Too much training for social dancers?

[lynn]

An interesting topic came up yesterday while i was chatting with a girl in my dance class. She said since her goal is to be a social dancer, she's only planning on taking dance classes (both private & group) for a year. By then, she assumes that she'll be good enough to dance with anyone and she would've outgrown the "social dance" classes. The assumption is that when you reach a certain level, no amount of training will make you an even better social dancer.

The classes we're taking is Bronze Standard & Latin, it kind of makes sense because whatever steps are taught in silver and above just don't seem suitable for social dances. But i guess my question is this: can there be such thing as too much training for a social dancer or in other words, can a person be too good of a social dancer?

 

[Canadian Guy]

I would agree up to a point.

In terms of patterns - yes. As a follower, it's useless to know a whole of bunch patterns that only a professional would know how to execute. You will most likely never get to do them as you rely on the leader to lead the patterns.

In terms of technical knowledge - no, you can always improve on styling, framing, and footwork regardless of what the leader leads you into.

I guess that's why the advance follows start to learn to lead once they reach a certain level.

 

[Chris Stratton]

Advanced training is about a lot more than steps - steps are really a minority of the effort, though they do dominate in group classes since they are easier to teach in that format.

Also there are many silver, gold, even open steps comfortable used in social dancing by/with those able to do them easily. (able to _do_ them - knowing them is less important)

 

[wyllo]

As far as international goes, the silver and gold syllabus have a number of steps that offer a great deal to the social dancer. In standard, more steps equals more options for navigating the floor. In latin, I can't imagine not learning and the open hip twist, which is a silver step. Or what about all of the spiral actions? All of the syllabus steps are lead/follow and I don't see why they can't be used socially. (I can't speak for the American-style since I don't know it well yet.)

The main problem with continuing to train as a social dancing is that too many other people take the attitude that continued training has nothing to offer them. That lowers the overall quality of dancing since it is not a great deal of fun to be a gold level follow in a sea of bronze leads. I think its a shame that many people think social dancing is necessarily 'lesser' than competitive dancing.

 

[lynn]

i think the argument put forth was more in the realm of diminishing marginal returns - eventhough there might not be a ceiling to "learning", the benefit seen with the additional training really isn't there. I guess the problem is more apparent with followers - there is no point knowing all the fancy steps if the leads are not able to lead them.

But that's true, the overal consensus seems to be as long as you're a "good" enough social dancer, in order to take more lessons, there has to be some justification - ie, performances or comps.

P.S. isn't open hip twist a bronze step?

 

[Sabor]

for dancing in general.. its nice to have a larger repertoire to play with.. how u use and what u do with it is another matter so to speak..

its like having many expressions u can use given different variables .. depending on your mood.. there's so much power there.. specially for social dance .. u know your limit is near limitless in a sense.. especially when u are a born dancer to start with..

u should learn as u live.. how u learn is up to u

 

[Chris Stratton]

i think the argument put forth was more in the realm of diminishing marginal returns - eventhough there might not be a ceiling to "learning", the benefit seen with the additional training really isn't there. I guess the problem is more apparent with followers - there is no point knowing all the fancy steps if the leads are not able to lead them.

It's not about knowing all the fancy steps, it's about being able to move with accuracy -> balance -> comfort.

 

[wyllo]

P.S. isn't open hip twist a bronze step?

Closed hip twist is bronze, open hip twist is silver (I just double-checked to make sure).

 

[lynn]

It's not about knowing all the fancy steps, it's about being able to move with accuracy -> balance -> comfort.

yes, but from a social dancing perspective, aren't you able to develop those areas more when you social dance more? not necessarily just through training?

hmm, that's weird, my latin instructor threw the open hip twist in his bronze class....

 

[dTas]

i wish my dance partner was here to comment. i'm sure she would have a lot to say about training for social dancing.

when we dance "socially" we don't use "steps" at all. its all in my head. she has no idea what i'm going to do from step to step. actually neither do i until the step gets there.

plus we dance predominantly American style so we have a lot of open styling to work with.

we're always coming up with new techniques, connections, balances which all equate to some kind of move (though we don't consider it a move). without the technique, which i would attribute to YEARS of training, she wouldn't be able to follow some of the crazy things i come up with.

one year is not enough... not even close!

 

[wyllo]

The open hip twist seems to be a very practical step. Our instructor uses it as part of a training sequence he uses for bronze (open hip twist, fan, alemana, repeat).

I think you can improve your dancing by getting out and doing some social dancing -- the sooner you get out from class and onto the dance floor the better. But, I think there is a limit to how much that will help you. It will not fix posture problems and probably not improve your balance past a certain point and I think those two things are very important to be relaxed so you can have fun dancing. That being said, you aren't necessarily gonig to get that from a silver-level group class either. Which is why I do pilates (well, extra pilates since our instructor makes us do exercises in class but 1x a week is not enough).

 

[lynn]

open hip twist, fan, alemana, repeat - hey, that sounds like the sequence my instructor taught as well :shock: !!

 

[wyllo]

Probably is -- I think training sequences are pretty similar between studios even if they are in different countries. There are only so many ways to put together the bronze steps.

 

[lynn]

that's pretty cool, dancing has no national boundaries :wink: !!

 

[saludas]

It's not about knowing all the fancy steps, it's about being able to move with accuracy -> balance -> comfort.

yes, but from a social dancing perspective, aren't you able to develop those areas more when you social dance more? not necessarily just through training?

No, I don't think that social dancing gives you any of those. What it DOES give you is floortime which gives you confidence, and the possibility of working on basics (cha cha cha for a social dancer is basically closed hold cha cha cha, New Yorkers, and the like).

Accuracy - you tend to compensate for social dancers a LOT, as they are not really doing much that IS accurate.

Balance - working with a good partner gives you good feedback; a badly balanced partner will give you false information and make you hold them up (this is from my leader's perspective).

Comfort - are you sure you want to be comfortable doing things the way a social dancer does them?

Now, don't get me wrong - good dancers show up at socials sometimes, but social dancing is a different experience than practice, and a randomly chosen partner means a random experience. Honestly, most people at socials will tend to bristle if you ask them to repeat a step, or you tell them you're studying, even...