Adjudicating. To make things fairer than they seems to be at this time, where I live, it may come about that as a trial, three judges for instance, one to judge only the footwork. The other timing and interpretation of this with the choreography, the other top line and togetherness. If this gets off the ground it could become interesting. Just my observations. I see couples doing well and looking good up top. but down below the feet are awful, and the timing not that clean in the Foxtrot Yet they win or make finals. Anyway we will see. Just one more thing. Only last Sunday a very important Ballroom celebrity in a lecture said that. "If he was looking through a window at some couples dancing and couldn't hear the music he would not know whether they were doing a Samba or a Cha Cha ".

This is a rather intersting proposal. I wonder, though, how it would work in practice, especially with lower-level events with less experienced dancer. You'll often get situations where one couple has good footwork but connection problems, or another has excellent timing but simple choreography. How would judges looking at each element sort out these kinds of differences to properly place these kinds of couples? Or are you saying this system would only apply to the top-level couples who are already so close in everything that it's just the tiniest of details that separate them?

Laura. The judge assigned to looking at the footwork will do only that. Who has the best footwork. If they are out of time that is not his assignment. If all the judges do their job correctly the right couple will come out on top. I believe the proposall is that it would be for the later rounds. At the moment the idea is still on the drawing board. If you are interested what has come about here as a trial, is that no competitor will have to hang around all day, they will know exactly which three hour block they are in. At the end of three hours they will be finished, whether it be 9 to 12 or 6 to 9 this includes the judges.If they wish they can leave or stay and watch . In the past we have had some people compete in the morning and are still there ten hours later waiting for their finals. Finally , this one I like. I have a copy of the marks of a major competition held in S Africa. There were 50 couples and 4 rounds including the final. Read this carefully. There were 13 adjudicators present. Five for this event. For each and every dance 2 judges were rotated, a rotation by two for the Samba and then the Rumba and so on from the first round to the last, every dance. Keep dancing.

I still don't understand. Do the judges get together to decide how to place people? If someone is only looking at footwork he might look at a beginner couple where the guy is taking heel leads out of locks in the Quckstep and put him last. But the couple might have really nice posture compared to the others and so another judge puts them first. However, if both judges had been looking at the entire picture then maybe both of them would have put them third. It's just hard for me to wrap my mind around it if all the judges are doing is looking at their specialized area and merely writing each couple's placing based on that area on their scorecards. Is the scoring system different? Do the couples get points for each area that a combined to form the placing?

Laura. I would not have a clue on how the idea would work. I do know that with the adjudicators it has gone down like a lead balloon. One other good idea that has also been suggested is that the judges must wait one minute, leaving thirty seconds to mark their card. In the past some judges have pre mark their cards on past performances. In other words some couples if they are well known are marked before the music starts playing. It is known that one judge marked a couple who were not even in the arena. Jokingly it was said that their marks was better than if they had been present. It really gets around to, that one minute thirty seconds is not enough time to look at all the couples. It is also being brought foreward that the judges do get examined from time to time. If they don't like it they will not judge. Who would not agree with that?. Any body who wishes to read what Harry Smith- Hampshire former world undefeated champion says about adjudication and adjudicators. Visit his web-site, he is well worth reading

In the case of say foxtrot, having proper footwork and being on time are nearly the same thing, because what is really proper about the footwork is the timing of its development.

Also consider that in open competition there is no such thing as proper footwork - there is just footwork that helps meet your goals, and footwork that doesn't. Some variations on basic figures will change the footwork away from that documented for the syllabus versions - the only way to judge that is too look at the overall effect.

I don't mean to give offense, but it really does look like this proposal is being made by someone with a relatively introductory knowledge of ballroom dancing. The present system is not perfect of course, but the more you learn about dancing, the more a lot of it makes sense.

Sarcastic Smoothie. I agree with your comments. But competition dancing here has fallen off considerably. The main complaint appears to be bias judging which makes people say enough is enough. Should we judge our own pupils. H. Smith-Hampshire wrote in the Dance News ( a UK weekly publication), and of course writting about dancing in the UK, that a scrutiny of marking sheets showed that some judges marked their own couples best, often putting them first in every dance. Nothing has been done about it, at least here they are trying. We have managed to cut the admission fee by about 50%, which it is hoped will encourage the general public to come along. One of your top people wrote that at a competition he sees that the spectators are the competitors, the promoters have a captive audience and do little to promote the sport to the public. The same applies here .Just for a bit of interest. The writter of the above, Should we judge our own pupils, in his hey days could do solo, thirty two bars of the Fleckel with a brimming cup of tea in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other. The trick was to be able to do this at the correct speed and not spill one drop of tea nor let the biscuits drop of the plate. Which he could do. Still quoting.It was this committment that made us world beaters in this dance. He was never beaten in the V. Waltz over a period spanning ten years and retired undefeated. Two and a half million people were recently involved in a public vote on the TV in the UK's Professional and Celebrity Competition. And we are going downhill. So something has to be done to get people interested into the competition side of dancing. Having said that, I will point out that Social dances here are going great, but not in the studios.

Hi all,
In most cases, adjudicators would always like to have more time in assessing the couples' dancing ability - especially in the early rounds -, whether for a recall to the next round, or deciding the final placings. With over 47 years as a qualified adjudicator in all ballroom branches, the best marking system, for the early rounds was one I was involved with in the early 60's. 43 couples came onto the floor in two heats. The 43 couple's numbers had been printed on the adjudicators' pads. The adjudicators were then asked to select 35 numbers from the two heats for the next round. Any adjudicator will tell you this could cause a problem of duplicating the same number or not being able to recall the required number due to the time factor. Our instructions were: delete 8 numbers you don't want to see in the next round.

I like the rule of making them wait a minute before marking their cards, with the possible exception of elimination rounds where they need to select a certain number of couples to cut. I was watching IGB this weekend, and there would be two or three couples on the floor during the pro-ams. The judges would mark their cards after about 10 seconds of dancing. If I paid $50 for a heat and the judge watched me for 10 seconds before placing me, I'd be pretty annoyed. It's a good thing I can't see what the judges are doing when I'm actually dancing!

Only last week I attended a seminar given by a very important person on the dance scene. He was asked about adjudicators pre- judging. The answere was that if he sees maybe three highly ranked couples on the floor he might be inclined to mark them immediately, leaving him in the one minute thirty seconds allowed, to be able to look more closely at the rest. It boils down to the fact that one minute thirty seconds is not enough. In the old days we used to dance the whole record right through. Some were close to two and a half, to three minutes. But then I think we might have been fitter.