"It's not usually those who easily win beginner competitions who go on to lasting success, but those who are merely okay at the start and quickly get in the habit of working hard to improve."

I'm more bookworm than athlete, everything ballroom comes with effort and practice for me, but I find I can with steady work make steady small progress.

Good to know there is hope for me. LOL!

For me, dancing is all about the effort to improve. The health benefits of dancing - both physical and spiritual - come not from competing but from the hours of lessons and hours and hours of practice of preparation.

The word "success" is often used on this and other dance-related sites without a clear definition of what is meant by it.

True success in dancing is the realization of the joy that it brings to you and your partner. If "steady small progress" is all that you need to keep going then your hopes are already fulfilled.



jj

Often used because it means different things to different people... we all have our own way of measuring it .

EXACTLY.

Internet arguments make me hawtt.

Let me introduce myself so you know at least my experience and where I am coming from. I appologize ahead for the length of my post.

My current partner and I both did Pro/Am in American style and won our way up through full silver. During our second year of competiton we became partners (the studio was not happy about this) and competed in Am/Am along with Pro/Am. We then left because the studio became controlling, untrustworthy, and we realized when dancing together we were not the "strong" dancers we were lead to believe when dancing with our Pros. We began International style because there was more competition, 12 to 17 couples compared to maybe 3 in American, and have won our way up from Pre-Bronze to Pre-Championship in Am/Am. We have kept up American style and still plan to compete in it again. The above experience helps give me an understanding of the different views on Pro/Am and Am/Am quite well.

Pro/Am is a good system, its the studios (I'm not saying all) that abuse it, by being out to make a quick buck and pull the wool over their trusting student's eyes, that casts the shadow over it. We must remember though that many people would not get the chance to compete if not for Pro/Am. Some studios forget that they are "hired employees" of their students and as such the student's interest "must" be the main concern, not their own.

If you want to clear up the problems in Pro/Am maybe it can be done in two ways. 1.) Form a Pro/Am organization that is made up of Pros and Ams to lay down rules and regulations to govern the competitons. 2) Take away top teacher and top studio awards. Competitions are for the students, not the Pros and it takes away some of the greed factor. They are already getting well compensated. Awards should be for top student, or even most improved. Top student is won not by how many dances they are in, but how they placed in those dances, with points for first(3), second (2)and third (1) divided by the number they danced. If one had twenty dances and got four firsts, three seconds and two thirds this would give them 20 points, divided by 20 (# of dances)giving 1%. If someone else did 10 dances and got three firsts, two seconds and one third or 14 points divided by 10, giving 1.2%, they would win. They had a better showing than the person that went into twenty, or else it will be just a "who can afford the most dances is top student". You would have to have at least six, or even three entries per dance to have it qualify for points.

I feel that one thing we should all agree on is that we can agree to disagree rather than cutting the other person down. Am/Am or Pro/Am we all work just as hard to be the best we can be with what we have. We are all here because we love dancing. Each gets joy out of dancing in their own way and if it brings them happiness then may they go forth and peace be with them.

Your two suggestions are interesting and I've heard them before.

There is an organization for pros and amateurs. It's called the National Dance Council of America. Granted, it's run by and for pros and amateurs only join so that they can complete in NDCA-sanctioned events.

I have had many discussions over the years with other amateurs and some pros who have made the same observations about the "awards" (they're actually "rewards") doled out at the pro/am competitions. The system not only permits but even encourages abuse for one simple reason: the pros and studios are making tons of money. The odds against reforming this system are prohibitive.

When my current partner and I agreed to start working together, her studio in Chattanooga was not only unhappy but outright hostile. Her instructor began cancelling her private lessons with him.
Six months later, he still owes her 17 lessons.

But these financial considerations pale in importance next to the developmental issues.

You describe a scenario that I have witnessed repeatedly and have even suffered through myself. Pro/am is not a good developmental tool for the amateur and, as you admit, students make more meaningful progress with an amateur partner.

