人生之舞台
人生譬如朝露,去日苦短，讓經曆過後，留下一絲還能找尋的痕跡吧。
我的Ballroom Dancing 經曆（2 ）
如上篇所說，我開始 Ballroom Dancing 的原動力是想參加比賽。在涉獵了所有舞種以後，我決定選 International Standard 做為主項，有機會再加上 American Smooth 。雖然我也喜歡 Latin, 但在 floor 上與 teenagers 竟爭，還是有所顧忌我這三十初頭的形象。這也許是借口和多慮，因為不同的年齡段可以展示不同的風格。不過在有限的時間裏，不得不有所取舍。於是我離開了Fred Astaire，從師於一位Independent Teacher。他曾是International Standard 全美職業比賽的決賽選手（前六名）。
起初，我的 American Rhythm 和 Latin 舞比 American Smooth 和 International Standard 進步快。這基本得益於我的身體素質和舞蹈運動基礎。我有公認的 fast feet 和 sharp movement。但對International Standard 舞來講，除個人素質外，還要有很多硬功夫。雖然跳過American Smooth, 其中也有Close Position 的動作，與International Standard 相同。但那時功夫並不到家。要知道，美國的 Ballroom Dancing 是從 social dance 起家，早年跳 American Smooth 的功底不深，既使是職業選手。有說法：American Smooth 就象跳 International Standard 沒跳好似的。不過近年來，由於歐洲流入人材，使水平有顯著提高。既使這樣，American Smooth 的水準還是遠在 International Standard 之下。有不少人跳 International Standard 上不去，就改跳 American Smooth 而名列前茅。如果個人素質優秀，有很好的芭蕾基礎，跳 Latin 舞也許很快就會初頭。但跳 International Standard 就很難如此。它需要很多特殊技術和超常身體運用的訓練，這需要時間來 build into muscle memory 。許多初學者總想快進級學新花樣。而高級和頂級選手卻在天天練習和花時間在最基本動作的提高上。有道是：初學者用簡單的技術跳複雜的 pattern ，而高層次舞者用複雜的技術跳簡單的 pattern 。效果就是不一樣。 Jenifer Lopez 在美國版的 Shall We Dance 中扮演曾去黑池比賽的職業選手。這看上去可真讓我難受，因為一看就是個初學者 , 連架子都還沒搭對。而日本版的女演員就要好得多。
在跳 International Standard 時，膝蓋不能完全伸直，以保持彈性，使運動更顯平滑。效果要象在冰上滑冰。這與體操，舞蹈及 Latin 舞的要求不同。我也花了不少功夫來糾正過去的習慣。還有在跳舞時，很重要的是 Leading 和 Follow 。男士練成一個好的 Leader 不容易。而女仕的 following 技術也非自然而得。這 following 對我來說也曾是相當不易。在跳 American Smooth 時，因為有許多分開動作，把比賽動作編成 Routine, 不真 follow 也還能過關。但我的 International Standard 老師在 syllabus level 不給 Routine ，要我隻能 Follow 。這對我來說既意味著 more work 也是提高的機會。
對 International Standard 初學者來說，找初學者搭伴進步要花許多時間。因為兩人都有許多毛病。而跳得好的又不願受我們托累。所以我在 Bronze, Silver, 和 Gold levels 都是跟老師跳 , 參加 Pro/Am 比賽。雖然有時也參加練習舞會，與別人暫時搭伴。另外我還買了 Victor Veyrasset 和 Heather Smith 的全套教學錄像帶自己學習。直到一年後在香港開始跳 Open Level 時才找舞伴。這樣進步確實比較快，但花錢也多。
下麵是我第一次參加 International Standard 比賽時的照片 ( 背影 ) 。
I attended the workshops taught by Victor Fung, Anna Mikhed, and Glenn Weiss (Victor Fung's primary coach for very long time). It's a good opportunity for me to brush some techniques and to view them from different perspectives. The workshops can fit dancers in all levels, and there are four workshops running parallely, two for standard and two for Latin. You can go anyone you want to at any time. But personally, I like private lessons better, more efficient.
Happy July 4 holiday!
I agree -- I am not rich either. Started standard and latin when I was in graduate school. It is more fun to learn dance in poor way --- have a group people in similar interests, actually people were better connected about good lessons, fun parties, and money saving competition. It did not cause too much at all learning dance -- I guess my dancing bills were 300$ - 400$ / year. Plus, have many other funs beside dancing. hehe.
海鷗 - I was just talking about how expensive things could be. No way I could not spend that much on dance / golf. If the money / result ratio is too high, I will chicken out.
Happy July 4th!
