Choosing social versus competitive partners

[pygmalion]

Ballroomboilergirl brought this up in another thread, and I think it's important enough to discuss on its own.

How do you choose dance partners? What's important to you? And is it different for social dance partners than it is for competitive partners? How important is level of ability/advancement, knowledge of lead/follow, ability to recognize and execute patterns, etc. for both social and competitive?

Thoughts, anyone?

[ballroomboilergirl]

Earlier in the semester I attended a workshop for new competitiors held by my faculty advisor, and one of the activities we did involved taking a test to determine our style of learning and then we applied that to picking partners and working through personality conflicts...I think that test definitely applies here. I'll see if I can find it somewhere online...google time! :D

[HothouseSalsero]

Are you talking about picking a partner to dance with socially on a regular basis? I've never really had that (unless it was someone I was dating or in a relationship with), and I don't feel the need for it. I guess in an informal sense, there are a couple partners I will often get in touch with and say, hey, do you want to go out? But a lot of the time I would just as leave go by myself, so I don't feel that I need to entertain the person I came with. Unfortunately, of the two people I most regularly would dance with, one is very good, and the other has serious problems with back-leading, and I basically go out dancing with her because she's part of my social salsa circle, not because I am very satisfied with her as a partner.

[HothouseSalsero]

Actually, it's not so much that she back-leads as anticipates. Knows what I am going to do, or wrongly guess what I am going to do, and then rushes ahead of me.

[ballroomboilergirl]

Here is a link to the test I took at the workshop that tells you your interpersonal communication and working style...go on and take it, it only takes a few minutes and has a interesting parallels to dancing:

http://www.three-etraining.bc.ca/reading/Communication_Style11.pdf

One of the main things we talked about in the workshop was how to apply the results of this test to picking partners...those on the formal end of the spectrum TEND (I use this word cautiously so as not to stereotype a particular group...there ARE exceptions to every rule!) to be more competitive as dancers, and those on the informal end tend to be more of the social dancing mindset. Those on the dominant end tend to be leaders (not necessarily on the floor...just in their personality), and those on the easy going end tend to be followers.

To illustrate, I am a controller: I am competitive, like to be in charge, and like to get things done. My old partner was a supporter: he liked to have fun, learn things at an easy pace, and didn't mind if something didn't get finished. You can see what kind of personality conflicts this caused: I would get frustrated with him because I felt like he wasn't putting in the effort I was, and he would get frustrated with me when I was so focused on getting things done that it wasn't fun for him anymore. It wasn't that either of us were WRONG; we just had different goals and expectations for what we wanted out of our dancing. Ultimately, we decided to end our partnership because my main focus was winning and his was having fun. He now dances in the social club and has a wonderful time doing so, and my new partner and I are more on the same page. Dave is an analyzer; he is competitive like me, but rather than wanting to get things completely done, he focuses more on technique and the finer points, which works out nicely because quite often I am more concerned with the "quantity of moves" we are doing rather than the "quality". This doesn't mean that there aren't a few problems: I tend to move a bit quicker pace than Dave, and he tends to get the proper technique more easily than I do. Ultimately, every partnership, regardless of personality differences, can work, if both parties are willing to communicate and compromise...some partnerships just require less work than others, though :wink:

What results did the rest of you get? [/url]