There is no reason for us to continue our endless dispute about the quaity - or lack thereof- of pro/am competition as a means of development by stepping on other folks' threads. Let them enjoy their threads without having to scroll past page after page of our disagreement.

You have made the claim that some amateurs have made great improvements as amateur competitors through the use of pro/am competition.

Very well. Please provide us with some examples, which should name the competitors, the pros, and the competitions whose results validate this "improvement."

We already have testimony on this board from others about the improvements they have enjoyed after finding an amateur partner.

You may well point to kaiara's response in the "Amateur Complaints" thread. Please pay careful attention to what she actually says.


In other words, she is introduced to the skills by a pro (which she should be) but actally masters those skills with her amateur partner. This scenario is really no different from the training path which I recommend.

So, please, give us those examples. They should, of course, be verifiable.

And while you're at it, why don't you tell us whether or not you have or have had an amateur partner? On all of the dance message boards which I've read, I've never seen any posters who are unwilling to share the details of their experiences except you. After all, those details help other readers understand the information that the posters may give.

Also, if any other amateur competitors reading this thread have greatly improved their amateur competition performances through pro/am competition then I hope that they will tell us their story.

Looking forward to those examples.

And BTW, your final responses in that other thread are bullsh*t. I expect that we will revisit them in this thread.

"Thinking skills"? Another one of your meaningless ad hoc inventions.



jj

PS My responses may be delayed a bit ( we're competing this week) but I will get back. This thread may never end.

"You have made the claim that some amateurs have made great improvements as amateur competitors through the use of pro/am competition.

Very well. Please provide us with some examples"

Identifying them by reviewing the backgrounds of likely championship finalists was assigned as homework to you.

Like any good homework exercise, the point is not just the targeted information, but the other information you will learn while researching it.

"anymouse, I agree very much with the balance of your post. I am finding that time spent with a good professional brings me up in skills; but that dancing with my own partner develops those skills so that I can hold on to them even with different partners."

Yes, kiara is right about that in her situation. But, under circumstances that are really right for it, the development and application can also be done during a year or two of dancing with a professional before returning to the amateur world. That doesn't mean that it will or usually will (statistically it fails) but it can and has worked out quite well.

Two of the common reasons that people do not fully develop their skills when dancing with a pro are that they can't afford enough time, and they aren't physically capable of matching what the pro would do when fully switched on. To make the pro/am leapfrog thing really work as a context for exercising skills in addition to learning them, the student needs to have the funds to do it very heavily, and to be in the same kind of physical condition as a championship amateur or rising star professional. Stereotypically, the physical part is there early in life but often fades by the time sufficient funds become available. And of course attitude to the whole thing is more important than either.

""Thinking skills"? Another one of your meaningless ad hoc inventions."

Suggest you spend some time talking to your fellow dancers, especially the ladies. There are skills that are best attacked from an intellectual perspective and others that are best attacked from a feeling perspective, though there will be person-to-person and even time-to-time variations in which is which.

In other words, you cannot provide any examples. Lovely.

In formal debating, what you just tried to do is known as shifting the burden of proof. Doing so is a legitimate tactic only when the speaker has first articulated a compelling reason for the shift. You introduced the argument; the burden of proof remains with you.

Before you presume to take the role of teacher, you need to know more about the subject than the person whom you regard as a student.

The physical capabilities of the student are irrelevant to this discussion. A fit and energetic young woman will still develop her dancing skills more thoroughly by learning with an amateur partner than by competing in pro/am.

I did discuss the term "thinking skills" with a couple of professionals (my own and a colleague of his) after our session on Sunday. After a brief period of laughter, they indicated that the term refers to teaching skills and not to practical dancing skills.

I see that you have chosen to continue demonstrating your disrespect for the other posters on this board by refusing to share meaningful details about your background as all of them have done - willingly so.

Henceforth, the issue of examples of the use of pro/am to improve amateur skills is closed. That's one point that you have lost. We are not going to indulge the use of the spread technique in this thread.

Answer the question.



jj

"Identifying them by reviewing the backgrounds of likely championship finalists was assigned as homework to you.

In other words, you cannot provide any examples. Lovely."

No, I can - as anyone familiar with the biographies of top competitors well knows - but I choose not to, as taking the initiative to research the information yourself will be of more benefit to you than being told it. It will not be hard to find - you need only look at the results of the premier pro/am competition over the last three years, and at major amateur competitions already held this year.

"The physical capabilities of the student are irrelevant to this discussion. A fit and energetic young woman will still develop her dancing skills more thoroughly by learning with an amateur partner than by competing in pro/am."

With a good pro focused on the student's development this is false. What is true is that dancing skills are not necessarily the most important part of being a successful dancer, and the comparative luxury of dancing with an outstanding pro can fail to develop (or even harm) the interpersonal skills needed to function in an amateur partnership.

The specific importance of the student's physical skills is that if she is unable to physically keep up with the pro if he were in effect to dance for himself, she will not get the full potential benefit of dancing with him. In the case where the student is a viable candidate for consideration as a potential professional partner of the pro - then she starts to. The primary reason you don't see more of that is that the youth to attempt this and the funds to enable it rarely co-occur, at least not in the presence of the attitude necesssary to make it happen.

"I did discuss the term "thinking skills" with a couple of professionals (my own and a colleague of his) after our session on Sunday. After a brief period of laughter, they indicated that the term refers to teaching skills and not to practical dancing skills."

You obviously presented the idea wrong. Dance as practiced, studied, and taught in the ballroom world is a combination of two things - intellectual knowledge, and physical feeling knowledge. No one with a shred of clue will deny that.