That's good advice, OB. My old partner and I had a lesson with a highly-regarded judge who has a good National reputation (and a couple of US titles to back it up) and he told us that on the Novice level he looks for three things: that the couple is standing up straight, that they're on time, and that they look good. By looking good he meant relaxed and happy, with clean and neat grooming. Novice is the first out-of-syllabus level, its not used much in the Eastern US but it's really pretty much the same level as Gold, just allowing non-syllabus steps. In other words, I expect the advice I got for Novice would also be equally applicable to someone in a Gold-level competition.

I've talked to another judge -- this one helps other judges prepare for their judging certification exams, and she looks for the same three things in Novice-level dancers, plus movement. She expects the couples to look like they're really going somewhere with purpose, and not just either stepping through their patterns or throwing themselves around.

Hi there,

Dont loose faith!! OK? I'm sure that you and your husband dance and look great on the dance floor. I'm sure that you shine on the floor and that everybody can see that!!

I do not have any particular advice, but I want to tell you a little story about myself. My background is competative ballroom danceing. Me and my partner won sometimes and lost sometimes. The thrill of entering a competition, dancing, see people watching you, it was like a drug. I could not get enough.

I remember it was all about looking good, have the right costumes, be fit etc. Other girls where jealous at me and they hated me when we won, as much as I hated them when we lost. I'm very competative and hate loosing. I felt top of the world when we got first and had a hard time when loosing.

Then I moved away and could not keep up with ballroom dancing. It took a while before I started any kind of dancing. I fell for Salsa. The fun level was high and I was always smiling when dancing. No comp or diplomas, just pure fun. Then I entered this salsa dance camp that was also a swing/boogie woogie camp.

Hey, I wanted to try Boogie Woogie, some new stuff could be great. I did and in the evening there was a comp for all the participants. you should dance with 3 different random partners and then the 14 best would go to the final. I felt the thrill and realy put everything I had into that dance. I put my whole hart, all my teqnique, styling, everything.. and had a ball of a dance. I did not make it to the final. My mood dropped and I felt sad. Why not? Well, I do not know and I dont care.

The reason why I dont care is what happend afterwards. Two cute guys came over to me and said: 'We never seen a salsa girl dance that good in a boogie woogie comp. You got something that the other dancers dont have, a genuin love for dancing'. And then I realized, it doesnt matter anymore, as long as I love and enjoy the dance, the judges can do what ever they want. i do not care.

Love from me

Hi Janet,

I have checked out the results at SE regionals. Why didn't you also compete in Standrad prechamp, since you had already competed in Gold(danced Foxtrot, Waltz, Tango and Quickstep)? If you also dance Viennese Waltz, I am pretty sure you do, why not sign up for Standard Championship as well?

As to social dancing which you had mentioned that you don't care doing, but you should look at the social dancing as the opportunity you can greatly improve your floorcraft and your skill managing through the dance traffic. I have seen 12 couples on a small floor at a Standard Championship competition, many couples collided during all 5 dances. I can easily tell which couples do not have the skill to handle the traffic and those couples who can only dance within their SET routines.

Keep your head up and keep dancing, best wish to you and yours.

Tango 2x2, in USABDA people are only allowed to enter two levels. The exception is with regards to Novice: if either of the levels you enter are syllabus, you may also enter Novice. So, a couple can do Bronze, Silver, and Novice; Silver, Gold, and Novice; or Gold, Novice, and Pre-Championship.

Sorry to digress into a discussion of the rules, but I just wanted to clear up any confusion about that. I just did data entry for a competition and some people were trying to enter every single level and I had to get them all sorted out.

Getting back to the question, there's one more possibility. It's a sad one, and it's harsh for me to bring it up, but the truth is that some people just aren't that good dancers no matter how much dance practice they put in and no matter what level their coaches are. I'm sure everyone has seen a couple that has been working for years but never seems to make any progress. You have to ask youself why this is happening to them. Do they lack body awareness? Do they have deeply ingrained movement habits that get in the way of their improvement? Do they lack the core strength to properly support their posture, their frame, and their movement? Do they understand how the smaller/finer muscles work, and can they activate them as needed?

