In spite of jet lag (and being night-owls by nature) Meg and Joe were up early Monday morning for the "Competitors' practice" time at the Wintergardens.

The ballroom was reserved for around an hour each morning for the competitors to work on the floor on which they would compete. Considering there were well over 1,000 couples and they all wanted to use the floor... and they all travel at warp speed, it was pretty wild.

To start the practice session, the MC got all the couples to stand out on the floor at one time. Even though the ballroom was huge, the floor was packed. He then divided the couples into three groups. Each group got to dance to one song and then he switched groups.

Even with only 1/3 on the floor at a time, being able to manuver around other rocketing bodies (called "floorcraft") was a critical skill - and good practice for the competition itself. There were lots of crashes. At one point the MC stopped the session to point out that this was only a practice warmup. ("If you don't know it by now, you're not going to. If she doesn't feel good now, she won't.") And that in Blackpool it was considered very bad form to ram other couples on the dance floor.

Luckily, Joe has excellent floorcraft and managed to keep their partnership moving without incident most of the time in spite of the very intimidating environment.