Advantages and disadvantages of medal dancing. Firstly it can take away your ability to express yourself. Its like being on a railway line, it's too straight laced. Take the Rumba for an example . Medal Alamana Turn, there is a conection with the hands between the dancers. Competition style, the Alamana can be done some 10 ft apart followed by a Spot Turn by the lady. The partner can be spinning or in a gesturing Press Line before coming towards the girl with beautifully performed Rumba Walks. It is of course necessary to learn all the basic moves first, but to stay with this too long is stifling. My teacher once said to me. We aren't doing a medal. We are competition dancers. We can alter things to suit ourselves as long as we don't upset the judges. This is what you would most likely see from a world class couple giving a demonstration. If they did a medal routine we would all go off for a cup of coffee, or say how ordinary it was.

I agree with this. Isn't one advantage of medal dancing that you don't need a regular partner?. this is a serious consideration for competitive dancing and certainly here in Ireland, it's probably a reason why couples are no longer competing.

If a world class couple did a medal routine, either you pour your coffee down your shirt, or you aren't a dancer, or they aren't world class.

Strongly DISAGREE.

You know what the difference is between a world-class dancer and a beginner?

The world-class dancer can do the basics better--why? The champion stayed with it longer and farther, and endured the "stifling" medal dances to the point of achieving flawless technique.

There are no mundane figures--only mundane dancers incapable of technical competence to make a figure interesting.

Anok,

You know what the difference is between a world-class dancer and a beginner?

The world-class dancer can do the basics better...

I'm not disagreeing with you here. It's just that your comment reminded me of a funny event.

Last year Snowball 2004 in Vancouver was the World 10 Dance Championship. After the last dance the final competitors did the obligatory grab hands, form a line and run from side to side bowing to the audience. Over the course of running from side to side everyone got mixed up and people were leaving the floor with different partners.

On came a samba to play them out.

So they all tried to do basic steps leaving the floor.

Funniest thing you ever saw.

They couldn't do the basics without their regular partners. We were rolling on the floor with laughter. Eventually they all just stopped dancing and walked off the floor.

That said, I've seen one high level competitive couple from Texas do a performance demo that was just the syllabus steps and it was magical. At the same time, this year at Snowball 2005 Eugene Katsevman & Maria Manusova wowed the audience with a rumba that included many basic steps done to perfection.

OB

Opera: I am in complete agreement with you on this. Basics,basic,basics.

half the time you see the same mistakes in champ as in bronze; the champ dancers are just better at distracting the eye

OperaBob,
That WAS funny.

Often, one can disguise technical deficiencies with showmanship. But when push comes to shove, it is the one with both showmanship and technical proficiency that takes the day.

I think the point is being missed here.Learn the basic steps and practice them regularly. But in a competition you don't need to be holding hands. Use your imagination. This is typical of what we see on the competition floor. Rumba. Basic New York Oh my God another New York and yes here comes the Spot Turn Everybody and his dog knows what the next move will be. So instead of the old faithfull Hand to Hand lets do a press line and a few hip movements. Play around with the timing suprise people by using different alignments. But within this do the correct shaping of the feet and so on. Look at your partner,look away and then back again or anything else you can think of that will make you more of an interesting partnership to look at, and in the main be different to all the others on the floor.