Getting Americans into Ballroom/Latin and then Competing

[Partner Dancer]

That's how it works in my area - it's frequently the same person, due to small number of trainers and adjudicators so competitions are mostly for the public (consisting mostly of the parents, except on the national championship where there are also some outsiders). Well, it's not really like that, but not much different either ...

Shh!!! You've got to keep these dirty little secrets buried, to keep the fantasy going for those who live for it. Just like viewers of WWF wrestling (or most "reality" shows) who may believe the matches/events were real rather than just staged entertainment.

It's really pretty much inevitable that conflicts of interest will be there. Most of us don't care/mind either way, since an activity/hobby we enjoy, either as spectator or participant, is kept alive, being funded by disposable income (play money).

Now, when your government officials have/use these conflicts of interests to their own (significant) gain, which is systematic these days, using imposed tax money, then the reaction is quite different. As it should be.


Disclaimer: My writings are my opinions, which may or may not reflect that of others.

 

[cornutt]

Wow, I have completely lost the thread here...

 

[Franz Jostopovich]

These are my personal experiences & opinions & may not reflect that of others.

As far as getting students to compete, franchises have district meetings & training in sales techniques specifically for this among other things for their employees. Independent studios might have a sign up sheet on the wall & then the teachers or owner will have a talk with the ones who signed up. Or it could be brought up during lessons. I can't say as well how independent non studio instructors get them to compete.

I'm not sure if this is what was meant by the thread question/title though. Maybe it meant having more north American natural-born citizens rather than north American naturalized citizens competing in Blackpool level competitions.

As far as simply getting them into the ballroom studio, it seems to be doing alright in the U.S. to me. Do north Americans do less Ballroom Dancing than other countries?

 

[stash]

You must be thinking of or know the rare dancer for whom money is no object and can afford to throw "extra" money at pros, especially in this economy. It's not as if any pro/coach is an infinite stream of knowledge/wisdom such that taking more and more lessons keeps improving the dancing. In a 45 minute lesson, 10 minutes of useful "information" would be tremendous. The am-am couple would be able to get the lesson-to-practice ratio to a "reasonable" level, say 1-hour-for-5 while the am-only dancer cannot. Furthermore, am-am dancers often go to other pros/coaches if they had "extra" money, to both get "new" information/perspective or to satisfy the get-to-know-the-judges-by-taking-coaching way of improving their chances in comps.

I am inclined to disagree... Hopefully most instructors are somehow improving their education to better the education of their students. Just like teachers in professors in school who go to workshops, I'm sure a lot of ballroom professionals go to other who are better than them to become better dancers themselves. Otherwise, their students who progress in their dancing would not remain their students for very long and would start looking for other instructors. I know a few people who have been taking lessons from the same person for years, with a mix of other instructors as well.

Also, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that MOST (not all cuz there are exceptions to rule) am/am couples do NOT plan to turn ballroom dance into a career. Sure some want to see good results in Champ at national levels, some just wanna have fun competing. But I highly doubt these am's around going to out pace their pro in terms of knowledge...

 

[vit]

Hopefully most instructors are somehow improving their education to better the education of their students. Just like teachers in professors in school who go to workshops, I'm sure a lot of ballroom professionals go to other who are better than them to become better dancers themselves.

Yes, they are but ... among my all instructors in various dances and of various levels, there were only 3 where that "knowledge stream" looked like it was close to being infinite, and those were really top level trainers, with students on the world top class level. In all other cases, this stream was gradually ceasing somehow. Yes, they were all improving their theoretical education but I didn't see their improvement as dancers, as they were not competing anymore for at least 10 years, and work with instructor consists much of actual dancing with him/her. And other reason, they were all somehow putting more effort at the beginning than later. And probably there are more reasons, some of them even connected with me or actual combination of me and teacher. So in my experiences, most teachers were a kind of "limited" source of knowledge, but of course, that limit depends on the teacher so it can be quite high

 

[Partner Dancer]

In reply to dancing for dates:
From my interpretation on what I've learned in college, Freud would say that it's the super-ego suppressing the I.D. when one performs publicly with a platonic intention. That if it were simply about the isolated joy of a function, it would be sufficiently done in solitude.

In reply to females desiring stronger male dancers:
In my humblest of opinion, the submissive type female will desire the alpha male. In an effort to attain higher status they will rely on a "catch" who displays recognized high status. This is sometimes referred to in the urban dictionary as "coat tailing". Pop culture examples of this would be: Courtney Love/Curt Cobain, Yoko Ono/John Lennon, Nicole Kidman/Tom Cruise, etc...

Thank you for the one-liner psychology lesson.

I had a bright friend once who impressed upon me the idea that there's really no such thing as "fun" because most people really do things for "fun" to "brag" about them to friends, and the bragging was what really created the high (the "fun") and not the activities themselves. He postulated that if a person really had fun for fun sake, then there'd be no subsequent need to broadcast/brag the deed. I've always taken this to heart and thought it a brilliant, original, thought/notion. Now, it looks like he just read Freudian psychology and applied the idea to a particular situation.

