Beginner trying to advance

K

Kasharic

New Member
Good morning.
I have a few queries regarding my dance progression, which I'm hoping you kind people may be able to help with. To give a bit of background: I am very new to dancing (aged 36, started in early May), but my friend and future dance partner has been dancing for around a year or so. From the Autumn, we are looking to take our dancing to a competitive level (novice level), and so the current focus is on accelerating my ability over the summer months.
Private lessons would be ideal, although budget levels will restrict this to perhaps 1 per month. I attend social beginner classes once a week at the moment too,
and I also train solo, and with my partner, around 3-4 times per week (3-4 hours) - this can be increased if needed. I am also in the habit of videoing my practice sessions for reviewing and identifying main areas of weakness.
My questions are as follows:
(1) Is our aim realistic, or would the training be insufficient given the time available? (I appreciate this may be an impossible question to answer)
(2) What would be a good training plan? e.g. I'm practicing quite a bit of cha-cha and rumba basic at the moment - should I focus on one style, or rotate, or focus on something more fundamental e.g. hip movements.
(3) I video my practice sessions, and find this to be quite informative - if I were to post a sample, would anyone be willing to critique?
(4) My dancing at the moment is quite cumbersome, and and looks quite unprofessional or impressive. I appreciate that my expectations are probably too high, but I guess it may just be a confidence issue - is this to be expected?
Apologies for the long thread, and thank you for reading - I really enjoy dancing, and wished I had started years ago - I guess I just need some assurance that we're on the right path :)
Rich
 
Since both of you are pretty new to ballroom, what's the decision for starting with open routines in novice, rather than start in syllabus on closed routines and work on the basic elements of the dances?

From the USA Dance site (bold theirs):

Dancers are segregated by skill levels (proficiency), age and dance style so that they compete on a “level playing field”. As skills and proficiency improve they advance and move up to the next higher level and compete against dancers at the higher proficiency level.​

Syllabus (fixed dance figures)
  • Bronze
  • Silver
  • Gold
Open Levels (no fixed figures – increasing difficulty)
  • Novice
  • Pre-Championship
  • Championship (highest level)

And FYI, I've been dancing almost 8 years and I STILL feel "cumbersome... unimpressive... unprofessional" sometimes. LOL! It's a process. Learning to move in new ways takes time and internalization. It's also always an illusion - don't try and copy what you see. What you see isn't how the action is being accomplished. It's all an illusion, and creating that illusion takes a lot of time and practice and EYES on YOU. And by eyes I mean your instructor/coaches. You can take a lesson. You can video your coach working with you, and you can return to the studio having practiced that... but without eyes on you, consistently offering correction and feedback... it will take longer. At least, it takes me and DP longer. And we see our coach weekly and practice on our own 6-10 hours a week.

But welcome to DF and to dance! GOOD LUCK! :)
 
Hi!
It is always great setting goals that you can work towards, it creates a path for you which requires dedication and discipline all great lessons for you in any case.
To reach a competitive level though, you will need more classes and eyes-on work.
Also, you will probably need to spend a few more hours in training in total, especially as the competition time gets closer.
Something that will surely help and will make better use of your time, is to try to identify what is it that the dances you are working on need. For example, all dances need strong legs, so when you hit the gym you do work outs that target legs. With your legs getting stronger you will have more in control of the movement, you will have more power, more balance etc. Balance is another big one. So for example if you put the two together, you can do squats on a bosu, working legs and balance at the same time.
Just a few thoughts!
Hope this helps! Stay positive, and come up with a practise plan with and without your partner!
Best,
Chrisa
 
I think by novice level you meant "beginner," but it has a totally different meaning in competitive dance. The Novice category is the start of the "open" category... definitely not for beginners.

Stick to syllabus figures to start, and then you can get to the more advanced stuff.
 
Chrisa Assis said:
For example, all dances need strong legs, so when you hit the gym you do work outs that target legs.
Click to expand...

Abs are as (or arguably more) important... Much of your movement originates from and/or depends heavily on core strength.

