Anonymous said, "Body contact among Social Dancers is almost none existent."

This is the type of comment that makes people believe that all International Dancers are Dance Bigots. There are hundreds of forms of Social Dancing. How many of them have you studied?

You guys love yourselves so much that you are willing to kill off every other dance form, just to prove you are the only, "Real Dancers".

I have heard many of you guys say that, International, is the only real Ballroom Dancing.

You actually believe that your timing, is the only, "Correct" timing.

Your extreame predjudice and bigotry has caused you to refuse to even look at other dance forms.

I hate to tell you but the more you guys inbreed, the less you will understand dancing.

I try to study and respect all dance forms. (Yes, even yours.)

I respect you. I even tell people that you guys have done incredable things with the Foxtrot. You do some good things with the Quickstep. (Which you did not invent, but only stole, changed the name, and refined quite well.) I often tell people that if they want to learn to Foxtrot, or Quickstep, they should find a good International instructor.

They say ignorence is bliss and I guess you guys are happy with your belief that you are superior to all other dancers. (Do you really believe you are superior to Ballet?)

You sir, are talking like a "Dance Biggot". You have shown your predjudice against all forms of Social Dancing, and I assume you will continue to talk down to others, even without bothering to check your facts.

I understand that many of you do not respect any dance form other than your own.

Personally, I do not like Disco music. (And to be fair, maybe I would, if I actually learned ot do it well.)

I like the old Social Tripple Swing better than West Coast, or your Jidderbug. (However, if the music is too fast, I usually do your Jitterbug, and if it is too slow, I am forced to try to do what the West Coast folks do. (Their West Coast is much more difficult to get myself into than your Jitterbug.)

Even so, I respect those who dance things that I am not particullary good at. I encourage everyone to dance whatever from they find enjoyable.

I have no desire to compete with other dancers. (At least not like you guys do.) However if, and this is a very big if, --If you guys bring more people into dancing, than you drive away, I am thankful for you doing so.

I respect your dance form. I am not big on biggotry, so I do not particulary like it, but I respect it, and I hope it thrives. (Because I believe we should have a dance form for everyone. (Even you guys.)

If you watch new dancers as they are learning your form of dancing, you might notice that they are not great dancers.

If you go and watch people dance the lowest levels of Social Dance, and then compare those dancers to your top competitors, of course you will think you are superiour.

Just about every form of dance has low level dancers, and much higher level dancers. Consider the idea of studying other dance forms until you can perfect them, before you talk down to them.

pivotingfool,

I think that Mr. anonymous was assuming that in discussion of social dance that we were speaking primarily of Standard and Smooth. Of course there is a lot of body contact in all sorts of other dances.

If you look at the dances that make up the component of Standard or Smooth, people can be really dangerous to each other when they are beginners and try and come in too close for hold. The moves are tricky and it takes awhile to develop them and if you don't know what you are doing you can run into each others 'bits and pieces' without meaning to do so. You can also get off balance and pull each other over or wear each other out. I don't like so much to dance in very close hold socially. It's really uncomfortable because of these things.

That being said, I dance Argentine Tango and I always dance that in embrace which is very close hold. I am learning Belly Dance as well and I can see overlap for sure. I dance Flamenco too and I love it. I love dance period but ballroom is my first love.

I know you aren't soliciting opinions on ballet but I'll add my two cents. Ballet is beautiful. It requires all sorts of control and training and refinement. It also has a limited series of movements in comparison to ballroom and when I was in Venice watching a lovely ballet, Venerdig an Tod (I think that is the correct spelling) done by the Hamburg Ballet Company I noted that when it came to fast movement they were incapable of meeting the tempo (Granted it was as fast as a Cha Cha but these were trained professionals dancing in a major venue). I wouldn't say it was better than ballroom, nor would I say ballroom was better than it, I would say we are speaking of two different genres and if you get into competitive level dancing in either Latin or Standard you will begin to understand that these dancers work as hard as ballet dancers. I see high level Standard dancers that used to be champs in my studio and they are crippled now from the abuse and the physical demands of dance. It reminded me of Nuryev toward the end of his time. Ballroom is the mother of ballet, it's an historic fact.

Realize that the people on this site are passionate about what they do, otherwise they wouldn't be subjecting their body to what high level standard and latin can do to you.

Like tango, the swing dances also have a vertical body carried low in the legs at the specific point in time when potential leg/body collisions can occur.

Tango can utilize its characteristic leg before body action because it avoids inline steps of the right foot with cbm where collisions might occur, and changes character of movement in outside partner steps to a more continuous body carrying leg action in order to avoid slipping to a hip to hip position as would occur if the leg were reached in the usual tango manner.

Where the swing dances momentarily move with vertical body into a tango like direction, they can use a reachier leg action for more fullness.

On the surface, tango and the swing dances are very different, but upon deeper examination the kinds of similarities become apparent. And we can make good use of what is usual in one to understand how to master some of the less usual situations in the other.

This is perfectly normal & I wouldn't dwell on it. Keep things tight. Good Luck