland-based studio Swing & Sway. Peter said my teacher in the States had really prepared me well.” But my teacher and dance partner said I danced beautifully during the waltz – and I could feel it. “I think they were seasoned competitors – and from all over the world.

And when I saw the level of dancing of all the others I said 'Uh-oh, there’s no way I’m going to get a trophy!'” said Alina. “I got to put my foot down at the Empress Ballroom. and the ceiling … it is vast and magnificent. It’s composed of 30,602 blocks of mahogany, oak and walnut.

The ballroom was built in 1894 and measures 120 feet by 102 feet. A dream had evolved into a goal fulfilled. On May 21, Alina and her dance partner Richard Peters comprised dance team #138 in the ballroom dance competition at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England. Alina Blakesley, owner of Harborside Reflexology and Nail Care in Boothbay Harbor, loves to dance.

Alina croad dancer