How long does it take?

[pygmalion]

So here's the deal. I'm tired of being a lowly scrub of an intermediate wannabe silver level dancer. I want to be gold, gold star or above. And soon.


How long does it take to progress through the levels? How do you measure your advancement? Is there anything one can do to accelerate their rate of progress? Or does it just take time to develop certain technical skills?

Thoughts, anyone?

[Adwiz]

Here in North America we tend to rush it. Not just dancing, it's a part of our psyche to try to accomplish more in less time.

It's no wonder that our competitors rarely get far in European competitions, where dancing is allowed to develop over the required time. People start in their childhood and work at it diligently for many years. They have perfected their technique by the time they get to Championship levels, while on this side of the pond I see many Championship performers with incredibly sloppy technique.

The problem is that dancing well does take time. I've been told many times that you could practice 8 hours a day and still not progress a whole lot faster than someone who practices 2 hours a day.

I'm in the same place as you, Pygmalion. Here I am competing at Bronze and now Silver, but I see the goal of doing Pre-Champ and Champ and I don't want to wait years to get there. Age is ticking away and I don't want to be any older before I hit Championship level. But the reality is that if I rush it my technique will suffer, so I'll have to take my time.

To keep myself from being pulled by emotion, I've created a timetable for myself of when I will reach certain levels. It gives me something to shoot for and keeps me focused.

[mamboqueen]

Same boat!

I was talking to an instructor who grew up in Poland and he said they don't have all these amateur levels there. When he came here, he was pretty much dumbfounded at all the levels/age groups that there are in competitions. The problem is, if they didn't have them, there really wouldn't be the opportunities that there are for many of us to compete. He was also amazed because he had never heard of "American" style. I asked him if he hadn't heard of Fred and Ginger, and he chuckled and said "yes, but they're show dancers."

Anyway, I'm going to start my silver training asap.

[Chris Stratton]

It's my opinion that once you really own silver by mastering bronze, gold goes quickly...

Er, what I mean is that what it seems mostly to be about is getting really, really solid, basic actions. Many people can sort of fake their way through the silver syllabus with only a few months of total training. But real mastery only comes by being willing to go back and look at the simplest figures in full detail, and drill them both in practice and competition. Once a few are really solid, the pool of solid materials starts to grow to include the silver and eventually gold figures. The key seems to be that the more complicated figures require the component actions to be polished to a degree that you don't get an accumulation of errors from each piece that builds up to a noticeable problem with the whole figure - something even more important with open material. Then it's a choice between adding open material bit by bit and trying it in comps, or spending several months working up entire open routines.

[Laura]

How long does it take? I've been saying this a lot lately, but it all depends. it depends on your level of body awareness; your ability to take in, process, and put into practice new dance information; the amount of time you have to practice and thus develop the required muscle memory; it depends on how much natural talent you have for dancing in the first place; it depends on if you've got a good teacher who isn't inadvertently steering you in a bit of the wrong direction.

If you want a number, I'll give you one: two years per each level. Not that this number makes a lot of sense, but hey, it's a number. If you don't like it I can give you a different number: one year per each level. Like I said, it all depends!

[UltraMagnus]

For me, it took me 4 years to master and memorize the "red books". I refused to do open choreography until I had. Now I do open and now I am learning and mastering my body...not the steps.

[etchuck]

What a great question. I'm in the throes of figuring that answer for me. I don't have the ability to commit to being pre-champ at all, but I certainly want to get to the point where I can do silver steps and lead them socially (quite a different goal I admit). Maybe get to gold, but...

I first of all will agree, that you can only go as fast as you can master the technique if getting to gold/championship/professional level (pick one) is your goal. Certainly the ability to set landmarks for yourself is important, and competing as much as you can would help you improve.

[spatten]

I certainly didn't measure my advancement by the level of syllabus figures I can dance.

For example, I don't believe it is any more difficult to dance a "Hover Corte" (Gold Waltz) than a Reverse Turn (Bronze Waltz). IMHO, The syllabus is just a convient way to break up the figures and teach them in an orderly fashion. So to say you are a silver dancer, or a bronze dancer I believe is misleading and doesn't accurately represent your skill.
Watch a world finalist dance a Feather/Reverse Turn/Feather Finish , and compare that to a 1st year dancer. Both doing bronze steps, but worlds apart.

I would suggest video tape and/or competition to use as a ruler of advancement. Compare with people that have been dancing longer or at higher levels. Watch with as objective an eye as possible, do the same for as many dancers as you can watch.

Also, I believe, the greatest shortcut to reaching higher levels of dancing is taking from the best coach you can find/afford and practicing a lot. I believe the very best coaches have a great deal to offer to any level of dancer and they can bypass misktakes even a good coach might not fix.

If you really want to know how long it takes to be a good dancer, one of my favourite coaches related that it takes anyone about 10 years of correct practice to make your dancing world class.

[Chris Stratton]

There's a lot of truth to high level dancing being about the development of even simple figures - but one thing that's important to point out is that a bronze competitor's reverse turn is a far easier figure than a gold competitor's reverse turn.

So while one might say the gold reverse turn is every bit as difficult as the fallaway reverse & slip pivot (one of the trickiest syllabus figures to get to even sort of work), I think we'd have to admit that the reverse turns done at bronze are far, far easier.

I do think the kickoff to real progress is when after inititially learning maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the syllabus, you go back and start really working the pre-bronze figures in as much detail as possible. Then you can gradually expand that into cleaning up the silver figures, and end up learning the last few gold figures along with their proper technique. Then you can go back and clean up the pre-bronze some more ;-)

[Vince A]

It all depends on your commitment, which includes energy, money, and time. If you didn't have to work or sleep, and had all the money in the world . . . how long would it take you???