Is there any way you can work in more coachings or private lessons? Once a month is really too scarce, as others have said you need consistent and targeted feedback. It seems like 1/week is the minimum needed, especially if you are aimimg to improve quickly.
 
I agree with what others have said in the my initial reaction was how realistic your goals were depended largely on exactly what you meant by "novice". Assuming you do just mean a beginner level, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to be competing in a year.

As far as it goes, resistance training is great - but I'd treat time in the studio as the higher priority if there's any sort of a scheduling crunch. And allow me to express amusement that dancers may be the one group of people who need to be told not to skip arm day. :D
 
Good advice above. I'll add that good technique and timing are more important than fancy steps, especially at the beginning levels. Always practice arm styling in the mirror-it usually doesn't look as good as you think it does! :joyful:
 
Thank you all for your helpful and supportive responses. I take encouragement from your words, and feel more confidence in our training and dancing. I ought really to increase the time spent training each week, but that shouldn't be a problem. I will try to schedule additional private lessons, within budget, but otherwise thank you again for your time and advice :)
 
s2k said:
Since both of you are pretty new to ballroom, what's the decision for starting with open routines in novice, rather than start in syllabus on closed routines and work on the basic elements of the dances?
Click to expand...

For those who don't have easy access to USA Dance comps (a new comer will not travel 100's or 1000's of miles), I've been trying to figure out the best way to provide advice for starting out in non-FA or non-AM franchises. NDCA tends not to offer syllabus events except if one does single dance freestyles with the Pro/Am couples . . . which is expensive and pointless from a competitive perspective but at least allows one to get on the floor for the first time. Pre-novice sometimes exists and is sometimes closed syllabus (to silver), but at times also allows open choreography.

The best solution that I've seen is to just do closed syllabus routines with maybe a very simple open section in Pre-Novice / Novice until the technique improves and one can move to true open routines. One will get floor experience and if the technique gets good enough beat those who are poorly doing the more advanced steps.
 
joedance said:
For those who don't have easy access to USA Dance comps (a new comer will not travel 100's or 1000's of miles), I've been trying to figure out the best way to provide advice for starting out in non-FA or non-AM franchises.
Click to expand...
For early comp experience, I also recommend looking for collegiate comps, most of which are not restricted to students. They'll be the cheapest of any and will have the largest syllabus-level fields. Unfortunately, the places most distant from USA Dance comps will tend not to have nearby collegiate comps either, but it's worth looking into.
 
Also what I found was important when I was starting was to plan for good days and for bad days..! To plan for the days that you feel tired, and for those that you are feeling awesome..! For the days that you just don't have time and the days that you have all the time in the world..!
It is very easy to quit on the difficult days but also very easy to loose a lot of time on the good days, and end up witha bad day!!!haha
Funny how the mind works!
 
Kasharic said:
My questions are as follows:
(1) Is our aim realistic.....
Click to expand...
Firstly, welcome to the DF. Secondly, I was skimming through the posts and disagreeing with most of them, until this.....
twnkltoz said:
Good advice above. I'll add that good technique and timing are more important than fancy steps, especially at the beginning levels. Always practice arm styling in the mirror-it usually doesn't look as good as you think it does! :joyful:
Click to expand...
The reason that I really like this post is because I disagree with the "Don't dance Novice", "Dance syllabus first" posters completely. Good dance has nothing to do with most syllabi. Good dance movement, good dance technique, good partnering skills, good styling skills, and a good understanding of the music and rhythms is what you should seek and practice...diligently, and, when you feel (or the teacher says) that you are ready, go for that Novice. One does not have to dance closed syllabus in order to develop any of the preferred skills mentioned.
 
twnkltoz said:
Good advice above. I'll add that good technique and timing are more important than fancy steps, especially at the beginning levels. Always practice arm styling in the mirror-it usually doesn't look as good as you think it does! :joyful:
Click to expand...

Allow me to add Irvine's comment about "importance" in partnership dance..

Priorities..

1.. Muscle control
2..Timing control
3... Balance control......... going on to say ;

"Lose one, and you lose ALL 3 "..
 
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