How do some people practice 5-8 hours per day while still making enough money to afford competition?

mindputtee said:
Doesn't take a lot of money to dance 40 hours a week. Takes a lot of money to have many lessons a week though! He may have been having 1 lesson a week and doing free group lessons through the university team and free practice.
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This was pretty much the situation.
 
caw said:
You're right, he's in college. If he's super smart or has really easy classes, it's feasible. 40 hours a week as an adult though... you've probably gotta be superman, have a large inheritance, or marry some rich old man, cause that's not combining well with a 40 hour work week and other responsibilities.
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Honestly, pretty much any college student can swing it if they're willing to put in the time. I did ~30 hours of dance a week my senior year and would have packed in more had my partners been game. Whether or not every college student would be willing to put in the time is a whole 'nother matter. Or whether it would make them better. I've progressed a lot more on about two lessons, a group class, and about six hours of practice per week in the past two years than I did during my most intense two years of college.

Though I would note that 40 hours of dance is not the same as 8 hours of practice in a day. Again, not something I think is productive as a daily habit.
 
Dancing Irishman said:
Couple thoughts:

1) How many couples do you know of that claim that practice schedule? When American Dancer interviewed some US finalists / champions leading up to nationals, I can't recall any claiming more than ~3 hours of practice a day, maybe more on weekends.
2) These are almost certainly self-reported numbers. People are going to fall into a social desirability trap when they self-report, meaning they're almost always overestimating their typical practice amount. This, of course, assumes that in their social circle (elite dancers) more practice time is socially desirable.
3) 5-6 hours of practice is not totally impossible on an 8-5 schedule, especially if you assume only 6-7 hours are needed for sleep and you have reasonably short travel times and allow for meals, etc. Also, a lot of folks don't work an 8-5 schedule, and some actually work less.
4) Some younger amateur couples might be doing the absolute bare minimum amount of teaching to afford everything (possibly with aggressively reduced living expenses) or may be benefiting from familial support (when you consider how much 4 years at a university can cost, putting the comparable amount towards a child's dance education post-high school seems a lot less crazy).

ETA: Also, you should consider if that amount of practice time is truly helpful or needed. My coach and his partner (top 96 Open Latin at Blackpool last year, so probably a really good couple) won't practice more than 3 hours at a crack before taking a substantial break (on a weekend of training, they frequently do more than one practice in a day). Effective practice is both mentally and physically exhausting, so sometimes less is more.
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Agreed on all points. It really isn't about how much you practice, but how effective you are at it. I've seen people just lollygag around not really getting much accomplished in the process. 3 hours of practice at a time when pushing yourselves is quite brutal... anything more than that you significantly increase the chance of injury. Low blood sugar does cause you got "sloppy" with certain leg movements, and I'm pretty sure that's how I sprained my foot a few years ago in a competition doing way too many heats.

Some people have money out the wazoo in this industry though. A woman at my one of my old studios has a least 150,000 USD/yr budget to dance. That's just myself guesstimating too, as she does at least 10 private lessons a week plus hundreds of entries in about 4-6 competitions in a year. I mean I do well financially, but that figure to me is just nuts. She's around my age though, and her parents pay for everything. Her father is the president of a fortune 50 company though, so that sort of budget isn't a problem for him. In all fairness... I don't think I've seen her in a new dress in quite awhile. Then again it's been a long time since I've seen her compete.
 
I can't imagine how some competitiors do 20-25 comps a year, with hundreds of entries each time...and new dresses every few months. That's a comp every 2 weeks!
 
twnkltoz said:
And how many of them have sponsors? That could help.
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My understanding is sponsors are generally only for costumes and aren't *that* amazing of a deal (lessens but doesn't necessarily eliminate the capital expenditure for costumes). Maybe some of the shoe or tanning product companies have a different deal, but I'm pretty sure any competitor has a a side income (teaching or a non-dance job) or a large pile of cash to support their competitive career.
 
sbrnsmith said:
Yeah, I'm talking about the Bronze dancers that can apparently do so many comps a year and bust out 100 plus heats, and appear the next weekend at another comp, ready to go again.
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None of them work. Retired and/or trust fund. In other words, independently wealthy.
 
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