Amateur teachers

s2k said:
Lots of people compete for many different reasons; all are valid. Nothing is fun all of the time. In fact, "fun" can be defined in many different ways. What one finds "fun" isn't "fun" to another.

PERSONALLY: If someone asks me why I dance, it has never occurred to me to answer, "for fun." That's not a slight against anyone who does, though - it's all valid. Me, I have to dance. I have something to express and I can't get that out any other way. What do I do for fun? Sit on the couch and watch Netflix. :) Personally, I don't find dance "fun." This is semantics. I love the work. I love the doing. I love the crying over one move one week and then the pride I feel in having not fallen down in the doing it the next week - the progress. I love rereading my dance journal and see how I struggled two years ago over a move in bolero that is, today, my favorite. I love the process. Knocking the heck out of myself AGAIN in cha cha (the bruises this week are green!) isn't fun for me. But by God one day my body action and my feet will come together, and I'll be able to execute. Working toward that is what I love. If we want to infer that yes, I love dancing, and yes, because I do, I do find it "fun," then we can do that. Because we all know there are many other ways to spend this much money and time!

But if the idea is that a dancer isn't "having fun," and somehow that's a slight, like a dancer is "doing it wrong," I disagree with that.

But more power to us all, because we dance. :)
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Hundred percent agree with your sentiment. I hate when "they've lost the fun" is a slight used by third parties to critique others doing a leisure activity/hobby differently than they would. I personally like to think I seek out a different type of fun than others do, which is what drives me to put in the hours in the practice studio, at the gym, etc.

It's aimed at outdoorsy activities, but a friend posted this gem to facebook recently (not her article) and I think it captures my sentiment (and maybe s2k's, though I won't pretend to know another's motives) perfectly: http://www.backcountry.com/explore/type-ii-fun.
 
s2k said:
Lots of people compete for many different reasons; all are valid. Nothing is fun all of the time. In fact, "fun" can be defined in many different ways. What one finds "fun" isn't "fun" to another.

PERSONALLY: If someone asks me why I dance, it has never occurred to me to answer, "for fun." That's not a slight against anyone who does, though - it's all valid. Me, I have to dance. I have something to express and I can't get that out any other way. What do I do for fun? Sit on the couch and watch Netflix. :) Personally, I don't find dance "fun." This is semantics. I love the work. I love the doing. I love the crying over one move one week and then the pride I feel in having not fallen down in the doing it the next week - the progress. I love rereading my dance journal and see how I struggled two years ago over a move in bolero that is, today, my favorite. I love the process. Knocking the heck out of myself AGAIN in cha cha (the bruises this week are green!) isn't fun for me. But by God one day my body action and my feet will come together, and I'll be able to execute. Working toward that is what I love. If we want to infer that yes, I love dancing, and yes, because I do, I do find it "fun," then we can do that. Because we all know there are many other ways to spend this much money and time!

But if the idea is that a dancer isn't "having fun," and somehow that's a slight, like a dancer is "doing it wrong," I disagree with that.

But more power to us all, because we dance. :)
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I'm talking about those people that have lost this love you describe. They may not be dancing in another year. I'm not talking about you and I obviously you are one who shows how much they love dancing with everything you do and that is wonderful. I think I am similar to you.

But there are also people who are taught that if they simply work hard they can reach the highest level. It is great to dream but at the same time some of this is a pitch. And there is a certain truth to the idea that one does need ample financing and / or training from a young age. I can't think of many people who became frustrated and felt alienated by the system. Part of their dream that was created early and they're dancing became something else as they matured.

You touched on the idea that people dance for many reasons and that is super important because sometimes the reasons have to change. But people need to realize that it comes back to the love or fun or whatever it is that you want to use to describe the enjoyment and sense of fulfillment from dancing.

There are lots of different places people can be in dancing and be a part of it in a very positive way. When it comes to competitions, I'm not so sure that Dancsport has matured beyond the idea that it is mostly geared toward wealthy people, at least in the United States. It can be $100 just to go watch the show and the vendors mostly sell $1,000 + products.

Now this thread was talking about amateur teachers and also their relationship with competitions. I think there is plenty of growth possible in this area.
 
Argentine and some country western too, I imagine. I'd expect westies and salsa dancers to be the most frequently impacted though. I'm just spit-balling when I say that though.
 
I think this will be hard to enforce. Who would tell if they knew a pro am student out there is also teaching west coast or salsa?
 
