The Marathon is just that -- every year more everything than the year before. That's why this event is a must-attend event every year for those of us who love to go to events. There's a free shuttle to the hotel from the airport and it's a painless little jaunt and time to greet and visit with friends on their way to a great weekend. James and Jean always have a wonderful staff to greet you when you arrive and wish you a safe journey when you leave. The hotel staff is always friendly and accommodating and really treat you as a GUEST in their hotel. There are always colorful decorations and the theme predominates over all the fun the entire weekend. This year it was BOOT CAMP and there were uniforms and costumes from every imaginable facet of history. Balloons adorned every column and room. The hotel is perfect for this event with lots of large ballrooms for the classes. Guyton's banners (which were raffled off on Saturday night) adorn the walls of all the dance rooms. See? He can, not only dance, he can paint and his puppet that he makes every year is what everyone wants to win in the raffle. This year it was called Sgt. Louie (see the pictures). The MARATHON portion of this event is certainly an understatement. There are lessons in five different rooms from morning until night, the instructors teaching all levels so that there is always something for everyone all day long (click on the schedule at the top of this page or click here). There is also open dancing all day long in case you want to dance some of the things you learned or just take a break and if the instructors happen to be in the open dance room they will get out and dance the dances with you. They have the dance previews each morning at 9 am so you can choose what you want to put on your schedule for the day. I think I have missed the JG 2 LINE DANCE MARATHON only one year since it started (and I was miserable so decided never to do that again!!) Pepper always does a great job being the emcee and it's no easy feat getting all the demos done quickly and efficiently but she did her amazing job again this year and it ran like clockwork.
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There is a large restaurant and bar in the lobby area with very welcoming staff. There's also a little deli where you can get good coffee and salads and sandwiches and cookies and stuff like that. You can order bar food at times during the day and room service food was good, too. The shuttle takes you to close-by restaurants and many people would go out to eat at night, although the hotel food prices are very reasonable and the food is good.
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THURSDAY:
All the lessons started at 2 pm on Thursday. This day is reserved for people to teach popular dances that are not their own but are dances that are being done and popular around the world. We pretty much keep up with everything in Florida but I think I took a class EVERY SINGLE HOUR the first day so I knew that I would be totally mind boggled for the rest of the weekend as far as remembering dances. You click on the schedule above to see what was taught Thursday and what was taught as the weekend progressed. At the end of the lessons on Friday there is time to grab a bite to eat, change clothes and come down for the HUGE THURSDAY NIGHT PARTY. This is always my favorite night of the weekend because it's just the beginning and I know there will THREE MORE DAYS to go so everyone just dances on Thursday night and greets friends we've all met over the years and I love seeing the expressions on the faces of people who have never attended a big event like this before. They are AMAZED!!
There are always fantastic instructors for all levels of dance each year and what sets this event apart is that, other than Thursday when people can teach the most popular dances around the world, choreographed by anyone, the instructors for the rest of the weekend MUST BE choreographers and ALL teach their own dances. There are usually enough new dances introduced at this event to be taught for many months to come and some of my favorite dances have come out of this event because I think everyone wants to introduce something special and they usually do. I think this year there were even more impressive dances than previous years. The instructors for this year is a virtual who's who and who's up-and-coming in line dance. Cato Larsen was new to the U.S. events this year and it was fun meeting him and watching him have fun all weekend. He is a fabulous dancer and his classes were very popular and he was up until the wee hours of the morning with the rest of us dancing and socializing. I think we'll be seeing lots more of him. It's always great to have our U.S. instructors and they were there teaching everything from easy beginner dances to advanced dances and just socializing and having fun. We are so lucky to have such a great pool of instructors here in the U.S. I loved seeing our British friends, Neville and Julie, Dave and Pauline, Johnny 2-Step, Nigel Amon and Dee Musk, and of course our friends, Teresa, Debi, Katie, and Jenny. As always, they were all up until the wee hours dancing and socializing with everyone. The music was nonstop in the ballrooms and I thought there was a good variety of music played. Every time I would go from one late-night ballroom with Louie to the other ballroom with Big Dave, they were both hopping!!
