My training has changed over time. My earliest experience was group instruction and it served me well in that it generated and maintained my interest however, it was focused more on “learning steps” rather than perfecting technique. As I became more serious about dancing my wife and I began taking private lessons as a couple. We were able to develop better technique both individually and in partnership.
The next stage for me was private individual instruction. Initially, instruction was done in partnership with my instructor but this has gradually changed and today the majority of my training is solo or without a partner. This has been extremely challenging and tremendously rewarding. My objective has been to execute every figure and amalgamation with the best possible technique. This means maintaining frame, body mechanics, footwork and, most importantly, kinaesthetic sense. The latter element is critical to my ability to self-correct. At first I must focus on executing figures as correctly as I understand them while receiving guidance from my instructor. Gradually I learn what “correct” feels like so that I can identify errors when they occur eventually eliminating them completely. The first test comes by dancing in partnership with my instructor “as perfectly” as when dancing solo. The ultimate test comes by maintaining my own “perfection” regardless of my partner.
Completely understanding the dynamics of partnership becomes more important when dancing with an arbitrary partner. Leading a highly skilled partner is remarkably easy. A mere suggestion of the figure produces the desired response. A less skilled partner creates a myriad of challenges. One way my instructor helps me is by imitating the situations I will encounter with partners of varying skill. Through these experiences I learn the feel of such situations and how to maintain my technique with these partners.
Another technique my instructor uses is role reversal. She turns me around into the follower’s role so that I can feel and appreciate how a leader’s good and bad technique affects the follower. From this technique I have learned that good leader technique tends to make the follower’s next movement seem to be the easiest movement to make. The more successful the follower experiences the more confidence and trust is developed. Clearly one should not attempt complex, advanced figures with an inexperienced follower, but a good leader can quickly assess a new partner’s skill and limit what is demanded. What I have also learned is that poor leader technique can make it nearly impossible for any follower to execute the next step in a figure. This can cause the follower to become unbalanced and mistrustful of the leader resulting in an unsuccessful partnership.
I can relate my dance training to many of my earlier experiences. Musicians train by repeating scales and arpeggios and other figures in every possible key and tempo. By so doing, a musical score never before seen can be recognized as sequences previously experienced rather than individual notes. Similarly, computer programmers learn to recognize the overall function of groups of instructions. Even more common is the way we learn to read by developing the skill to recognize groups of letters as words and groups of words as phrases and sentences which convey meaning. The more music played, the more computer programs read and written and the more material we read and write the better we become at each skill. Why should dance be different?
Looking Back
I love to dance! I take almost every opportunity to do what I have come to come to enjoy. I take private lessons several times each week. I take instruction with my wife and dance with her socially. I take instruction with my professional instructor and dance competitively with her in Pro-Am events. My amateur competition partner and I take coaching from two professionals. Our primary coach does most of the instruction and choreography but the other helps us strengthen our technique.
There are very few things in my life that I regret and one of them is that I didn’t begin dancing earlier in my life. That said, the clock cannot be turned back and so I am elated that I am dancing now. I don’t know how far I can go or how successful I can be but at the age of 65 my journey began.
Actually, my first experience with dance occurred nearly 20 years earlier when my wife and I participated in a few community sponsored group ballroom dance classes. I think we managed to attend five or six sessions before life got in the way and we moved to a different community and became too busy. The years passed, I retired from my career and began to travel. With what little skill we possessed, we were able to get up on cruise ship dance floors without feeling foolish. We even managed to impress many of our friends with a waltz during our 40th anniversary party. However, we knew enough to be unimpressed with our own abilities.
Our first dance class instructor had periodic practice dances and encouraged us to attend dances sponsored by other dance groups in the area. One such excursion took us to a competition where there were periods of open dancing between competition classes. We were extremely impressed by the competitive dancers and utterly intimidated during the open dancing, but we took the floor and survived.
After retiring, my weight and waist line dimensions soared from inactivity. Perhaps the cruise ship diet helped too. The gymnasium exercises may have stemmed the tide but neither the gym nor the swimming pool reversed the gains. About this time we abandoned condominium living and returned to a detached home which I spent six weeks renovating. During this process We discovered a small independent dance studio only minutes from our new home and we began taking private instruction once a week.
Most of the first year was spent relearning basics and trying to rid ourselves of the bad habits acquired during the years of casual and cruise ship dancing. Our studio owners began to encourage students to compete in local Pro-Am events. My wife, who is not really competitive, resisted for a while but finally agreed to dance in two events. I, on the other hand, can become quite competitive so I jumped right into the Pro-Am competition. Then there was a second competition, and a third. She was hooked and so was I.
At the time we joined the studio nearly all of the students were learning the North American style of ballroom dance. Our initial experience had been with International style and since our instructor was willing and able, we continued with International both as a couple, socially, and in the Pro-Am competitions. One of the other students, a single woman, became interested in International latin and began Pro-Am competition. We began dancing socially at studio parties. Since we were both fairly aggressive competitors we began discussing the possibility of amateur competition. My wife and I discussed competing together but decided we would rather remain married than fight over dance technique. She gave me the green light to compete with another partner.
My new partner and I registered with our local amateur association and began training. We had to withdraw from our first competition when she came home from a business trip rather unwell. By the time we actually stepped on the floor for our first amateur event I had lost 20 pounds (9 kilos) and 2 inches (5 cm) of waistline, a true bonus. After less than a year of International Amateur Latin competition in my very senior age category we are starting to get very serious about our technique. My senior bones are getting a workout to be sure but with enough effort I might yet be able to say, “I’m a dancer.”