Do we get a Scrutineer to decide if the steps being taught are okay?

Seems very non-specific. Ballet and everything under the sun is used in theater arts and showcase divisions. Besides this....

On2 salsa as far as I know is not in NDCA competitions. The style of West Coast swing that is used in WCS only comps is different than that found in NDCA comps. The Boston and Bebop at Vietnamese studios are Waltz and Swing like. There is the Taiwanese Tango and Jitterbug danced by thousands in the US. Is South Carolina Shag considered swing? Lindy Hop? Balboa? Blues?

What if tomorrow there is a Carolina Shag event at an NDCA event? Is there an alert system?
 
Yep. If I'm competing against a former ballerina or current dance studio owner, I find that much tougher competition. At a certain point it does have to just be about individual progress because there are amazing students in ballroom who have extensive dance training prior to ballroom and many with unique advantages.
 
It drives me crazy when I dance in A and I see a bunch of 24 years olds in my closed scholarships who I know are beginner teachers dancing with their mentor pros. I remember one year at USDC a girl who had been dancing pro-am bronze the year before with her "teacher" was in rising star pro with that same pro... Her partner.
 
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rels77 said:
I remember one year at USDC a girl who had been dancing pro-am bronze the year before with her "teacher" was in rising star pro with that same pro... Her partner.
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I don't see why anybody should have any qualms about turning somebody in who violates, but the above scenario does not mean that any rules were broken. Somebody doesn't have to be teaching to dance pro.
 
RiseNFall said:
I don't see why anybody should have any qualms about turning somebody in who violates, but the above scenario does not mean that any rules were broken. Somebody doesn't have to be teaching to dance pro.
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She was a teacher. A beginning teacher at their studio. Getting "experience" in pro-am.
 
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Dear me. Yeah, that would irk me.

Are most people in the industry OK with this??? I would think that flouting the rules like that would have repercussions even if you aren't reported for it.
 
Personally, I'm glad to see this amendment. I've posted before that I'm irked by the lack of semantics over what constitutes a "pro" and what constitutes an "am." I wish USA Dance would do this... especially since they're attempting to create a professional division.

I no longer dance pro-am, but for the sake of argument: there's a pro-am dancer in my area who is lovely, and she wins... but last year she started teaching at that studio, alongside her pro. She shouldn't be dancing "pro-am" anymore. So if she and I are at a comp, and we're both dancing Ladies' A silver scholarship I'm not really dancing against another student at that level. In my mind, if you're good enough to be teaching (whatever skill you're teaching), you should not be competing against people who are probably below you in skill level. So it looks like the NDCA is looking to curb this practice.

CAVEAT: this idea/situation/whatever is not on my mind. I pay it no mind in real life. I comment on it when it crosses into my feed, but that's about it. So please don't think I'm all giving this mental energy beyond these typed words. :)
 
I'm going to repeat my question about how doing this is regarded, particularly by other professionals in the industry. There are, of course, some pro-am students who are better-at-the-moment than some some professional dancers; their actual dancing is beside the point as far as I'm concerned. How come people allow it? If @s2k knows it's happening, I would think a lot of other people would as well.

MY CAVEAT: When I think about my placement at a competition, I think of it loosely in bands: somewhere in the middle, top three, towards the bottom (expected at times :)). There are not likely (I hope, at any rate) enough people violating the no-teaching rule to have much of an impact my general placing.
 
I don't dance pro-am, so I have no horse in this race, but as a matter of principle, I'd rather have a proficiency system based on results than a no-teaching-at-all rule. Because there are so very many people who do some teaching and are nowhere near plausible as pros. For example, I do a little teaching for the collegiate ballroom club I advise (we're 1 1/2 hours from the nearest studio and the club is not flush with money, so we rarely get a pro), but I'm very much a syllabus-level dancer. For even more of an example, most of the teaching for the club is by students. Within a studio, I would expect trainee teachers to improve faster than non-teacher students, but plenty of them start without much experience. So, no, they shouldn't be competing at the same level that they teach, but if they teach bronze and compete gold, and that's the level their dancing skill would put them, I don't have a problem with it.

That said, same caveat as s2k. And it's clear that the NDCA isn't looking to change their policy in this way, whatever I may think. And this isn't to claim that instituting a proficiency system is simple. (I don't know or really care what the problem was with USA Dance's latest effort, though if/when they try again, I'll care.)
 
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