But, then this friend also impressed upon me the notion that there are really very few "original" ideas in the world, and that oftentimes we are impressed/blindsided by the wrong things when we see some "expert" as brilliant, able to do or figure out something in lightning speed, when in fact all it is is that person has had lots of practice and prior exposure to the subject. In dance, we see some dancers in group class picking up moves in seconds while we struggle to figure out left or right, and may perceive them "brilliant" when they are really just "experienced." This is also evidenced in SYTYCD, where the choreography and/or partnered sections are easily picked up by some and waterloos for others. The Ballroom dancers on that show have learned that they would never do well until they took up solo dancing, and it's clear most successful contestants nowadays have prior lessons in all sorts of dances before trying auditions. In comedy, what we often perceive as brilliantly "spontaneous" comedy is usually exactly the opposite, where the best spontaneity is actually from belabored practice of scripting and delivery.

I guess one obvious example of coat-tailing is 4.5-foot tall women going for 6-foot tall men rather than 5-foot ones, even though the physical match would be better with the latter.

 

[Joe]

id...as in id, ego, and superego

I knew that...

 

[fascination]

I thought so

 

[tanya_the_dancer]

The old KISS rule applies here. Keep it simple stupid!! Make dancing so easy that anyone can do it. Make it
fun and exciting and romantic and you will see more people rushing to your doors.

Sorry I couldn't resist: "Ballroom dancing: so easy even a caveman can do it".

As for other comments from some individuals saying that women prefer to dance with more experienced leads for some obscure psychological reason, just try following an inexperienced leader, maybe then you'd understand why. As simple as that. And btw, there's a major difference between doing it for 3 minutes at a party vs. having such person as your long-term practice partner.

 

[sbrnsmith]

Sorry I couldn't resist: "Ballroom dancing: so easy even a caveman can do it".

As for other comments from some individuals saying that women prefer to dance with more experienced leads for some obscure psychological reason, just try following an inexperienced leader, maybe then you'd understand why. As simple as that. And btw, there's a major difference between doing it for 3 minutes at a party vs. having such person as your long-term practice partner.

So true!

 

[cornutt]

As for other comments from some individuals saying that women prefer to dance with more experienced leads for some obscure psychological reason, just try following an inexperienced leader, maybe then you'd understand why.

Well, the reverse is true too. Fortunately that sort of thing is self-limiting -- if we are dancing with someone more experienced, then we are the less experienced partner, which means they'd rather not be dancing with us, according to that principle. So in general people of similar skill levels tend to match up, at least for am/am partnerships.

 

[KevinC]

As an over 50 male who recently started the Ballroom journey, I'll share some of my thoughts and experiences.

I initially took lessons with my wife so that we could attend a wedding and not just 'sway' on the dance floor. We had a few private lessons (no way would I have even considered taking group lessons at that time). We took several private lessons and learned just enough Rumba and Swing to dance at least a notch about swaying.

Wife and I both continued taking lessons, group lessons since we felt we could get through a group lesson now without looking like total fools. Ha ha, I was wrong on that one, wife was fairly adept at picking things up, I on the other hand was agonizingly slow to learn.

We continued for a while with group lessons until the wife decided it was a little too hard and she was just not that interested in carrying on. I on the other hand plowed ahead (literally) with the hope that one day I could actually dance with someone and they would not be disgusted at the end of the song.

After well over a year of group and private lessons I finally got over the hump and could dance a few dances reasonably well without plowing over my partner or stomping her feet too badly.

I remember a long stretch where I could dance with my instructor, but with anyone else I was a mess.

All that being said, from my perspective, while ballroom in general can probably be learned by most anyone at a reasonable cost via group lessons - from this man's perspective, the biggest obstacle to entry was one thing - FEAR!

Fear, knowing you don't know how to dance.
Fear of how others will react to your attempt to follow along in class.
Fear of looking like a fool.
Fear of dragging the group down.

Those were all huge issues for me.
Talking to other men that know I do ballroom now, many have said they'd love to do it, but can't take that first step, because of fear.

It's been well over 2 years for me now.
I've done several Pro/Am competitions and have recently begun working with another Amateur so we can do Am/Am comps. I enjoy Pro/Am but the cost of competing has pushed me to explore Am/Am.

I still train with the same Pro (an independent) and plan to continue doing Pro/Am with her, but the long term goal is to be competitive in Am/Am.

My Amateur partner is just as excited and focused on competing as I am.
We're both in our 50's and neither of us had any past ballroom experience.
A lot of what she knows I've taught her, which in itself has been a huge help for me.
Having an amateur partner to practice with has really helped me on the Pro/Am side as well.

For me, Ballroom improved my health, my marriage, my overall outlook on life and has introduced the wife and I to many wonderful new friends. I'd say it's the best therapy ever!

 

[fascination]

welcome