Basketball & Dancing

Em's dance thing was tonight, between basketball games. The first game was the girls' game, and the dancing came between that and the Varsity boys' game.





I'd forgotten I actually like watching basketball, at least 'real' basketball. Which is almost exclusively the feminine version. The game Naismith invented, not too far from where I live, was a game for men, but these men were about the size of modern high school chicks.



I could probably take the NBA seriously if they raised the hoop to 15 feet and doubled the size of the court. Because without that, the 'basketball' of the NBA is to basketball what the WWF is to Greco-Roman wresting. It looks the same (sort of) at first glance, but one is a sport and the other is just a show.





Anyway, the home team won handily, by like ten points (I enjoyed the game but I'm hazy on the final score, 52 to 40 or something like that). It was fun to see actual teamwork. There was a star, a chick who's name seemed to come up every time the home team scored. But they passed that ball like it was a hot potato.





The other team also had a star, but that girl was trying to be all five players at once. She was their best player, but she was also their most aggressive, and she was an easy foul to draw. While she was still in the game, they could keep within five points or so, but when she fouled out they just collapsed.





Despite the chaos, Mo did a great job of sitting for the game and the cheerleading. The band and all that noise. It was sensory overload for me, even, and she did great.


Dance from Chixulub on Vimeo.

The majority of the girls dancing here are the high school drill team members. Em and a handful of others went to a two-hour clinic with them last weekend and then they performed tonight. Em was frustrated that she had trouble keeping in sync, but it's a lot to pack into two hours, and the rest of the squad have been doing this routine for awhile.





I got into the photography thing, trying to get those shots my camera was never intended to get. This was a better lit field-house than some, but it was still a battle. I tried to get a shot of this cheerleader tumbling like a bullet the length of the gym, but even at 1600 ISO and F2.6, she blurred. Shot's as noisy as a high school basketball game, too.



I'm pretty sure I never moved that fast, not on my best day. I couldn't move that fast for free beer. I probably couldn't get ejected from a car that fast.