Age categories

T

tanya_the_dancer

Well-Known Member
OK, I have this question about age categories - what if two parts of an amateur couple are in completely different age categories. Let's say, the woman is 35 and the man is 55. How do they choose their age category? Do they have to go by the youngest, or they have to go by the oldest, or they can choose anything in between the youngest and the oldest, since one is allowed to dance down in age but not up.
 
You have to dance at the age closer to Adult (A). So a Senior I/Senior II couple has to dance Senior I (or Adult). A Junior B/Youth couple must dance Youth. Adult equals a black hole that pulls everything towards it.
 
NielsenE said:
You have to dance at the age closer to Adult (A). So a Senior I/Senior II couple has to dance Senior I (or Adult). A Junior B/Youth couple must dance Youth. Adult equals a black hole that pulls everything towards it.
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Are you serious? So, I have to dance down, because my partner is in a different age category? Well, I guess that doesn't bother me so much. I don't mind feeling young again lol. ;)
 
The couple must dance the age category for which both partners are eligible. In the OP's situation, it would Sr I. Alternately, both could also dance Adult A.
 
So if one of the two partners is still under 35 (that's the Adult limit, I think) they can still dance Adult. What if they're both above 35? Can they still dance in Adult?

T_E
 
NielsenE said:
You have to dance at the age closer to Adult (A). So a Senior I/Senior II couple has to dance Senior I (or Adult). A Junior B/Youth couple must dance Youth. Adult equals a black hole that pulls everything towards it.
Click to expand...

What kind of categories are those? I am more familiar with categories in comps like Crystal Ball, or St Louis Starball, where you'd have, for example, A1 18-35, A2 35-45, B1 45-55, B2 55-65, C1 ... etc. for single-dance events, then there will be A <45 and B >45 for scholarships and championships, or something similar. If we enter there as an am-am couple, we still have to go by one of those.
 
Is there a website that list the different Age Categories for Blackpool?
Is there a maximum age in the Senior category, in other words, can you no longer participate after a certain age because they think you are too old?
Also let's say if the leader is his early 20's or vice versa and the follower is in her mid 40's, what age category should they compete in?
 
tuxedosam said:
Also let's say if the leader is his early 20's or vice versa and the follower is in her mid 40's, what age category should they compete in?
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They'd have to dance Adult/A-1, the category for which the younger partner was elligable.

What it comes down to is that "kids" have to dance up to the older partner's age grade whereas adults have to dance down to the younger partner's.
 
tanya_the_dancer said:
What kind of categories are those? I am more familiar with categories in comps like Crystal Ball, or St Louis Starball, where you'd have, for example, A1 18-35, A2 35-45, B1 45-55, B2 55-65, C1 ... etc. for single-dance events, then there will be A <45 and B >45 for scholarships and championships, or something similar. If we enter there as an am-am couple, we still have to go by one of those.
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The normal rules for am-am couples at USA Dance, Inc and international events uses the IDSF's age definitions with are
Adult = 18+
Senior I = 35+
Senior II = 55+
(Using 18+, rather than 18-34 to show that you can always dance towards adult)

Every NDCA sub-circuit (NDCA proper, FADS, AMDS) seems to use slightly different subsets of these. For instance FADS seems to have three sublevels per A,B,C, not the two in your example, but I think their A/B cutoff is the same, just more smaller subcategories.

I haven't stared too much at how they define the age category of a mixed am-am/student-student couple, but I wouldn't imagine that they didn't key off the age of the younger amateur. (Obviously in pro-am they don't consider the age of the pro in determining the appropriate level.)
 
I'm 22, and my 40-something-year-old standard partner had to dance down in my age category; we could not dance in his.
 
NielsenE said:
The normal rules for am-am couples at USA Dance, Inc and international events uses the IDSF's age definitions with are
Adult = 18+
Senior I = 35+
Senior II = 55+
(Using 18+, rather than 18-34 to show that you can always dance towards adult)

Every NDCA sub-circuit (NDCA proper, FADS, AMDS) seems to use slightly different subsets of these. For instance FADS seems to have three sublevels per A,B,C, not the two in your example, but I think their A/B cutoff is the same, just more smaller subcategories.

I haven't stared too much at how they define the age category of a mixed am-am/student-student couple, but I wouldn't imagine that they didn't key off the age of the younger amateur. (Obviously in pro-am they don't consider the age of the pro in determining the appropriate level.)
Click to expand...

It seems to be varying quite a lot, the comp I am going to next week has breaks at 30, 40, 50, etc. I am an A2 (31-40) there. And there are no age categories for scholarships at all. I am dancing only pro-am there. When I competed with my husband at comps which have both pro-am and am-am, and are mostly for pro-am people, in one of them they made us dance in my age category, in another one in his (we are, in fact, in different age categories, but our ages are not my original example). So it is somewhat confusing. Funny thing, that if we were in any age category between his and mine, we would have been contested, but as it was, we weren't.
 
As I said, you (as a couple) must dance in an age category for which both of you are eligible. You, as an individual, are eligible to dance in whichever category your age permits, plus anything below it, i.e. if you are 60 years old, you could dance A if you really wanted to.

I'm not familiar with the rules for the kids, but I believe they go the other direction--they can dance the age categories above their own, up to A.

In your pro/am age category situation, if you are both eligible for A2, then you may dance A2 (or A1, presumably).
 
In Blackpool,
for youth (<21) both dancers must be UNDER 21 at the time of dancing
For senior (35+) both dancers must be 35 or over at the time of dancing.
Adult is any age (I think over 16). You can only dance in one of these events, and additionally rising stars for youth & adult (but not senior).

http://www.blackpooldancefestival.com/forms/2007may_entryform.pdf

The IDSF take the age breaks at the beginning of the year I think, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it!
 
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