P.S. Flamenco_Girl, if you go to independence dance camp, give us a little update once you have time. I might check it out next year.
I know what you are talking about 海鷗. This is a typical collegiate scene. Most coaches really like to work with talented young people, which brings hope and excitment for teaching. In USA, there are mainly two groups of people who are involved in ballroom dancing: 1) college students; 2) People who are established in life, and have time and money. There are not many people can dedicate to dancing during ages 30 - 45, the period of time being busy for life.
Here is a blackpool report from Dance Beat:
http://www.dancebeat.com/International.aspx
I am not a rich guy. So are most of my dancing friends, especially my collegiate teammates. So my experience was more in the poor side. As Flamenco_Girl pointed out that dancing is very expensive if you are serious about it. So what could we do? We had tried a lot of ways to learn dancing. To name a few: we practiced a lot for each lesson we took, we had the advance dancers coaching the beginners in the "guided practice", we negotiated with coaches for discounts because we were students and we were a big group (that can give them more business than they could imagine :), we had team subsidies (to exchange for our service to the team), we fixed our dancing shoes and dresses, we raised money in dance parties, etc. Of course, many coaches liked to work with us more than many other dancers (averagely) because we were more serious about dancing. ;) They also tried to help us in many ways. For example, for some of the really poor students, our beloved main coach even gave them some free lessons and let them stay in his apartment for a whole summer for free...
All the good memories... Sigh!
沒錯，both Ballromm and Golf can be very expensive. 而且，兩種都可作為高級修閑方式。我在香港確實見到闊太太們是怎樣花錢在跳舞上的。同樣，在這兒也見到闊佬們是怎樣花錢在高爾夫上的。不過，我想他/她們與技能竟爭一族有所不同，比此一搬也是不以對方為伍的。
I'm glad you like it. Also, I'd be glad to see you dance someday.
Tied up with work and person stuff. I knew I should leave the discussion board too long. Haha, you guys did more talks than I thought in the past 4 days.
Sorry, 海鷗. I was under wrong impression. Since you got permissions. You probably can spend more time on dance floor than I do. However, if two kids, the balance of life have to tip over for those two :-) To me, it will be more important to be a good father than a good dancer. Also, being a happy father means that I should do things that I enjoy as well. Maybe you can send them to grandma or grandpa for vacation while you are preparing for dancing comp? hehe
To Flamenco_Girl - about the cost of golf per year. I means around 1k for average golf, not 10K. Consider there are 2-3 million golfers in US. Golfing is billion dollar business in here. The 1k is for regular middle class guys /gals who have to balance their golfing budget with house, car, food, spouse , kids ....etc using coupons for expensive course, not major equipment upgrades and play conservatively on weekend and weekday (1-2 times). If you want to play CEO style, the big will be unlimited. e.g. private club membership (10-50K / year if you can join, sometimes there is long waiting list for good club). Get a new set of top line club (1500$ - 3000$), Private instructor (PGA pros) twice a week - 100$/ per hour, and sneak out office going to exotic destination for golf -- around 200 per round which can be go 100K.
If you are professional golfer, just like profession dancer --- 7 days a week, 5-10 hours a day playing and practicing; Taking private lesson twice a week 100- 200 $per hour; Expense travel to different tournaments; Registration fee for each tournament (not sure, I guess) 1k-5k -10K? I guess that is the reason that many of golfer has sponsors taking cares of that... but about 50% of golfers will miss the cut and will win 0$, top 30% will win more $$$ than expense, rest of them will just break even ( I think). Winning is very difficult unless you are tiger wood. :-) It is not a good professional to raise family unless you are top 100 among those PROs.
Ballroom can be equally expensive, I saw a news two years ago -- an HSBC executive, she spend 8 million dollars to hire one top Ballroom couple in the world to teach her dance.... somehow, top couple was sued because they said something offensive to 'encourage' her on competition.
Damn, what is the point that I tried to make here? Well, here is one. Both can be very expensive / time consuming, if you are serious, prepare to spending $$$ and work like madman/woman for this. That will take away most of fun for me.
man, it is too late for me. Thinking like drunk man now.
Hi 海鷗, you sounds like a protective brother to menhaoran1 :-)
Most time, it's a balance of time .vs. money. You can pay more money to get ahead faster. But, for social or not too serious about progress rate, one don't have to spend that much. It's good just to enjoy dancing itself, after enough basic training.
Are you going to scare him away from dancing? :)
Acturally, as I observed, most people don't spend a lot of money in dancing before they get really serious in competitive dancing.
"can build a good , strong and balanced body which will help your golf games."
Haha! That shows something deep down in your mind... :)
"if you can get your wife dancing, then things will be much easier for you."
