competition

The Only One

Part of the joy of dancing is discovering how it relates to the random things that you come across in your everyday life. As someone in nonprofit communications, I read a lot of literature on how to communicate effectively and I never cease to be amazed at how appropriate the principles apply to dancing.

The latest gem actually comes from a book about successful people in the workplace. The author states that the difference between a “good” leader and a “great” leader is not just the ability to listen, but listening to people as if they are the only person in the room at the time. (Bill Clinton is apparently an excellent example of this – part of his charm as well as his ability to manage a presidential administration.)

I always teach that any good leader is also a good follower: one who responds to his partner, allows her to express herself and finish her intentions. But I’m curious by this idea of a great leader being one who dances with his partner as if she’s the only one in the room.

When I used to dance lindy hop, there was a certain leader who made every follower swoon. After noticing his magical charm on all the women, I asked some of the followers, “What is it about this guy?” And they all said the same thing: “He dances with you as if you’re the only one in the room.” They all knew that he did this with all the women, working his way around the room with equal flirtation for them all. Still, they loved dancing with him because for those few minutes, they experienced that feeling for themselves.

Then I think about competitive swing dancing, which is so much about showing off yourself, flirting with the audience, acknowledging that your partner is just one of many in the room. Most competitors win with this outward audience-focused energy, while few can draw people in with a partnership-focused energy. Angel and Debbie Figueroa’s “Sometimes” routine is an excellent example of how two partners can be so into each other, as if they were the only two in the room, that to watch is so captivating. In fact, it’s almost uncomfortable, as if you shouldn’t be watching such an intimate dance between two people. Personally, I think that kind of dancing is a real art, but few can master it, and few try.

But what about the social dance floor? How often do we really invest all of our attention and focus into our partner? How often do we treat our partner like he or she is the only person in the room? How easily are we distracted by our own issues, our dance “homework” and the many people around us? And if connecting with a partner is the ultimate goal, shouldn’t every dance have some of that partnership-focused intimacy?

Have you ever experienced the feeling of a partner treating you like you were the only person in the room? What was it like? And how do you think we we create that more often? Would you rather see an intimate routine or an audience-mugging one? Which would you say is “better” dancing?

Level of difficulty

I never thought I’d say this, but figure skating as peaked my interest. The recent win of Evan Lysacek, the 24-year-old figure skater from Illinois, over reigning champion Yevgeny Plushenko, 27-year-old Russian who came out of retirement for these Olympic Games, has stirred a lot of buzz – not only because it’s the first time an American has taken the gold since Brian Boitano in 1988, but because it raised questions about how skating is judged.

For those of you who missed it, Lysacek performed brilliantly – no earth-shattering figures but it was nearly flawless. Plushenko nailed the quadruple toe loop – the new challenging figure all the best skaters are daring to try – but he had some errors on the jumps that followed. Both men received the exact same scores for artistry; Lysacek pulled in two more points for technical performance.

Some of you know that much of this has to do with math and the new scoring system (jumps performed in the latter half of the long program received 10% more points) but the bigger argument has centered around remarks made by Plushenko after the competition. Plushenko and his coach have both commented that male skaters who did not attempt the quad are basically wimps. “If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump a quad, I don’t know,” Plushenko said. “Now it’s not men’s figure skating. It’s dancing. Maybe figure skating needs a new name.”

The insinuation is that figure skating is about technical difficulty – pushing the envelope with respect to skill, not choreography and artistry. So who gave the better performance: Plushenko with his less perfect but more challenging routine or Lysacek with his cleaner, less difficult routine?

We see this drama play out frequently in the dance world. Sometimes the couple pulling out the big moves and getting cheers wins, and other times the simpler, smoother couple gets top placement. Depends on the judges, depends on the dancers, and depends on how much “bad” technique will be tolerated in exchange for difficulty and showmanship.

Dancing – especially competitive dancing – can be as much about showmanship and level of difficulty as it is about mastery of fundamental technique and partnership. To what extent should the former be valued over the latter? How much are we willing to sacrifice fundamentals for the “wow” factor? What separates great showmanship from “flash and trash”? And how might the factors we reward in competitive dancing be shifting what we see on the social dance floor?

Looks aren’t everything… right?

Ever notice how good looking people tend to become better dancers faster? Or maybe it’s that better dancers are just better looking?

Could be just me, but it seems like young, attractive people move up the ranks pretty quickly – more quickly than others, sometimes more quickly than perhaps they should. Sure, there happen to be a lot of young, attractive dancers with a lot of talent, but it still raises some questions about how someone gets better and at what rate.

One could argue that attractive people get better faster because more people ask them to dance. Or maybe they have more confidence and thus are willing to take risks and try new things and become more expressive. Maybe they gain more confidence as they improve, and their confidence is what makes them seem more attractive. Or maybe as they get better they adopt the fashion trends and dress themselves better. Or maybe they just look better or our eyes are drawn to watching them simply because they are more attractive.

The flip side is that people who are better dancers may just be more attractive. A study was done demonstrating just that, and how dancing can be used as a demonstration of genetic fitness, helping us to choose a mate. So maybe the better you are, the more attractive you seem. The pros all seem to be pretty good looking, but maybe we just think that because of their dancing. Would the pros be as attractive if it weren’t for the way they can move?

In competition, looks can certainly play a factor: how you dress, how you present yourself, your attitude, your level of confidence – all of which can also make you more or less attractive. Studies have shown that the part of the brain that ultimately makes decisions is the primitive brain, the part that makes decisions based on primal needs related to survival. We know that while judging is based on certain criteria, there is also a high degree of intuition and emotion that goes into deciding what’s good dancing and what’s not. So despite our rational thoughts about technique and artistry, are judges letting their primal interests sway their judgment? Are judges ultimately making decisions based on their primal desire to procreate? The pretty ones get chosen because we would like to mate with them? What about judges who are the same sex as those they are judging? Are they also judging based on primal instincts, but making decisions not out of a desire to procreate but based on a fear of competition? The pretty ones are competition for mates, so they should be punished/eliminated? And if both forces are at work, shouldn’t they balance out so that attractive people do no better or worse than less attractive people?