Here's the list of instructors in case you wondered how five classes could be done all day long with five different rooms (and why it's called the Marathon!!)
Cato Larsen (Norway) |
Will Craig (North Carolina) |
Be sure and look at all the instructors that Stacy dressed in their military outfits. I think they look super!! Thanks, Stacy, for all the work you put into doing this. I thought it would be hard to top what she did last year but she did!!
FRIDAY:
Friday started off with previews in the morning, lessons all day long, and here comes that PARTY!!! again at night and this party goes on until the last person is standing. We also had the COOKIE PARTY on Friday evening and it was so nice meeting so many teachers -- over 100 were there -- I had everyone quickly introduce themselves and everyone was happy to put a name with an e-mail -- Jean put both on the cute badges she did along with an outline of the state/country the teachers were from. Frank Trace gave a little presentation about how to start teachers' meetings and I heard from quite a few people who were going to go home and just start them. Gerard was just being humorous and asked everyone to fill out some little sticky notes with things they would like to have discussed in upcoming seminars taught by him like the one he did at this event with the topic of dealing with difficult people. It's good to see others who are doing this at events now and it's an invaluable resource for teachers to network and share their experiences in a classroom setting. Big Dave and Pauline were kind enough to bring some English candy to give away to some of the little questions we asked at the cookie party; questions like who has the most classes and who has taught the longest and who is the youngest teacher. Thanks so much to Jean for providing the WONDERFUL variety of cookies. They were yummy!! So many people told me afterwards how much they enjoyed the cookie party and just meeting other people and mingling. Thanks for coming, everyone, and thanks to Gerard for coming up with the idea and Jean making it happen.
Saturday was more lessons all day leading to the highlight of the weekend -- the SHOW (which was just the right length and mix) and THE PARADE on Saturday night at midnight with everyone dressed up in military uniforms of all descriptions and we even had one indian (see the pictures). Pepper, as always, did a great job and kept everything running smoothly. The show included:
Lola Lawson - USO - North Carolina Marketing Director
Pepper & Sgt. Louie (the puppet that was auctioned off in the raffle)
F Troop - Dan Albro, Karen Hedges, Nancy Morgan, Christopher Petre, Junior Willis
Patty, Maxine & Laverne (the Andrew Sisters) - Scott Blevins, James Gregory, Johnny 2-Step (You have to see the pictures)
Boys on Leave - Guyton Mundy, Will Craig, Jason, Holly, Mary Beth, Amanda
Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (Marilyn Monroe (Johhny 2-Step) (You have to see the pictures)
There is always plenty of seating in the main ballrooms for all of the night dance parties. I also like that there is no banquet at this event so you kind of have time to just grab a bite to eat and not take up any dance time on Saturday night. There are also at least two or three rooms for open dancing all day and night and you can go from one to the other for the evening so you can dance all kinds of dances. They were doing a few reviews in Big Dave's room in the evening and I liked when it was announced what time something was going to be reviewed. After all the lessons, I certainly needed a few reviews!!
After the show, there is open dancing and when it gets closer and closer to 
midnight, people start disappearing to get on their costumes for the PARADE!! I am always so impressed with what effort people put into their costumes for the parade. I always wonder how the heck they get through security on the plane, especially this year when the theme is BOOT CAMP. I hope some of them will let us know the funny stories they experienced in getting from wherever they were with swords and rifles and huge flags and just amazing things that they were able to bring and wear. The parade is always kind of sad for me because I know I will be going home the next day but I stayed up REEEEEAAALLLLLLY late on Saturday to drag it out as long as possible because by this time I was so tired and sleep deprived that one more night with no sleep will not make any difference.
