Overall impressions: A small field with some very strong moments from the top two teams.

Compulsory

• Slattery & Connelly. I took no notes on this team. No idea why.
• The Smiths - Bigger lobes on the pattern than previous team on Viennese Waltz. Assured and confident looking. A solid performance on both dances (Quickstep was the other)
• Russell & Metzger - Great character & expression of the dance (Viennese Waltz). Very fast and very neat. Little click and separation in the Quickstep, but great knees and neat footwork.
• Scheumann & McDonough - both dances looked like they were fighting - a lot of pushing and pulling - they completely lost count & left out one full round on the waltz. Their back edges were scary on the Quickstep.

Original Dance

• Smiths - Smooth with nice deep lobes. Footwork was precise & controlled. Very nice use of knee bends. Complicated dance holds.
• Slattery & Connelly - Looser, with less control that the Smiths. Not as "finished". Uneven speed - much slower at the end. Lot of distance between them in the face to face sections. One of their lifts I deemed "busy" in my notes.
• Russell & Metzger - Holds were very complex. Footwork was difficult & performed at nice speed. The whole dance had a nice sensuous feel to it.
• Scheumann & McDonough. He fell on a sliding bit after the footwork.

Free Dance

• Slattery & Connelly - Gospel Spiritual "Carry me Home" set to a faster pace. My notes say "Baffling. Struggle. Big break in footwork - he fell apart about 2/3 of the way in."
• Scheumann & McDonough - Jungle music. Did a posing bit where they were being flapping birds. Very nice lifts.
• Russell & Metzger - Hmmm.. Yet more incomprehensible notes. Classicy Pout. S.T. with footwork off 1x. I remember that she had a cute pout, so that part of the note I get. Classicy refers to ersatz classical music. Clearly I felt the footwork was off. No idea what I meant by 1x..Well, It is usually short for 1 time. But what happened 1 time I couldn't say. Of course it could also be a single axel...but that seems unlikely.
• The Smiths - Little slower and less smooth than previous. Great dance holds. Nice lift on one foot.