There is hope, though. If a couple is lacking in the above respects they can explore some cross training methods that will improve their dancing. Janet, have you and your husband tried ballet or yoga? How about Pilates? Ever hear of the Alexander Technique, Nia, or Feldenkrais? All of these are movement classes that help you develop body awareness, control, strength, and flexibility. A dance teacher can tell you to keep your shoulders down and your back up, but a good movement class will help you to understand *how* to do these things, and to be able to generate them correctly yourself without someone having to remind you all the time.

It's the little things that make a huge difference in competitive ballroom dancing, after all.

Laura,

Thanks for the kind words.

My wife and I are lucky to study with someone who has judged at the World Championship 7 times.

He doesn't live here, but has a friend who does, so he travels to our little backwater and stops regularly on his way to and from Asia to examine and test for ISTD.

It's enlightening to hear his judging stories. He tells us it is easier to judge the Worlds than lower levels. He says the difficulty is you fly into a local comp and you have scant seconds to notice someone's technique and you fixate on looking for errors. At the Worlds, he says all the finalists have perfect technique so all you have to do is fixate on who is interpreting the music best.

OB

OB, something you just said reminds me of other things I've heard from judges. One told me that on the lower levels (Syllabus, Novice, and probably even Pre-Champ at less highly contested events) they basically look for the least offensive couple -- for the couple that has the least wrong with them overall. It's difficult, because one couple might have great posture but bad timing, and another might be well turned out but have bad footwork, and so on. I've read that often picking the first and last place couples is the easiest, and then after that it's difficult to rank the ones in the middle. Some judges use a sort of triage method where they pick off the best and the worst, then the best and worst of who's left, until all the dancers are ranked.

Thank you so much everybody for your input. This is a lot of information for me to consider. I will read it more than once I am sure.

I just wanted to post back quickly to say thanks for taking the time to reply.

You've received a lot of good advice. I can tell you my personal experience: My dancing seems to improve in big leaps when I change coaches once in a while. I think sometimes a teacher or coach sees all your flaws and believes he/she knows what to expect of you, sees you in a certain way, and after a while becomes convinced you'll never improve all that much. You may keep going over the same little things forever, and get stuck in a rut. A new coach or teacher sees you with a fresh eye, can pinpoint trouble spots right away, and since he/she doesn't have a prior history with you, may push you to try things your current coach has given up on...or may say things in a way that makes you understand things you haven't before. I'm not saying to dump your current coach, but it might be worth it just to try another coach or two to see if hearing things anew might shake things up for you and help you break through to a new level of dancing. I stayed with my last coach for 3 years...one month he was away, so I took a couple of lessons with someone else. The minute he came back and started dancing with me again, he looked startled and commented about how much I'd improved and wanted to know who I'd been dancing with. And this was only after 2 lessons with the other coach! It's worth a try.

Laura wrote: "....in USABDA people are only allowed to enter two levels. The exception is with regards to Novice: if either of the levels you enter are syllabus, you may also enter Novice. So, a couple can do Bronze, Silver, and Novice; Silver, Gold, and Novice; or Gold, Novice, and Pre-Championship."

Thanks Laura, for pointing this out. I was not aware of that.

Keh

Okay, there's the real story with all it's good and bad bits:

- Most dancers don't want to work on their real issues. That's understandable, we want dancing to be fun... but if we want to do well, we have to eat our vegetables. But make sure the vegetable you eat are actually nutritious, because...

- Coaches who can actually put your dancing on what is ultimately the right track are fairly rare, and they aren't always the biggest names or the most succesfull competitively

- Even if you are dancing the best, the judging panels aren't always in a position to recognize this. Some of the good judges cannot as teachers explain to students how to do what they want. Some of the not-so-good teachers look for the same, slightly incorrect things that they teach when the work as judges.

That's not to say that there aren't a lot of good dancers, teacher, and judges with the right priorities, rather it's just to point out that you have to have all three before the ribbon reliably goes to the most deserving couple.

So, instead of reconsidering dancing, I think you should first reconsider how you go about doing it. Look at the top people in your style and figure out who you think is really the best. Then find local and visiting coaches who can help you to do things that way. Don't be afraid to take lessons with world champions - some of the time, they got there by knowing what they were doing. But remember that of the 6 couples in a world final, five aren't going to win, and there was probably a reason why they didn't. Believe it or not, the differences there can be fairly fundamental in ways that trickle all the way down to practice in anytown, USA.