I'm so not, though; I did it for four years at university, more nad more lackadaisically as the years went on. Did a few college-level competitions the first two years, and stopped placing the moment I had to move out of the protected "newcomer" category and into Bronze with everyone else.
Well, I don't know, but four years of dancing lessons and college competitions already sound quite professional to me! (I took my very first lessons in 2001, but have attended courses very irregularly ever since, which might explain why I never got terribly far.)
Well, if you're not competing, that works! When we were just dancing around for fun (which was most of the time), my friends and I did that a lot.
My club sounds a bit like yours. We were mostly there because it was fun and we were friends; three of the four nights a week was one of the older, more experienced students volunteer-teaching. [..] You could compete if you wanted, and take extra lessons at the studio if you really wanted to get better. Most of us didn't, because it was really just for fun.
Three out of four nights a week? Wow, that's very disciplined -- no wonder that you seem to know a lot about ballroom dancing.
And I don't even attend a proper club. There are just three very nice and talented dormmates of mine who do take real dancing lessons, even up to competitive level, and want to pass their interest and skills along to the rest of us. But for obvious reasons, we can't do this more often than once a week because they sacrifice their leisure time in order to teach us something for free.
But I've already thought about taking additional lessons by a proper coach. However, the dancing clubs I've checked out so far are all suffering from a lack of gentleman and wanted me to bring along a regular partner. Which I don't have, sadly enough.
It's fascinating. I really like it because while it's physical, it's also a skill you're always working on as you learn new steps and better technique...whereas running on a treadmill or whatever is so boring in comparison.
IMHO, the nice thing about dancing is that you can try to refine it all the time, just like you said, but that you don't have to do that. As it's more of a social activity than of a sport, it never gets dull and you can already have lots of fun at beginners' level.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-08-21 10:52 am (UTC)Well, I don't know, but four years of dancing lessons and college competitions already sound quite professional to me! (I took my very first lessons in 2001, but have attended courses very irregularly ever since, which might explain why I never got terribly far.)
Well, if you're not competing, that works! When we were just dancing around for fun (which was most of the time), my friends and I did that a lot.
My club sounds a bit like yours. We were mostly there because it was fun and we were friends; three of the four nights a week was one of the older, more experienced students volunteer-teaching. [..] You could compete if you wanted, and take extra lessons at the studio if you really wanted to get better. Most of us didn't, because it was really just for fun.
Three out of four nights a week? Wow, that's very disciplined -- no wonder that you seem to know a lot about ballroom dancing.
And I don't even attend a proper club. There are just three very nice and talented dormmates of mine who do take real dancing lessons, even up to competitive level, and want to pass their interest and skills along to the rest of us. But for obvious reasons, we can't do this more often than once a week because they sacrifice their leisure time in order to teach us something for free.
But I've already thought about taking additional lessons by a proper coach. However, the dancing clubs I've checked out so far are all suffering from a lack of gentleman and wanted me to bring along a regular partner. Which I don't have, sadly enough.
It's fascinating. I really like it because while it's physical, it's also a skill you're always working on as you learn new steps and better technique...whereas running on a treadmill or whatever is so boring in comparison.
IMHO, the nice thing about dancing is that you can try to refine it all the time, just like you said, but that you don't have to do that. As it's more of a social activity than of a sport, it never gets dull and you can already have lots of fun at beginners' level.