Skipping levels in competition, good or bad?

[standardgirl]

I have seen people competing relatively successful in the amateur circuit without really going through competing in syllabus events, but I also know someone who skipped syllabus, and although they are doing ok right now (sometimes making QF in champ event), the girl can not follow at all. I am not talking about her not being able to follow a social dancer, but it was in a situation where she was actually dancing with a pretty decent pro dancer at a social. Personally, I would like to stay in syllabus right now, and compete in gold and novice(just for fun) while working on a lot of the neccessary things before moving to open events. But, I am kind of forced to compete in novice and prechamp right now since my new parnter is pointed out of gold.

just wondering how "good" or "bad" this is? It certainly is a very good opportunity to dance with someone better, and I am sure I will grow a lot from this. But at the same time, I really don't feel like I want to skip and start doing open works. I don't think that I am ready for all that yet, and competing at regionals and perhaps nationals in novice and prechamp with syllabus routines don't seem like an option either.

 

[Laura]

In my experience, good partners are hard to come by. So just go for it. Besides, if it doesn't work out, you can go back to Syllabus so long as you haven't earned too many points while dancing in Pre-Champ. And most of all, have fun! If you try it and find you're just too stressed out about it, then you can always just quit and look for another partner.

Last summer my partner and I jettisoned our Syllabus choreography and got all new Open routines. Since then he's been nothing but a stress puppy about dancing, and he also keeps getting injured (probably related to the stress). The last injury was so bad that we haven't danced since mid-November. This is totally ridiculous for something that we just do as a hobby. So, since each of us only has one point in Gold, we decided that we'd go back and do Syllabus for a while longer.

 

[saludas]

The syllabus teaches you movement principles. You'll notice that once you get to open, your 'vocabulary' will be the syllabus - the coach will ask you to do a 'feather finish' or such, not just do choreography. Additionally, syllabus movement is a codified set of actions that can be broken down and analyzed - and that's what you'll do as you advance.

 

[Chris Stratton]

It doesn't matter what level you dance, it only matters what skills you work on developing. It's perfectly possible to dance syllabus without learning the skills that the restrictions are intended to focus your attention on. The big risks in skipping to open routines would be having too many issues in play to fully understand any of them, and having material that is too demanding for you to work on dancing it the right way - in short, being always in survival mode rather than deep learning mode. Ideally open routines come as there's a reliable set of basic skills to trust, and the start of an understanding of how things work which can then be enlightened as you start seeing commonalities between all sorts of situations, many of which would not be well explored within the syllabus.

I think it's also worth considering if some skipping back and forth may be worthwhile. There seems to be a lot of evidence that the lessons of syllabus are in part wasted on those competing it, and perhaps only really get learned when advanced dancers prepare for teaching.

 

[skwiggy]

There's no reason why you can't skip levels if you want to, or if you need to based on the level of your new partner. And Laura's right (as always ), good partners are hard to come by. So if this new partner is a good one, go for it.

Just because you're not competing in syllabus events, doesn't mean you have to skip syllabus. While I agree it's nice to have open routines for Novice and Prechamp, they don't have to be super fancy. Often clean basic elements done well are much more impressive than fancy open work. You can choreograph a lot of syllabus or syllabus-based elements into your open routines. And you can keep working on your syllabus, even if it's not part of your competitive choreography, either with your partner, or on your own.

 

[standardgirl]

Thanks a lot for all your comments. It is hard to find a partner especially where I live, and that's why I didn't want to give up the opportunity. I guess my only "fear" is being in stress to play "catch up" all the time, or to regret in the future looking back and wish that I didn't skip through levels. That second concern is probably caused from a former teacher, who kept on warning me not to skip a level, and who was pretty ... when found out that I competed in gold and novice amateur.

 

[Ithink]

I second (or is it third?) the notion that you should go for it with this potential new partner. First, you are a girl and are likely to catch up to a male partner very quickly if you work hard. Second, I could think of worse things to work hard at than dancing when you have a fabulous partner who's better than you. Third, you are dancing Gold at a Pro/Am level - from what I've heard of people spending years at each level in Pro/Am, you are not that far of skill-wise from Amateur open.

Good luck and go for it!!

 

[Chris Stratton]

Thanks a lot for all your comments. It is hard to find a partner especially where I live, and that's why I didn't want to give up the opportunity. I guess my only "fear" is being in stress to play "catch up" all the time, or to regret in the future looking back and wish that I didn't skip through levels. That second concern is probably caused from a former teacher, who kept on warning me not to skip a level, and who was pretty ... when found out that I competed in gold and novice amateur.

If you start collecting pre-champ points and still feel you aren't ready, that would be the time to worry. But it's very unlikely for anyone to get points in pre-champ (or gold points by dnacing pre-champ) without belonging there, and since you'd get them one at a time, you could always jump off the train and go looking for a gold partner before you had too many of them.

 

[delamusica]

In International Latin, I skipped straight from bronze am-am to pre-champ am-am (doing open routines), and then later went straight into open pro-am (when my partner decided to start teaching).

I never had a problem with feeling like I missed the basics - we always made sure to identify specific syllabus-based moves in our choreography, and spent a lot of time in our lessons using different moments in our choreography to illustrate basic movements that we would work on in practice. It was also VERY important for us to continue working on leading and following, even in the context of our routines. And we always made sure to take time every once in awhile to dance together without routines - just to put a song on and dance together.

The guys I dance with socially now say I'm one of the best follows around, and my partner and I weren't at all out of our league in competition. So do what you want - just be sure to be conscious of how you approach it.

Worked for us, anyway.