Dancing outside syllabus at competition

arianiah

arianiah

New Member
I went to a competition this last weekend and there were many couples that danced open during syllabus. They were not disqualified/or marked down and usually were placed higher than those who chose to do syllabus steps only. What do you guys think about that...should I say something to the organizers of the competition in regards to how the rules were disobeyed and pretty much ignored? This happens almost every year at this specific competition..and i don't think that its fair. My partner and I specifically kept our routine within syllabus steps and worked hard to keep it transitional throughout, man if we did open we could have rocked the floor.(we took second in Paso anyway..but c'mon would you rather watch a syllabus paso or an open one?) Anyway what are your thoughts. How far should politics go in competitions--especially when breaking rules are overlooked?
 
I hadn't realized that this happened until afterwards when my sister..who teaches ballroom, told me what had occurred. I think what happens is that if they were to call couples out on breaking the rules..they wouldn't return the next year..and thus entrance fees would not be as profitable. Also as it happened throughout the different dance styles, i wondered if there were stipulations brought up which would allow it to be overlooked by the judges..it was a college/amateur competition..so maybe they thought to let things slide.
 
Or maybe they were just too busy/overworked/out-of-touch to see it. Write a polite letter to the organizers explaining that you definitely saw it, that references anything in the competition rules about dancing out of syllabus, and stating that you hope in the future they enforce their own rules.

Don't go into a story about how "if we had gone out of syllabus we'd have placed higher" because you don't know that for sure and besides it sounds a little sour. Just talk about how there are rules that were not being followed.

If you don't say anything, then it's for sure that nothing will be done in the future. But if people do say something, then the organizers might get it in their heads to be more stringent the next time around.
 
Was it a pro-am couple?

If it were a pro-am couple, I have been told that judges are reluctant to punish the amateur because their pro 'screwed up.' When dancing in multiple divisions, it can be easy to forget what you are dancing at the exact moment. It's a bad position to be in, especially if you are the lady following your pro.

Also, did they dance off syllabus toward the end of the heat? If so, some pros like to have a bit of fun (after they're sure judging is over) and hot dog it a bit.
 
arianiah said:
I went to a competition this last weekend and there were many couples that danced open during syllabus. They were not disqualified/or marked down and usually were placed higher than those who chose to do syllabus steps only. What do you guys think about that...should I say something to the organizers of the competition in regards to how the rules were disobeyed and pretty much ignored? This happens almost every year at this specific competition..and i don't think that its fair. My partner and I specifically kept our routine within syllabus steps and worked hard to keep it transitional throughout, man if we did open we could have rocked the floor.(we took second in Paso anyway..but c'mon would you rather watch a syllabus paso or an open one?) Anyway what are your thoughts. How far should politics go in competitions--especially when breaking rules are overlooked?
Click to expand...

Well, yeah. You probably should say something. My choice would be either to only compete in Open, or not to go to that comp anymore.
 
Just curious, what type of competition was it? I compete pro-am and go to competitions like St. Louis Starball and similar - that is mainly pro-am oriented. What happens sometimes is that they combine heats for different levels if there are not too many people. It happens for me a lot since there are not as many competitors in my age group at pro-am comps. So I and my teacher would be doing closed silver while another couple would be doing open gold. But when we were last year at Ohio, we watched some of the closed bronze heats (american smooth) and they kept announcing "you are not allowed to do free turns in bronze", but my teacher said that a lot of couples kept doing them anyway.
 
no they weren't a pro-am couple, they did combine all of the bronze-gold levels because of the numbers.. .and i am really pleased about taking second..its just more fun to do open and a little more crowd pleasing. I would just like to know that a dancesport competition is somewhat fair..when it comes to rules-i think they should be followed. Because if they are going to allow open steps they should state that they will so the rest of us can have some fun with our routines as well. You can't tell that i like to perform can you..its' just more fun to play with choreography.
 
I recently had a similar experience at an amateur competition. In my case, it was a small competition where they did not have a designated invigilator to monitor syllabus violations. The violations were very blatant, it just wasn't a couple doing a gold step in silver (hey, these things happpen) but couples doing full-out open choreography in syllabus -- side by side work in latin, developes and natural pivots in standard, etc.

I personally find it irritating since I am a stickler for rules. I think that competitions should give couples warnings and then disqualify them if they insist on dancing out of category. I think judges should be given the freedom not to call back couples who are blatantly out of category. Although most judges I've heard speak about the issue say they just judge the dancing and don't have time to worry about what is/isn't in category so I don't think it's fair to place the burden of enforcement on the judges.

But some smaller competitions don't have the resources to have an invigilator, so these things happen. And, at least at the competition I was at, I don't think that it really affected the results. The couples doing open work didn't blow away the competition and the couples doing syllabus work well placed ahead of them.
 
Another thing you can do is find out who the Chairman of Judges was for that competition, and send them a copy of the letter that you send to the Organizers.
 
Well, maybe some of those couples were dancing the levels they were supposed to be dancing? If they combine the heats, they usually announce which couples compete against which, and then gold couples can do their stuff and bronze couples do their stuff, and obviously gold couples would look a lot more flashy compared to bronze couples, but they're not competing against them, they just happen to be on the floor at the same time.
 
I think her issue was that Bronze-Gold were combined into one event, but there were people dancing open on the floor (obviously wrong since the event was still syllabus).
 
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