Sunday, September 10, 2017

Competition Season 2017 Wash-up

And so, we get to the end of another competition season. A year ago, I didn't expect to be doing another one of these - I thought we would have been moved long ago, and would probably have left the band at that point. But as it happened, the move wasn't until quite late in the season, by which point I'd committed to seeing out the year.

The season was very much a major/minor split - we had very disappointing results at all four of the majors we attended, but actually had quite a lot of success at the minor competitions. That's very much a step forward from last year (barring one very good result at Forres in 2016), but it's still quite hard to take. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any prospect of the band being moved up for next year, so my hopes of seeing that done before I leave have come to nothing.

There's actually not much more to say than that. We had some poor behaviour at Forres, and some drunkenness at some other events, but nothing like the disasters of previous years. Which is good, but still not really good enough. But I'm filing that under "someone else's problem".

The other big thing, though, is that the season is just too damn long - far too many events in June, and too many events after the World Championships bring an end to the 'real' season. On the other hand, it does make the decision to leave a no-brainer, as I simply cannot commit to being involved in the band (or indeed any competing band) for the whole of the summer.

Moving forward, my next step is to find a non-competing band to join, so that I retain the motivation to keep practicing, and to do their few events. But I'm done with competition, probably forever.

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