SUNDAY:
Lessons continue on Sunday morning. I left before the choreography competition (pro and amateur) but I heard the room was packed. This is such a big draw at events and I just love watching it. Here's the winners:
Winners in the pro-choreography: 
Footprints In The Sand, Dee Musk - 1st Place
Faith In Love, Junior Willis & Craig Bennet - 2nd Place
What You Got, Will Craig - 3rd Place
Winners in the choreography competition:
Country Newcomer/Novice - He Hates Me (Janis Graves & Lindy Bowers)
Country Intermediate - Chattin' Online (Janis Graves & Lindy Bowers)
Non-Country Newcomer/Novice - Long Legs (Sue Ann Ehmann)
Non-Country Intermediate/Advanced - Heartbeat (Rebecca Absher)
ABC - Opa, Opa (Lynne Martino)
The Marathon also goes on all day Sunday with dancing and visiting and a pizza 
party to top it all off at night. Many people stay over and leave Monday so remember that when you book next year. It's a time to really relax and mingle and I'm going to stay for it one of these times because all my friends tell me how much fun they have. I'm always thinking about those hundreds of e-mails awaiting me at home and getting the survey done and having that along with work to greet me Monday morning so I usually leave earlier on Sunday. There are three levels of passes for this event and I would suggest you buy the largest to include all the paid workshops. I think it's great that we have a choice of paying for the classes individually or buying passes for the class you want to attend. This is a way for the instructors to get paid a little more which really helps with their travel expenses and the talent they bring to the event.
I'd like to recognize the great staff that works so hard at this event. As you can imagine, this is 
organized like a giant machine and some of the volunteers have worked this event for many years. I hope the next time you go to this event or any other event you will at least look around and think about the directors who allow us to have these great weekends. Think about everything -- from negotiating with the hotel, hiring the instructors, worrying about getting enough people to pay the bills and knowing that if they don't come they are going to go in the hole, getting the instructors from the airport to the hotel, deciding on the decorations, laying the floors (which is a massive job), getting all the brochures done leading up to the event, organizing the vendor spaces, setting up all the sound systems, making sure the hotel staff is doing what they need to do for a dance event, planning the hospitality room for the instructors and volunteers, arranging for things like the Cookie Party and the welcoming reception, planning everything for an entire year, getting the registrations posted and confirmed, dealing with a million questions and doing the schedule, which is also not easy, as you can imagine, cleaning everything up afterwards and making sure that any problems or issues are dealt with during the event. Every time someone will come up to me and complain about some petty little problem they had during any weekend I just look at them and think DUH!!! I'd like to see you pull this off!! LOL. I remember the days when there were NO events to complain about. Fortunately I didn't have to say DUH to myself this weekend because no one was complaining about anything to me.
STAFF:
BALL ROOM DEEJAYS - Big Dave Baycroft, Debi Bodven, Gail Erskine, Tim Hand, 'DJ Jam' Jim Henning, JP Potter, 'Big Sexy' Joey Smith, 'Wildman' Louie St. George
WORKSHOP DEEJAYS - Rick Dieter, Speedo Deskins, Mary Kaye Johnson, Bill & Mike Lorah, Hal Payne, Matthew Posey, Olivia Ray, Mike Thompson, Nate White
JG2 PRODUCTS - Barb Reber, KJim Swann, Carol Tichnell, CJ Welter, Vikki Yarborough
REGISTRATION - Eileen Abramson, Lynn Bartholomew, Lesley Brown, Teresa Davis, Sue Kaupelis, Sheila Lavallee, Marilyn Lindberg, Carolyn Nantz & Steve Lescarbeau (Co-Ordinator)
SUPPORT STAFF -
Jeff Bartholomew (Man with the Floor), Richard Dieter (Ballroom Co-Ordinator), Fran Chelius (Volunteer Co-Ordinator), Kermit Dukes (Photographer), Mike Garr (Videographer), Dan Cunningham, Ivy Stuart Kilmer & Walter Tallman (Videography Assistants), Becky Lorah & Brandy Posey (Hospitality), Adele Plantamura (Co-Host) & Pepper Siquerios (Co-Host & Emcee), Clay Edison (Assistant Ballroom Co-Ordinator)
Beckie Baker, Blaine Blevins, Don Buckner, Barbara Butt, Miya Crosgrove, Kathy Dieter, Mechele Earley, Jodi Ermlich, Lynne Flanders, Mechele Earley, Shannon Frost, Sunday Garcia, Shane Goodall, Marty Hargett, Emily Holt, Cindy Judy, Judy Kennedy, Gary & Meredith Kilmer, Stealth Kilmer, Sherron Mahs, Bonnie, Mathews, Leala Moss, Siri Longva Nesset, John & Phyllis Petty, Savanah Posey, Barbara & Hubert Powell, Oscar Rouge, Carol Shacjkelford, Gidget Smith, Jackie Stevens, Erik Svendsenm, Barry Taylor, Eric Tatum, Leslie & Mike Thompson, Jeff Tichnell, Arlene Verity, Wade Smith, Sherry Walters
DANCES TAUGHT: Here is the link to the complete schedule and you can also link to it at the top of this page.
