US Open 2015 Update #4 - Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Or, as Benji just said on Facebook, "Happy US Open weeken- I mean Thanksgiving!"

What's it like for Benji? And other top competitors? What's it like for all competitors today, Thanksgiving day, and in these last weeks leading up to the Open?

Have you wondered how they train? How they prepare physically and psychologically?

I've wondered, so I asked Jordan.

I found him at home, alone in his kitchen fixing oatmeal while listening to his routine music.

I wish you could hear his tone, his mood.

He was so quiet. Calm. Introspective. Focused.

Meditative.

As if I'd interrupted him deep in thought, walking a garden path at a zen retreat.

He answered my questions in an almost dreamlike tone, in beautiful language. His thoughts seem to take form in precisely constructed words and imagery, as if conceived in a deep sleep.

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L: What is life like in the weeks before the Open?

"We're completely, totally focused on the routine, we're living the routine.

"It's like we live in a bubble. We have no outside distractions, we don't talk to many people, we eat, breathe, sleep, live this routine.

"Everything we do is about the routine - the routine is all there is.

"We live in gym clothes. We get up, Tatiana may see the massage therapist and chiropractor; we go to the gym; we practice all day; we come home and study videos of the day's practices; we go back to the gym at night to correct the changes we've made that day.

"These last few weeks we've been going back to the gym at 10pm to practice until 1am in order to get our bodies accustomed to dancing late-night, because Classic starts late.

"We're playing the music all the time. I'm playing the music in the kitchen, in the car, I'm hearing it all night in my dreams."

"We try on our costumes and make adjustments.

"All we do, all we talk about is the routine. We're living the routine. There's nothing else."

Do you eat any differently in the weeks before?

"We just try to eat "clean." Plenty of light protein, chicken and fish, oatmeal, vegetables; we watch our salt intake, drink lots of water. We try to trim up a little, only moderate weight loss for an increase in stamina and power, nothing extreme. Mostly we just try to eat healthy. Including during our family Thanksgivings - we'll have a little lean white meat, some vegetables. Not much (if any) gravy, stuffing, potatoes, or desserts."

What's it like out there on the US Open floor? Can you describe for readers what it feels like, what goes through your mind, what you see and hear?

"When you first walk out you see faces, judges, the crowd, friends and family. You're looking around the room trying to soak it all in so that nothing surprises or startles you when you get to the routine.

"We try to visualize the audience in practice so nothing catches us off guard - who's sitting where, where everything is situated.

"Once it starts you're mostly blinded by the spotlights, but you don't want to be distracted by anything/anyone that might catch your attention while you're dancing.

"It's about "moments." You're going through a a mental checklist of moments; moving from one moment to the next moment; giving each moment everything. Wanting to execute that one moment the best you have ever done it. You never want to think, "I did that better today in practice." You want each moment be the best it's ever been done.

"It's about muscle control. Strain and muscle control. I'm approaching a big trick and I want to do it better than I've ever done it, the best I've ever done it.

"Then the crowd responds and there's the payoff and the flush of adrenaline. And I'm moving to the next moment, I'm inside the next moment.

"You're not thinking. Not "conscious" thinking anyway. The opposite. You're trying to stay out of your head.

Three days to go. Are you feeling ready?

"Yes we feel ready. There's always room for improvement, but yeah, we are ready! We wish we could do it now. The waiting is hard. The more we wait the more anxious we get. And the longer we wait the more chance we could get injured - pull a muscle, sprain or overexert a muscle or joint. Three days feels far away.

What would you like to say to your fellow competitors? To all of this year's US Open Competitors?

"We would just like them to leave the floor feeling that they gave it their best. We'd like each competitor to feel that they accomplished exactly what they came to do.

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Last night was WILD. No better way to describe it.

The entrance to this hotel is a sweeping circular cobblestone driveway, wide enough for five vehicles to pass side-by-side. Tall oil heaters and low lamps in the shrubbery make the entrance glow with a flickering golden light. Bell hops approach as you drive up, opening the car door for you and helping to remove your luggage.

Large glass entry doors open into a wide golden room with seating areas of modern furniture in shades of copper, rust, and ocher. Immediately facing you is an island in the middle of the space which serves as the front check-in desk.

To the right, along the front wall, is a long dimly lit bar, where the bartenders and guests seem to be old friends. The elevators to the West tower are just beyond, and the hotel restaurant and bar where we congregate every evening a few paces back from there.

The wall behind the front desk has four doors which open to four medium-sized ballrooms. Ours, for the kickoff dance, is the one in the back left corner.

The first thing you hear as you pull your suitcases into the lobby is the sound of a ballroom in full throttle, all the songs that feel like the soundtrack to your life; combined with the excited voices trying to communicate over the din.

The first thing you see is that the dance in the back corner has spilled out into the lobby, the door to the screaming black-and-neon scene inside completely obscured by 50 dancers or more gathered in groups just outside - dancers from every country in the world, hugging, talking quietly, laughing loudly, being goofy, telling about flights, in sweats and bloodshot eyes, messed hair, no makeup -- no pretense of trying to look respectable.

To your left automatic glass doors open to the covered outdoor walkway that passes between the lit pool on your right and a large outdoor seating area to your left, groups of dancers having wine and cigarettes, their faces illuminated by table-top fire pits leaping and crackling in the chilly night air.

Another set of glass doors and you enter the very yellow, mirrored elevator foyer for the East Tower (last year one elevator was temporarily out of service. It's still temporarily out of service this year. Not there's anything wrong with that.)

If you were to pass the elevators and keep walking you'd exit through another set of glass doors to the outdoor - uncovered - walkway to convention-center building - US Open Headquarters - the ballroom, registration desk, vendor halls, scoring rooms - all that comprises the City of the US Open.

As I write we are in the middle of Jack and Jill prelims. Advanced is just starting. It's prelims all day, an hour's dinner break, and Jack and Jill finals this evening.

We think the schedule is better this way. It's been difficult trying to have both a reasonably leisurely Thanksgiving dinner, AND, a day of Jack and Jills. One year we found ourselves frantically lost in the dark neighborhoods of LA trying to get to a friend's Thanksgiving with just enough time to wolf down a spoonful of cranberry sauce before charging back to the hotel. It just didn't work doing both. It's either Thanksgiving or The Open, can't do both on Thursday. Genieboy (of course) wants to do Jack and Jills so we'll grab dinner in the restaurant in the hour break between 6-7pm, and that is fine with us.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to our friends and families around the world!

Happy US Open 2015, and happy, happy Thanksgiving!

We are so very thankful to have you, every one of you, in our life!