SpanishFred
06-28-2006, 03:34 PM
Hi folks:
I just registered after being a reader for some time. Im from Spain (Europe) and started dancing about a year ago.
From what ive read I get a sense that things work very differently here to the states (and I havent got a clue how things work in UK nor other european countries). Would you be so kind to explain to me how things work where you live?
I'm gonna start myself with how things work here, Spain.
When someone goes to a dancing school with zero knowledge about dancing he/she will usually start in social classes. If he/she is interested in competitive dancing after some time learning about dancing in social classes he/she will swap or add competitive dance classes. Hopefully a couple will be formed; and eventually he/she will drop the social ones and will end up doing both group classes and private ones.
Once the teacher or oneself from going to competitions to take a look the couple decides they are prepared to compete they join the spanish dancing association and start on the E category. Depending how they do they get a series of points. The association keeps records of results and makes a ranking of active couples taking the average points of the best 5 competitions within the last 365 days. Once this average is equal or greater that 800 points they promote to the D category. And so on till they reach the A level (recently they created the S category but practically there isnt any differences between dancing in the A or S).
There are dancers who dance as prosesionals; there are many others that make a living from teaching and couching but do dance in amateur; but since there arent many competitions here for pro's there arent many. Pro/am does not exists here.
Cheers.
PS: I hope nobody falls asleep reading this
I just registered after being a reader for some time. Im from Spain (Europe) and started dancing about a year ago.
From what ive read I get a sense that things work very differently here to the states (and I havent got a clue how things work in UK nor other european countries). Would you be so kind to explain to me how things work where you live?
I'm gonna start myself with how things work here, Spain.
When someone goes to a dancing school with zero knowledge about dancing he/she will usually start in social classes. If he/she is interested in competitive dancing after some time learning about dancing in social classes he/she will swap or add competitive dance classes. Hopefully a couple will be formed; and eventually he/she will drop the social ones and will end up doing both group classes and private ones.
Once the teacher or oneself from going to competitions to take a look the couple decides they are prepared to compete they join the spanish dancing association and start on the E category. Depending how they do they get a series of points. The association keeps records of results and makes a ranking of active couples taking the average points of the best 5 competitions within the last 365 days. Once this average is equal or greater that 800 points they promote to the D category. And so on till they reach the A level (recently they created the S category but practically there isnt any differences between dancing in the A or S).
There are dancers who dance as prosesionals; there are many others that make a living from teaching and couching but do dance in amateur; but since there arent many competitions here for pro's there arent many. Pro/am does not exists here.
Cheers.
PS: I hope nobody falls asleep reading this