I, world champion!
DELEGATION FROM ESTONIA: Coach Kaie Seger and Mari (in the back row) and competitors Meelis and Margit took a bold step and drove to the Czech Republic to dance in the middle of winter.
In 2005, Estonian line dance teacher Kaie Seger started dance trainings in Tallinn for wheelchair dancers. Since I had already become good friends with Kaie, I was also present at the training.
Text: MEELIS LUKS, Photos: PRIVATE COLLECTION
For training, my father and I even bought a minibus with a lift, where I could easily ride in with my electric wheelchair. Thus my father transported me and some of my friends once a week from Rapla to Tallinn and back.
Line dancing in a wheelchair is done so that you dance with others in a row and move in synchrony according to patterns. In a wheelchair, you can also dance waltz, tango, cha-cha, and salsa. We also tried a traditional Estonian dance, kaerajaan. Only with very fast and fierce music can’t you move well with a wheelchair.
That’s how I got myself a nice hobby and a little entertainment
I became a dancer
A few years later, an international line-dance competition made a separate category for wheelchairs. Since there are dancers in both manual and electric wheelchairs like me, those were also put into separate categories. So, in addition to performing at events, we also started participating in competitions, mostly in Latvia and Lithuania. I have done well, as I have received several trophies for different places.
To go further, we decided to participate at the beginning of 2017 in line-dance world championships taking place in Liberec, Czech Republic. We started the journey from Estonia as five, not by plane but by car: coach Kaie was the driver, I had Mari with me and dancer Margit was with her mother.
GREAT VICTORY: A medal from the World Championships? Done! There’s a matter of perspective, whether despite or thanks to the wheelchair. The victory and effort were big in any case!
This is a big competition
When we arrived at the competition site, it turned out that besides me and Margit, there were no more wheelchair competitors! Since Margit uses a regular wheelchair for dancing, we were not competitors either. We just had to perform our three dances and we were both world champions. Honestly, I messed up one dance completely, but it didn’t even affect my place. The only person who was embarrassed afterward was me.
JOINT JOY: To win a medal in wheelchair sports, support is needed. For Meelis, this support comes from his wife Mari.
Despite this, it was a proud feeling to go and receive the medal. The Estonian anthem was played and the blue-black-white flag was waved. We were the first Estonians in wheelchairs who became world champions in this field. The fact that we had no competitors did not make the event worse at all! Our coach Kaie was also satisfied.
Without exaggeration, I can say that the trip along a slippery and snow-blown road was as big an adventure for me, but also a big act of bravery. A kind of road trip. We drove a day to the destination and the same long back. I sat silently behind the driver and thought my own thoughts. We stayed overnight in Poland in between.
I would take this trip and competition again without thinking any longer, but now I am no longer dancing because there are no suitable dance classes for me in Tallinn and Pärnu is too far away to go to those classes. Also, I don’t have any transport.
Dance or technology competition?
One thought-provoking thing from this event is that it makes dancing more a technology sport. Namely, my electric wheelchair served me faithfully exactly as long as I had done my three competition dances. I drove off the stage and the chair didn’t move an inch. Fortunately, I had a pushable wheelchair in my car, so I was able to move with the help of others. The next day at home, the chair started working again.
I’m not seriously engaged in dancing at the moment, but if necessary, I can freely swing a dance.
