Last night we showed you the new Queen Of The Bay, Audralee Enriquez from Belize City. She won for a combination of attributes and talents - but at the end of it, it's about the curtsy. It is that high point of etiquette but it is a lost art in the era of in formalism where even a "good morning" is tough to come by.
And the fact that even the queen of the bay curtsy is on its deathbed was made manifestly so on Saturday night at the queen of the bay when two of the contestants buckled, dramatically.
Monica Bodden asked former Queen of the bay Shanine Ottley what makes a curtsy work or unfold into a falling motion:
Over the years, we've seen lots of queen of the bay curtsies. The queen of the bay is really the art of the curtsy. The curtsy should be a model of grace under pressure - it is both physically demanding and must be executed to regal perfection before a crowd that loves to jeer more than it loves to cheer.
In fact, In a beauty pageant, it is that rare requirement which tests pure physical strength. Shanine Ottley knows it too well; she was queen in 2006:
Shanine Ottley, 2006 Queen of the Bay
"Basically you just have to put the strongest foot backwards to push off when you are coming up, you have to put the strongest foot at the back because halfway coming up the legs start shaking and that's what the judge look at when you are coming up they don't want to see you trembling here from the head to where the body section is. You can do it in the legs; no one will see it but you have to know how to maintain it when you are coming up; how to maintain that trembling because it doesn't look nice."
So what went wrong on Friday night when two of the contestants didn't just wobble, they buckled:
Shanine Ottley, 2006 Queen of the Bay
"I was training along with them or helping them out and the few girls that stumble a little bit I had help them, but you know when you already start practicing something and its very hard for someone else to come in and try. I just basically just tell them that if reach down there and your mind says I can't come up; you wont and i felt like that was what happen that they told themselves that they couldn't do it and while coming, if it was me that night and I know that I couldn't have made it all I would have done is just come right up instead of staying there and stumbling and people going off and you know I would have come right up. It doesn't matter; you already falter so its better you come than saving yourself from greater embarrassment."
And in the end this queen says it's just a mind thing
Shanine Ottley, 2006 Queen of the Bay
"Basically it's a mind thing I would say because a lot of girls these days now, when they go down that the easiest part but coming up that's where the problem comes in because it has to do with your mind and you know when ever your mind tells you that you can't do it then your body cannot do it."
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