It was a golden trip away for a group of local line dancers when they recently took part in the Australian Line Dance Championships (ALDC).
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The Kicks and Giggles dancers Victoria and Imogen O’Bryan, Leanne, Stephanie and Shannen Perry along with Cathy Lucas came back from the championships, held as part of the Tamworth Country Music Festival, with an impressive swag of medals.
After three days of hard-fought competition, the dancers had 23 gold, 15 silver and six bronze medals.
The Kicks and Giggles dancers, to cap off a great effort, were named the Club of the Championships.
All the clubs’ points, at the end of the competition, are added up and the club with the most points wins the championship.
Team spokesperson, Cathy Lucas, said they never expected to do so well.
“Our expectations leading into the event were quite mixed,” Mrs Lucas said.
“Having lost our teacher we had a steep learning curve in teaching ourselves off the step sheets.
“Our plan was to go along and have fun and our team name Kicks and Giggles reflects this motto.
“We hoped to do well but really did not expect to do as well as we did and when they announced our name as the club of the championship we were so shocked.”
“The standard was extremely high with teams from as far as Perth attending,” Mrs Lucas added.
They competed in novice events for the newest member, Shannen Perry, through to soles, duos, trios and team events with Stephanie and Imogen placing in the open country duo, which is the major dance section of the championships.
Kicks and Giggles is a group of friends and mother/daughter combinations and they practised in team member’s lounge room.
They entered the Big Country Hoedown in Narrandera last August and won the Hoedown Showdown.
Kicks and Giggles then turned their attention to the ALDC in Tamworth.
“We trained at two or three times a week for a number of months leading up to the championships,” Cathy said.
“We have been training in the home of one of our members as we are currently looking for a hall or dance floor to practice on.
“We would love to hear from anyone who is able to assist with rehearsal space.”
Cathy said more people should try line-dancing.
“So many people hear the phrase line dancing and think of the old country ‘twang’ and boring moves and songs but they couldn't be further from the truth.,” she said.
“While some line dancing is still traditionally done to country music there is a large number of dances written to top 40 tunes and some of the old favourites.
“We dance to anything from Elvis to Ed Sheeran and Pink.
“Line dancing is a great form of exercise and we quite often can do around 6000-7000 steps in a normal class.”
She added you don't need a partner and there are many classes in the local region if people are interested in just going along for a social dance.
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