Hello, everyone
I'm kind of new here so I want first to thank all of you for the very good forum. I've found a lot of really helpful and interesting things here.
Though I would appreciate a piece of advice I was not able to find so far.

The situation is following: I dance for about a year and I'm going (well, better said "I'd like to go") to my first competition end of the Jan (pro/am with my instructor, of course). I've seen a lot of hints here and in other places that to be a good competitive dancer one has to be rich. Well, now I kind of start to get actual idea what this "rich" means. Extra lessons, costume, shoes, registration, hotel room... My questions are about two last items.

There are six dances we are going to dance and my instructor suggests registering for three consecutive categories. Something like "Full Bronze", "Open Bronze" and "Silver I". So all together it is 18 dances which looks like a lot for me and makes awful lot of money. I'm not sure, actually, does it make sense at all to go for multiple categories? Well, it probably will be more fun and more profitable for him because he charges per dance. But are there any other reasons except these two? And how does it usually happen?

Another question is about the hotel room. This is local competition in the same city we both live. But he says that we still need a room to change, makeup, have some rest and be more comfortable in general. I agree that it definitely will be more comfortable, but what is usually provided by the competition organizers? I thought that changing facilities should be there for sure, shouldn't they?

I would really appreciate some piece of advice here because at the moment total amount of money to spend is simply prohibitive. I'll have either to drop the whole idea altogether (which is really bad ) or to find a way to reduce the price.

Thank you,
rg

A dressing room will be made available at the competition for people to change in. At some competitions, it's a nice room that's usually a small conference room. They'll set aside one for the ladies and one for the men. However, at some competitions all they do is curtain off an area near the stage. This is kind of awful! When it's set up like this, I just change in the bathroom.

When I was competing Pro/Am I usually entered only one or two levels. I never saw the point of doing a lot of dances, it just cost a lot of money and most of the time I was uncontested anyway so there was no point in paying more money to dance.

My advice is don't do anything that you are not comfortable with. If it's your first competition, keep it simple. You don't need to do three levels if you don't want to.

Rita. My advice to you is unless you have lots of money to throw away, get out of pro-am. Find a dance school where you can find a partner . If you are taking lesson and dancing only with a pro you should be ready to dance Gold in six months. There should be no need to dance at a lower category. With a good teacher in one year you should be good enougth for Championship leval. Forget competion until you reach that leval. He will tell you that you need the experience,nonsense,this is only true if you are dancing with a non profess ional or you are a man. The man does all the leading ,you are just following.

"If you are taking lesson and dancing only with a pro you should be ready to dance Gold in six months. There should be no need to dance at a lower category. With a good teacher in one year you should be good enougth for Championship leval. Forget competion until you reach that leval. He will tell you that you need the experience,nonsense,this is only true if you are dancing with a non profess ional or you are a man. The man does all the leading ,you are just following. "

This is only true if your idea of dancing is putting on a show that fools non-experts. To please real judges, you will need years of technique practice to dance at championship level. Along the way, you'll learn (unlike the person who wrote the above) so see through the faking of all those who try to dance that way without benefit of the underlying skills.

Thank you, guys for your answers.

>If it's your first competition, keep it simple

Yes, Laura, this is what I thought. Just wanted to be sure that I thought right I'll try to find out what kind of changing room they provide.

>My advice to you is unless you have lots of
>money to throw away, get out of pro-am.

John, this depend on someone's goals. For men it is often important to be a "Champion". It is just natural trait of the male psyche, nothing bad about it. But girls usually better appreciate light and flirtatious fun of the dance and ambitious side is less dominating.
I cannot say I have a lot of money, but competitions look like a lot of fun for me and I just want to try it. If I'm correct, it will be another thing I can occasionally indulge to. If not - well, we all make mistakes sometimes.

The thing I have a problem with here is that contradiction between psychological, spiritual nature of dance and reality of dance business. I believe this was discussed in this and other forums more then once.
On one hand, I like my instructor. He is a good teacher and I definitely make good progress with him (not as fast as Gold in six months though but it's rather my fault ). He is also very nice guy, cute and friendly and I always have to keep myself on the verge of having crush on him (which I like, actually. Hope he does not read this forum )
But on other hand, when it comes to business, he minds his one tight and sometimes it shocks me badly. Kind of a cold shower to slow down my fantasy
This is why I _really_ need a partner. Well, I think most of us here are in the similar position. Yeah, BTW, any tall guys from southern CT in here? My dancepartner.com profile is http://dancepartner.com/profile.asp?Template=N&Username=ritagwen&KW=

Smooth dancing to everyone

rg

PS. I hope it is not prohibited to post URLs in this forum. This is not a commercial ad so I should not violate anything.

Most of the comps I go to allow you to enter in two skill levels (your "declared level" and one higher) and two age categories (your actual age and the category below that). I like to enter 4 heats per dance, so I usually do each skill level in each age category. When you think that each dacne is only about 90 seconds at most, it just seems like too much effort and expense to go to a comp to dance only a few times. Especially if it's your first comp, you may be nervous at first (I still am) and not dance your best in the first couple of heats, so I like to give myself a few more chances.

One thing I do to save money is only compete in one style (for me, smooth or rhythm) at each comp. That way, I can do 12 or 16 heats, but only need to remember 3 or 4 routines. Since the styles are almost always on different days, dancing one style also saves money on hotel rooms when I have to go out of town.

I've been to several comps in the city where I live. The first time, I stayed in the hotel and that was certainly convenient. But now I stay at home. It's nice not to have to pack (I always forget something!) and to sleep in my own bed. I usually get my hair done by the comp hair stylist the night before and do my own makeup at home the morning I'm competing. If it's not a long drive to the comp, I put on everything but my dress (fishnets, etc.) at home and carry the dress to change into at the comp. If you just have to slip into the dress, it's not a big deal if you have to change in the bathroom. But make sure to bring a bag with extra makeup, safety pins, snacks, and whatever else you might need.

If your pro is planning on doing your hair and makeup for you on the day of the comp, then a hotel room would probably be most convenient. Does he have any other students competing? If so, you should all be sharing the cost of the hotel room.

Even when I am staying in the hotel, I never go to my room between heats. There just isn't enough time. Usually all of my heats take place within an hour or two. You might want to check the comp schedule to see when the categories you're thinking of entering are scheduled, to see if you would have time to rest between dances.

Of course, driving from home can lead to adventures. At one comp, I went out to drive to the hotel for my heats and found my car had a flat tire! I went right back inside, called a cab, and to save time, changed into my costume while I was waiting. Heaven knows what the cab driver thought when he first saw me! (I did explain.) But I got to the comp in time and did fine. So, if you're not staying at the hotel, make sure you plan to get to the hotel plenty early, just in case.

When my pro and I begin discussing going to a comp, he works up a couple of different budgets, based on different numbers of entries and I pick the one I can afford. Or sometimes I'll tell him what I can afford and he'll figure out what we can do with that amount. So maybe you can negotiate. If the total price he's giving you is too much, tell him what you can pay and ask him what you can do with that amount.