— from an interview from a recent issue of Dance Notes.
 
When did you start dancing together?

Ben: Our first big competition was the Heart of America in Kansas City in 1993. She had been in the studio for a year and a half. And this is a great story... the whole staff went out one night after work, and somebody asked me what I was looking for in a partner, and I said, "Well, I think, I'd like to look for somebody with equal experience first of all." Then someone asked me how tall, and how big, and what other qualities I would like in a partner. And I said, "Well, I need somebody that's 5'7" or 5'8. Shalene, stand up. I think somebody about her height."

Shalene: He asked me how tall I was and I told him 5'7-1/2". He said, "Yeh, that's what I need about 5'7-1/2"."

Ben: I said, "Somebody about her body dimensions, and somebody with her physical strength, that would be important to me also."

Shalene: I was thinking, "I'm right here! I want to dance! I want to dance!" At that time, I'd been dancing with some of the other new teachers in the studio. We would play around and try to learn our syllabus, but I really hadn't had a lot of training. I was only there part time at night, and the other teachers would be teaching. So I basically learned from the book. Everything that I knew and that I was teaching I had learned from the book. So I knew heels and toes, but there were a lot of other things that I was missing.

Ben: She knew she couldn't bring her feet together yet!

Shalene: I knew all that I wanted to do! So then, he asked me to dance with him.

Was it that night?

Ben: No, it wasn't that night. I don't actually remember when it was. Maybe I started thinking about it at that point. The day we had our first official practice, we walked in the ballroom and I took her by the hand and kind of slung her across the floor, and when she almost fell down, I said, "Okay, we're going to start with the standard." That's the truth.

Shalene: At that time I probably knew my full bronze syllabus, but nothing else. We worked on open standard, and we got out on the floor about six months later.

Ben: I think it was maybe from a selfish standpoint; I was dying to compete and be out on the floor. Whatever I thought I could prepare her for the fastest is what I wanted to start with.

Shalene: We always knew that we wanted to do smooth.

Ben: A lot of people said, "Here comes another standard couple trying to do smooth."

Shalene: But we had always been a smooth couple doing standard. We wanted to get enough information about technique to do the smooth the way that we felt we could.

Ben: We always understood the value. The top smooth couples have extensive standard backgrounds. And we knew that's what it would take.

Shalene: So we did the standard for three years before we finally said, "Okay, we've accomplished what we wanted to--a better understanding of our bodies, of movement and the basics of dancing. This is our chance and our time to do the smooth and to do it the way we hoped we could."

Were you happy with your placing the first time out?

Ben: Texas Challenge was our first competition and we did make the open final. It was really, really exciting for us. We beat all the top rising star couples our first time out.

Shalene: We were thankful that we took the time those first three years

Ben: We wanted to be prepared before we started, instead of climbing over couples after we got out there on the floor.