Dlamini miss dance competition

By: Selengoane Lebaka

Tjama Jeremia Dlamini sadly will not take part in the Southern African National Championship in Eastern Cape, South Africa in December.

He revealed that he will fail to be in this competition because of financial constraints.

DanceSport South Africa hosts the Southern African National DanceSport championship competition on December 15 to16, 2018 at the International Convention Centre.

Dlamini, a member of Lesotho Defence Force DanceSport club won the Queen’s Championship four times consecutively from 2015 to 2018 respectively.

He wanted to compete in Eastern Cape to bring back home a trophy won by an Eastern Cape based club, represented South Africa in Lesotho’s annual competition (Queen’s) in September 2018.

The South African club defeated Lesotho in the standard dance category but got the best of their rivals in the Latin dance category.

LDF dancer believes athletes have to explore with dance to earn experience in order to be in a better position to compete in world cup championships, as this would have been his debut in Eastern Cape.

“I am deeply disappointed for not going to compete but be a spectator. I am saddened because we invest most of our time training to compete not to watch other couples compete thus grow as dancers”, said Dlamini.

The LDF dancer said he and his partner were technically ready to compete even though they still had to work on their fitness because of limited training time. He identified politics as a major factor hindering the growth of the dance sport in Lesotho.

He urged that dancers need to work very hard to find ways of raising funds for their sport.

A 24-year-old Lerato Ramanki coach of Infinity DanceSport club is preparing three couples for the Eastern Cape competition. Ramanki’s club is comprised of youth, mostly children and early teens.

He is content with the preparations, but admitted they have to work on a few things prior the competition.

“We do not have a hall to practice. As we speak, we are training in Limkokwing University hall. We usually use the LDF hall for rehearsals but currently it is hired for some event. I have realized that most of the halls are used for mainly church services”, said Ramanki.

Ramanki praised parents for their consistent and continued support for his club. They always make sure that everything is running smoothly by all means possible including the couple’s early arrival for practice.