My wife loves to compete, and she competes 10 times more than I do. And she practices probably a 100% more than me. And . . she spends probably a 1000% percent more on privates than I do.

However there is a huge difference between the two of us . . . I started many years before her, yet she is the more advanced dancer . . . she loves to compete, and I could do without it . . . she is very technical, and I am very much a social dancer. We mix well though . . .

Getting the picture . . .

[ShyDancer]

For example, I don't believe it is any more difficult to dance a "Hover Corte" (Gold Waltz) than a Reverse Turn (Bronze Waltz). IMHO, The syllabus is just a convient way to break up the figures and teach them in an orderly fashion. So to say you are a silver dancer, or a bronze dancer I believe is misleading and doesn't accurately represent your skill.
Watch a world finalist dance a Feather/Reverse Turn/Feather Finish , and compare that to a 1st year dancer. Both doing bronze steps, but worlds apart.



I agree completely with this. I am only bronze level, for another 4 weeks at least, but I have have learnt a few of the silver and gold syllabus steps, while I can excecute them pretty well I can see a big difference in the precsision and technique that Im lacking compared to the dancers who have already gone thru the ropes so to speak.
I can do a pretty snappy closed hip twist to fan, but give me an open hip twist and I just dont have the experience yet to perform it cleanly.

I think it needs to take tie to progress to higer levels, skill takes time to develop, learning the steps is simple enough but every part of your body needs to learn to excecute any move properly and precisely.

[Hank]

My advice is to not worry so much about the goal and instead focus on enjoying the process because the goal will keep shifting, always outside your grasp.

When I went to my first dance, everybody there was beginning or intermediate bronze, and I thought they were all good dancers, far better than I, and my first teacher was barely beginning silver. As I moved up in levels, my definition of good dancing kept escalating, always higher than my current level. The more I learn about dancing, the more I realize how much there is left to learn, and no matter how many lessons I take or hours I practice, there is always someone better than I.

Don't be like the donkey with the carrot attached to his head, able to smell the fragrant sweetness, but never taste the delicious crunch. Take the carrot off and just enjoy the stroll.

[Laura]

Hank, that's beautiful. Thank you!

[pygmalion]

Yes, Hank, that's an inspirational way to look at it. Thanks.

[SDsalsaguy]

Yup, well said Hank.

[DanceAm]

I agree as well.

As competitors, we danced bronze longer than any other level. In doing so, I saw so many other students and competitors progress so much faster.

But what took so long to get our first "First Place" in Bronze, we got our first "First Place" in silver at the second comp we went to at that level, against very advanced students. Our instructor had the insight to believe that the beginning stages should not be rushed and technique is much easier to teach and learn with bronze patterns than to do it in Silver. My Rhumba box or Waltz box has the posture, rise and fall, footwork, upper body movement and distance of an advanced dancer. My wife learned to turn her head in the right direction of my lead. Without these elements, being instilled early, our silver would have looked like bronze dancers doing Silver patterns. My frame would have been square and I would have simply drug her through steps and she would have looked like she was always running to catch up.

Technique is the foundation that dance is built on, not bronze patterns. When we decided to seriously compete, our instructor worked hard on the basics and insisted that we not rush to the next level. I will admit, I didn't like being a bronze dancer for so long and I was almost embarrassed to talk about how long I danced and was still at the Bronze level.

I read this once and thought it to be true.

Beginning dancers want to go to Intermediate classes.
Intermediate dancers wanted to go to advanced classes.
Advanced dancers take Private lessons to learn technique.

[mamboqueen]

Good post, Dance Am. My problem is more my age than anything. I'm in good shape at 41, but really don't want to be stuck in bronze for long because things get harder to "swing" as you get older!

I took a private with Ed Simon (and was completely awestruck!) and he said he has his gold-level+ people go back and do bronze work every now and then to re-inforce the technique. I'd love to sit and watch a session of that!

[DanceAm]

You're just a child, I'm 42.

Actually, my wife and I are working hard on Rhythm. We want to be 9 dancers but I want to get this Latin motion down much better before I get any older.

We compete Adult A as well as Senior 1, and usually make the finals. But Novice Rhythm Adult A at the Indy Regional was tougher than it ever was. We made the final, but were beaten by many younsters. The consolation was, there were a lot of youngsters who didn't make the final. We were the oldest couple there.

I don't mind at all. I am glad to see the new interest in American Rhythm.

[Chris Stratton]

I've been a little hesitant to bring this up, but another issue important to avoiding being stuck at a basic level of technique overly long has to do with finding the right teachers. Certainly you need someone who knows the material and can present it well - but more than that, you need someone who can present it in a way that works for you. And that may not always be the same person for every issue.

Most of my initial training came from two individuals. I learned a lot from them, both in partnership coachings and individual work, but was in many ways stuck on a few things. Late last year I started working with my then partner's coach in another city, and suddenly made substantial progress on several persistent issues in a few months. Although the new coach was excellent, it wasn't a difference in overall skill as a teacher so much as the fact that this person happened to be able to complement some of the information I had gotten locally with explanations that more clearly communicated solutions to those particular issues. Armed with those improvements, I'm likely to be back primarily with the original coaches for a while, in hopes that they can help me in some new directions now that I have a better handle on a few longstanding issues.

[dragon3085]

I used to see this in karate all the time- how long will it take me to get such and such a rank, ok well how long if I come every week, how long if I practice everyday? Honestly I never saw any of those students who worried about such things advance very quickly. Your body will form the reflex arc and neural connections and physical associations it needs at its own pace so better to sit back and enjoy yourself rather then make yourself miserable try to force yourself up to new levels. This isn't to say you should train hard you just shouldn't be obsessed with rank and levels. No one can take your dancing away from you.