Fretful_Porpentine
New Member
How does one go about becoming a competitive dancer? How long do you need to train before you are good enough?
Competing
- Thread starter Fretful_Porpentine
- Start date
Chris Stratton
New Member
about a month, for the beginner division.
Fretful_Porpentine
New Member
Really? That seems like a really short time...
Chris Stratton
New Member
Fretful_Porpentine said:
Yes, but it works for two reasons:
1) You are competing against similarly inexperienced people
2) It assumes you are concentrating on a small enough amount of material - less than a half dozen steps in 2-4 dances - that you can make real progress in a short period of time. This is probably the biggest difference between social dance training and competition dance training - you work on doing less, but doing it better.
Medira
New Member
I'll be doing my first competition a few weeks shy of a year after I started dancing. It would have been sooner, but the studio that I started at didn't have the kind of competitive focus I wanted. I just started at a new one two weeks ago, which is giving me 3 1/2 months of prep work.
Chris Stratton
New Member
Trying to put together a full routine for a pro/am competition will take longer, and given the expense it doesn't make sense to do it friviously early.
But an amateur beginner competition is best won with a handfull of excellent steps, something you can learn to do quite quickly with training targeted towards that. And since they are cheap (each person's expenditure about the same as taking a private lesson alone), it's worth doing a few just as practice.
But an amateur beginner competition is best won with a handfull of excellent steps, something you can learn to do quite quickly with training targeted towards that. And since they are cheap (each person's expenditure about the same as taking a private lesson alone), it's worth doing a few just as practice.
Josh
Active Member
Something else to keep in mind is how long you have experience with other dances. A month after I began dancing with ZERO previous dance experience, I hardly felt qualified to dance socially. (NOTE: I am notoriously hard on myself 
) But, if I learned a new dance now I would feel qualified after a month I think, simply because I'm used to dancing other things.
) But, if I learned a new dance now I would feel qualified after a month I think, simply because I'm used to dancing other things.
Chris Stratton
New Member
macha said:
Newcomer most likely only offers a few dances - say waltz, tango, cha cha and rumba. Often each is in it's own event, so you can choose exactly which ones you enter (1 dance events). But sometimes they are paired and scored together, such that you would have to do both the waltz and tango, either both the cha cha and rumba or neither, etc.
Going up in levels, dances tend to get added and more combined, until you end up with the five (four for smooth) dances in a style all scored together in a single event at the championship level.
Chris Stratton
New Member
macha said:
Neat and practical, often rules prohibit decorations like rhinestones.
Pretty much the only thing most people wouldn't have on hand would be a full enough skirt for smooth/standard. Lady's latin/rhythm and men's everything should already be in your closet, or are easily available if not.
cornutt
Forum Master
Chris Stratton said:
Would that even matter for newcomers? I almost think that any dress that isn't too short or too tight around the legs would do at that level. My guess is, once you get up to intermediate bronze, that's where you want to start working on costuming a bit.
Maybe this should all go into a sticky thread... how to get into comps, what to expect in your first comp, how to dress for comps.