May Your Dreams Come True
Dear Friends in DanceSport!
It is that time of the year when all of us tend to look in both directions – back at the past and ahead into the future – to take stock of where we are, where we are going and what we are doing in order to get there. It is a time of reflection and renewal.
Prior to the message you are reading, I have circulated another one to the members of the Presidium as well as the standing Commissions and the Committees, comparing the challenges WDSF will face in 2018 with those of mountaineers. Anyone belonging to this group of driven sportsmen should be able to confirm that the most perilous stage in an ascension is the one just prior to making summit. With the physical strength diminished by efforts of getting to the current height, the continued upward journey can easily appear more cumbersome – and the environment more adverse – than what is called for.
WDSF comes off another highly successful year, with our sport reaching new heights through its sixth participation in The World Games in Wroclaw, POL, as well as in many other major events held in close to 100 countries. Some managed to bring diversity to the dance floors, others focused on one or two single disciplines. Between all of them, they managed to define our brand in its full breadth.
No “event” was more encompassing and global than the first stage in the qualifying for the Breaking events at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games (BAYOG). With a system WDSF had developed specifically to go beyond the customary limitations of the organized and federated DanceSport, we succeeded in motivating more than 1,000 b-boys and b-girls from 81 different countries to enter into an IOC-sanctioned qualification process which made an uplifting statement. Dance as sport is easily capable to transgress the boundaries of a conventional contest. It can give more athletes the opportunity to express themselves in ways which are unique, even among those falling under the label “artistic.”
At the end of 2017, WDSF has reduced the number of breakers continuing in contention for one of the 24 BAYOG berths to less than 100. Between them, they represent 33 different National Olympic Committees. And there is only one dancer from one single country where WDSF does not (yet) have a Member Body: B-Boy Tricky Tricks from Nepal.
WDSF is on the right track – no doubt about that – but to make summit in the Himalayas, or anywhere else for that matter, it will need to be even more accommodating in some of the views it holds. If a dancer with Olympic aspirations is found between 80 and 8,000 metres (the range of elevation in Nepal) anywhere in the world, WDSF must be there too! The limits can only be the sky.
This is the message I would like to convey to you. Let’s renew the commitment to broaden our horizons and let's reach for the sky!
Merry Christmas and a Happy 2018!
Lukas Hinder
WDSF President
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR #YOGJOURNEY!
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