and if you don't think this event deserves the name of JG 2 LINE DANCE MARATHON, you haven't looked at the schedule yet.
There are DVDs being sold of every dance taught. Here's how to order them:
DVD Only
Package A - Workshops Only - $85
Package B - Workshops, Show, Parade - $100
Includes s&h for N American shipping.
International rate - contact Jean jg2dancer@earthlink.net
Should ship within 3-4 weeks.
Check or MasterCard or Visa only
mail order to
jg2
104 Hogan Drive
Garner, NC 27529
AND NOW FOR THE DANCE REVIEWS. I could not take all the classes but I tried to take notes and I'm going to mention the ones that stood out to me during the demos or were taught in classes I took. I'll post the votes from the Marathon tomorrow so you can see everyone's picks for the weekend and Stacy will add it to the report later so we'll have it on there to refer to later on. I'm sure everyone will be writing in with their picks but I'll mention a few that I either saw and liked, took the class, or kept hearing about.
DANCE REVIEWS:
There weren't previews for Thursday so I didn't see all of the dances taught. Remember, there were five classes going on ALL DAY LONG and there's ONE of me so I certainly missed some dances that others will mention.
Click on the yellow dance title to see the videos for some of the dances taught. These videos were not taken at the Marathon.
Bring It, taught by Nigel Amon. I took this class because I wanted to learn this in Boston but was too tired. Thanks, Nigel, for teaching it so well.
So Glamorous, taught by Christopher Petre. This was played many times during the weekend.
Keep It Real, Scott Blevins. Another hit of the weekend. The dance isn't difficult. Hearing the restarts is a little difficult but we almost had that down by the time we danced it at night. This was one of my favorites of the weekend. Lots of people compared it to Break Free Cha but since I could never do Break Free Cha and I could do this one, I'm not sure I agree. LOL
The Charleston Boogie, Nancy Morgan and Karen Hedges. Very cute charleston dance that would be GREAT for shows!!
The Butt Dance, Karen Hedges. Really cute little dance.
Could It Be You, taught by Lou Ann Schemmel. I took this class and like this dance by Maggie Gallagher
Irish Spirit, taught by John Robinson. Could there be a more perfect person to teach this spirited Irish dance by Maggie Gallagher? It's so much fun!!
Pick Up My Stroll, taught by Nigel Amon. This was a challenging dance but I really liked it.
Phenomenon, taught by Guyton Mundy. We had been doing this dance recently and it's one of my favorites at the moment.
The Smell of Your Sweet Perfume, taught by Lou Ann Schemmel. One of my picks of the weekend. This is fast and fun waltz!!
Miss You 2, taught by Neville Fitzgerald. Another challenging but worth the effort dance. The only thing that makes this challenging is the timing.
Boo-Taaay taught by Nigel Amon. This was played a lot during the weekend and it's a fun hip-hop dance but not too hard
Online Everyday, Kathy Hunyadi. Country music, fast, I liked the step taps.
Forgive Me, Kathy Hunyadi, West Coast Swing-type music by Leona Lewis. I REALLY liked this dance.
What's Your Name, Michael Barr, older Rock and Roll. I liked the heel taps with the turn.