Thinking about the last competition I went to, it’s probably just an illusion. If physical attractiveness were objectively measured, there’s probably just as many unattractive people in any division as attractive ones. Still, in a world as social as that of the social dances, attractiveness is likely to play as strong a role as it does in the rest of society. The “halo effect” is a cognitive bias whereby the perception of some positive quality (like attractiveness) gives rise to the perception of similar positive qualities. In this case, people who are attractive may be perceived to be “better” or more qualified than they actually are. Is this same principle being applied to dance? To what extent? What can or should be done about it, or is this just part of the world we live and dance in?

A whole other animal entirely…

I’ve been (and remain) a firm believer that good dancing is grounded in good technique and good partnership. When I’ve taught students, training them to be better dancers, I’ve always emphasized these two points. And when it came time to helping these students compete, I still emphasized good technique and good partnership skills, striving to create a clean, comfortable dance with any and every partner.

That works fine for the lower levels of competition – newcomer and novice – but it isn’t always cutting it at – or even required for – higher levels. These days, showmanship and musical interpretation (extreme forms of which are known as “flash and trash”) is getting rewarded more and more in competition. While I agree that these two elements are some of the marks of better competitors and, yes, better dancers overall, we are treading in dangerous waters when we start rewarding these elements in lieu of good technique and partnership, rather than in addition to good technique and partnership.

I now find myself asking students in private lessons if they wish to be better social dancers or better competitive dancers, as their answers will dictate not my suggestions, but the priority for those suggestions. For instance, students can get away with minor problems in posture or not fully anchoring in competition if they can demonstrate advanced musicality. Would I still recommend fixing one’s posture and anchor? You bet, but it’s not as much of a priority if the changes are minor and winning is the goal. (Of course, I make all of this transparent to the student so they understand what should be priority and why.) For me as a teacher, I will always put the emphasis on being a better social dancer, but to be a better teacher, I also need to consider the wishes of my student, right? (Another topic for another blog post!)

Admittedly, even as a judge, I will place a couple with great musicality but less than perfect technique over a couple with great technique but little or no musicality. This is, after all, dancing, which by definition is the physical representation of music. Dancing is not the same as moving, and not even the same as lead-follow. Musical interpretation counts for something. Yet I will happily place a really clean couple that is really connected with great partnership over the sloppy, musical couple. Maybe I’m the odd man out, but that’s what I value most.

Every now and then, I get to see truly great dancing rewarded: a clean, smooth dance that is musical and that is focused on the partnership – not the audience. At the Mahoneys’ New Year’s Dancin’ Eve this year, some of the first place couples were the crowd-pleasers, but often the second and third place couples were the cleanest dancers with the best partnerships. Nice to see that getting rewarded from time to time (especially as I am admittedly not a flashy dancer, even though I’d like to know how to be…)

Competition is a beast unto itself. As more people compete, and the skill level of each division gets higher, the importance of showmanship and musicality over technique and partnership not only increases but is seeping into the lower divisions. How do you all feel about this? Do you see good social dancing and good competitive dancing as one and the same? What makes them different and why? What are you doing to be good at one or the other (or both)? What do you want to be rewarded in competition and what do you think should be rewarded? And teachers, how do you navigate this world of social and competitive dancing?

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year: time to think about what we hope to achieve by this time next year.

I’ve had dance resolutions before, some I’ve met and others I haven’t. They are all personal goals and they are all personal goals related to competition: making finals in my division, placing in the top three, moving out of a division, etc.

When making New Year’s resolutions, it helps to have “SMART” goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. I mean, I can say I want to be a world champion in three months, but odds are that’s a foolish resolution that will not be achieved. So we strive to set some goals for ourselves that can be met, that can be measured, and that can be achieved within a year’s time.

Which is why, I suppose, I set my goals based on competition. It’s hard for me to say, “I’ll be better at whips” or “Add more level changes to my dancing.” I suppose I could find an objective way to measure that (tape my dancing and record the number of “good” whips or level changes) but in many ways these goals remain subjective and/or difficult to measure. Competition, however, provides concrete measurements of my progress. Or does it?

Competition itself is subjective, and there’s a danger in judging our own dancing based on such an arena. Competition is another animal altogether, separate from social dancing, with a particular required skill set and its own set of values, all based solely on how you look. Does it provide some benchmarks? Sure. Do we aspire to be better competitors? Perhaps. Should competition be our only goals? I hope not.

Some people set specific goals like, “Be able to do 3 finger spins in a row,” which is specific, measurable, and perhaps realistic. But do these skills alone capture what we hope to be as dancers? I mean, what about feeling good? What about making our partners feel good? What about being better leaders or followers or being better at covering mistakes and making the dance work? What about being nicer, on the floor and off? What about fostering a greater sense of community, helping newcomers and reaching out to people we don’t know?

I offer this challenge: make resolutions for 2010, but keep in mind what kind of dancer you want to be and what kind of dance you want to create.

For me, sure, I want to be more expressive, I want to dance more through my patterns, I want to play with level changes, I’d like to discover some new “wow” moves, and, for goodness’ sake, I want to make finals in California some day. But I also want to dance with someone new (or someone I haven’t danced with in the last month) every time I go out, I want to dance with more newcomers, I want to dance with more people from different cities when I’m at events, and I want to make my partner smile at least once during each and every dance.

What are your dance resolutions for 2010?