You claim that pro/am is a good system. As I've stated in the past, that statement is true only for a very limited subset of the student population. It's good for people for whom money is no object and who do not intend to dance with other amateurs. In fact, many of the pros in Atlanta tell their amateur partners not to dance with other amateurs.

Also, plenty of independent instructors abuse pro/am. The fault does not lie solely with the studios.

You also claim ". . . that many people would not get the chance to compete if not for Pro/Am." If studios would actively encourage the formation of amateur partnerships, that number would be much lower than you can imagine. However, as we have both indicated, doing so is not in the financial interest of the studios.

I appreciate the candor of your post and am very happy for your am/am success.



jj

"When my current partner and I agreed to start working together, her studio in Chattanooga was not only unhappy but outright hostile. Her instructor began cancelling her private lessons with him.
Six months later, he still owes her 17 lessons."

"You describe a scenario that I have witnessed repeatedly and have even suffered through myself. Pro/am is not a good developmental tool for the amateur and, as you admit, students make more meaningful progress with an amateur partner."

These are both quite accurate observations in many situations, but there's an important realization that is not being stated, and perhaps not being recognized:

The studios and teachers who are taking advantage of pro/am students are in most cases not useful resources for developing the dancing of amateur couples anyway.

There are teachers who are useful resources for amateur couples who also have pro/am students, but they tend to be very ethical about it. They generally discourage younger, promising dancers from following the pro/am track for any length of time, yet they are happy to do it (and make real dancing of it) for older students who can afford it and whose life situation makes finding a partner less likely.

Such a teacher might have a half dozen to a dozen extremely active and highly competitive amateur couples who they coach, and then one or two pro/am students who can well afford the cost of a "premium" pro, who are the actual source of much of their income.

Obviously that is not the usual case, but from a dancing perspective, it's the kind of case that is important. What you see going on in so many other cases is unfortunate, but the explanation is simply that it's about business, not about dancing. At major competitions you will see the two worlds come together, but you have to realize that however much gilded pomp goes into the top teacher award, everyone who has been around long enough to become much of a dancer ultimately understands what that award is about, and what it isn't.

As long as this cash reward system is in place, the abuses will continue regardless of the fact that more experienced dancers have figured out how the racket works.

And what of those amateurs who have not been around the game for very long? I have indicated repeatedly that pro/am abuses are most often foisted on innocent newcomers who lack the discernment to make good judgments about their developmental path in dancing. Whatever more experienced dancers may have learned is useless to them unless someone warns the newbies of the pitfalls of dance training.

Are you trying to claim that the lack of knowledge on the part of first-year students justifies their being scammed?



jj

""At major competitions you will see the two worlds come together, but you have to realize that however much gilded pomp goes into the top teacher award, everyone who has been around long enough to become much of a dancer ultimately understands what ththat award is about, and what it isn't.

As long as this cash reward system is in place, the abuses will continue regardless of the fact that more experienced dancers have figured out how the racket works."

What you are missing is that the people committing "abuses" in favor of the cash reward are largely speaking not the people who are of any use as trainers for amateur couples anyway.

The teachers who are of use are too busy with their real students and own dance careers to play the gazillion entry game. They have their own events, their sponsoring pro/am student or two (who typically enters only enough events to dance the championship pro/am event), and then their amateur couples. They are too busy with real dancing to play those games.

"And what of those amateurs who have not been around the game for very long?"

To be frank, an amateur who is inexperienced, and does not have experienced friends for local guidance in navigating the business or the pure luck of walking into one of the minority of good studios, gets *******ed. I'm not happy about that, but at least it's a stage that can be escaped through education, and if necessary relocation to somewhere where more serious dancing is going on.

Unfortunately, as long as the studio model dominates what is available to the general public, this is likely to remain the case. The uneasy truce is that they do their thing, while the real dance world does it's thing, and absent the fake smiles at competitions the two camps rarely interact.

The only thing that is likely to really solve the problem of opportunities for beginners is a switch to initial instruction being provided by non-profit clubs, likely using their own members as instructors.