Faith in Love, by Junior Willis and Craig Bennett. This was very popular and I wanted to learn it. Beautiful music. I will take the lesson at the next seminar if I don't learn it in our class by that time. This will be done a lot in the next few months.
Tired of Being Sorry, Cato Larsen, Latin NC2, beautiful music.
Chicken Rodeo, Cato Larsen. Very cute novelty dance. Wish you could have seen Cato doing it.
Duck Soup, Frank Trace. Very cute, easy dance. Lots of people mentioned this dance to me.
Waiting, Guyton Mundy. This is a waltz to beautiful music.
Am I, Cato Larsen. I didn't take this class but it got lots of votes in my little survey while waiting in line to get in the ballroom.
Cowboy, Cowboy, Dan Albro. It was so nice to meet Dan and Kelly and they had some very good dances that are good for clubs and classes. Lots of people told me they liked this one and it was very cute.
Good to Be Back, John Robinson. Cute to Rock music.
Worry B Gone, Pepper. All classes would like this dance -- country or non-country.
Fade Away, Dee Musk. This was one of the most popular dances of the weekend.
American Pop, Michele Burton. This was a blast from the past and people loved it all over again!!
Here We Go, Guyton Mundy. This was Guyton's new funky to the max dance. I think you just have to see it. Bring a ballcap to the next event because you're going to need it and you might consider bringing a pillow to strap on your hip and I would suggest you do some exercises to get off the floor once you're down there. You really don't HAVE to get on the floor but enough people did that you're probably going to want to try it and it looked great when it was performed at night.
Footprints In The Sand, Dee Musk. Winner of the pro choreography and another hit of the weekend.
Take Me Away, Gerard Murphy. A cha with very interesting steps.
Sweet Talkin' Woman, Max Perry. I liked the heel pop turn. VERY good Max dance. Loved the music, too.
Higher and Higher, Max Perry. Another good one from Max. The music is infectious.
Just Can't Stop, Neville and Julie. I loved the little head turn in the end and this is one of the dances that really feels good to the music
Gangsta Paradise, Neville and Julie. This is a funky NC2 dance. I was getting ready for the cookie party but I REALLY wanted to take this class. Hope someone is teaching it soon.
Journey, JP Potter. Another good dance from JP, who has never gotten the attention he deserves. I ALWAYS like his dances so I hope you will take a look at this one.
Everlast, JP Potter. This one was mentioned to me a lot and I saw the demo and liked it. Hope this one gets taught too because I would like to learn it.
Too Deep, Scott Blevins. This was another hit of the weekend. This dance only had 2 tags in it, which was the electric slide steps.
Less In Time, Bracken Ellis. Another great dance from Bracken. I gave it lots of stars.
Elevator, Neville and Julie. This was another dance that was the hit of the weekend and was done a lot in open.
Good Time Jackson, Dan Albrto. Good country dance and would be great for clubs and country classes and really any classes. I liked it.
Boot Camp Swing, Michael Barr and Michele Burton. This was choreographed especially for the Marathon Boot Camp theme this year. It's like a jazzy swing-type music and I think everyone will like this one.
Get on The Floor, John Robinson. Very cute dance. This is my favorite of John's this year!!
Reese's Pieces, Maurice Rowe. I like this dance. We do it all the time in Tampa.
Round In Circles, Kathy Hunyadi. Another one that got stars from me.
Late In The Evening, Christopher Petre. To Paul Simon music and this is my all-time favorite song of his. Christopher has been consistently doing quality dances and I thought all of his were good!!
Ramalama, Christopher Petre. This was really a fun dance. I THINK this one was in the pro-choreography competition.
Gotta Get Her, Seth Lilly. This is a cute little dance.
Thanks, Stacy, for getting the report, pictures, and videos posted to the site so quickly!!
MOST OF ALL thank you, James and Jean, and all your staff for making this one such a fabulous event and for all the work both of you and your staff do to make it just a great experience every year. This event holds a special place in my heart because it was the last event that Bucky and I attended together before his accident and I know he is always there with us in spirit!!
Carol Craven