Over the dozen years we've been dancing, Mr. P and I have been in and out (mostly in) of weekly group classes and have had long periods of regular private lessons. In our private lessons, we inevitably end up working not on fancy choreography, tricks, etc., but on very basic elements of dancing. The comfort is that (we're told) this is a very common experience.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have had three highly enlightening sessions of Smooth coaching with our mentor Sonny Perry. We worked with Sonny pretty intensively three years ago, when we were gearing up for a season of competition in the American Rhythm dances, culminating in a Senior Rhythm Championship win at the 2007 USA Dance Southwest Regionals. We've never really had higher-level coaching in the Smooth dances.
What we have learned over the years is that social ballroom (the kind you learn in group classes) and higher-level competitive ballroom are very different creatures. In our recent sessions, we have had to adjust our posture, our frame, our body angles, our shapes, our footwork, our timing, who is driving which part of the figure, where the action should release and settle, how Smooth turns are different from Rhythm turns.
I have learned how to keep my head weight well back, how to drive certain movements and then release into flight, how to respond to leads just that nanosecond behind instead of anticipating, how to sustain my balance without leaning on Mr. P, how to breathe through the action, how to keep my frame light and free of tension. Mr. P has a whole 'nother set of challenges as, of course, he must initiate the majority of our actions. He also has to create flexible and extended shapes which do not really come naturally to him.
All of these elements are things we have worked on in the past. However, as a student advances, the teacher must be ready and willing to assign the deeper work. We may be dancing "only" in silver and novice, but our teacher happens to think we are ready to undertake the technical work that will see us through to, we hope, championship. As it has in the past, this means that now we have to deconstruct what we've always done and put it back together in the new form. We have to break some habits that were perfectly appropriate for social dancing, but aren't for the top levels of competition.
It is true that the typical skilled social dancer can go into competition without any coaching at all. In the Senior age groups, there are so few competitors in American style that such a couple can even place or win. We had a pretty good run as occasional competitors, but in the years since our last real season, we have formed a more complete and ambitious picture of where we want to be as dancers.
We don't want to be the couple who comes out and places (or wins) just based on speed or power or good musicality, or frankly just because there are only three couples in the event. We want to be the whole package. And now that I'm teaching, I want to be able to physically express all the correct technique so my students see that I'm not all talk. I'm very grateful that our coach has given us exactly what we needed, exactly when we were ready for it.
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