You are the 1000001st person who said this to me -- just exaggererating! ;)
Well, as you can imagine, I did try, and I tried really hard -- in vain. She said, if I did just social dancing, she would have considered going with me. But she absolutely can not afford the time and money and all the troubles in competitive dancing. So she dicided to stay away from it. She enjoys watching it and criticizing me though. :)
To be fair, my wife didn't stop me going dancing. It's the fact that we have two kids to take care of that's consuming my time, energy and money. I took a short break from dancing when my first child was born and went back to the floor gradually about two months later (of course, with less practice time than before). At that time, most of my dancing time was my baby's sleeping time (except for a few comp's each year which would take 1-2 days each) so it did not affect the family life much.
But this time, with two kids, I can't even find the time to go practice! :-(
"Regular american golfer will spend around 1000$ every year "
Do you mean $10K instead of $1K? In ballroom, a 45min private lesson can cost $75 - $125, and a typical serious dancer will take two lessons per week (cost shared between partners). The serious competitive dancers may take more. For competitive dancers, travel, costume, and registration fees are also big expense. Ballroom can be very expensive if you are serious about it. But, none has to go that far.
Thanks for your reply, 海鷗飛處! You are very good points on dark period and dancer's mind. Wish we can go to party together next time. Actually, I think dancing is more enjoyable than golfing.
Dancing: can meet more people, more beautiful people; never worried about weather - too hot, too cold, rain, alergy; mosquitoes, bugs; can build more confidence to do things under general public (including bad things); can build a good , strong and balanced body which will help your golf games.
As you said, partner is a major headache and family member's disapproval can be show stopper... hehe. Actually, dancing will be much cheaper than golfing. Regular american golfer will spend around 1000$ every year by going to driving range, play one or two games every week. I do not think I would spend that much on dancing.
Things that golf is attractive to me are: has objective goal like many sports -- the goal is simple and obvious; challenge your mind more than your body; I might have better shot in golf than dance.. hehehe
Both of these are very time consuming hobbies --- can not have them both.
I would say in your case - if you can get your wife dancing, then things will be much easier for you. ;-)
Thank for Flamenco_Girl providing her good blog space and interesting article. Please forgive your rude guests talking about dull and unrelated subject on your message board like outlaws.
We will share more dance stuff later. Hope you find ways to dance soon. Keep it up!
I go to gym too for working alone. I feel it's very helpful. Most good dancers spend lots time work alone on different body elements. The set of instruction DVDs by Luca and Loraine Baricchi is good. They have developed some theories for their dancing.
Have fun working on dancing!
Thanks for sharing your story. I used to have a roommate who was addicted to golfing. We had tried hard to influence each other with our own hobbies but both failed. :)
As I heard,in many places that male dancers (especially the good ones) are indeed hot commodities. One major trouble for male dancers is that there are a lot of things they need to learn before becoming good dancers (especially for standard dancers). For many new male dancers in many studios, they not only need to learn all those things, but also need to pass a what I call "dark period". This is the time when male dancers are typically in their bronze/silver levels. If they don't have regular partners, they usually have to go to the dance parties to practice their skills if they are serious about learning dancing. And they find that, for many times, the good female dancers don't like to dance with them because their awkward leading whereas the less skilled female dancers don't do them much good because both of them are struggling to move. As I observed, many male dancers drop out in this "dark period' because they find the situation very discouraging. When a really serious male dancer fights through all the hardships and finally floats out of the surface of the water (becoming an at least decent dancer), he finds that he becomes a hot commodity because not many good male dancers around. Ladies now should regret that when they didn't want to dance with the awkward bronze/silver male dancers, they contribute partially to the huge drop-out rate of the them. :-)
However, even for those male dancers who have regular partners and have many chances to compete regularly (such the collegiate dancers), their drop-out rate is still high -- greater then 50% as I observed. Now they can not blame the ladies and have to find the causes from themselves. :)
BTW, I met a girl on the dance floor a few years ago who was very good in Latin and OK in standard. She used to be Dan Callaway's student too. What a small world. :-)
The problem is, I am the kind that's addicted to dancing. :-) So it's really hard to be in the "not dancing" situation.
Some friends also recommend the option of hiring a nanny/baby sitter. But we simply can't afford that (two extra expenses -- dancing and nanny). Also, as you pointed out, my wife wasn't very interested in that idea.
It seems that I should find a gym to work out.
http://www.independencedayball.com/schedule.php
Thanks 林貝卡 for compliment. It sparks illusion, isn't it?
never feel that way. Actually, I would say girl are hot commodities ;-)
have a good weekend!
You are right that competitive ballroom has much more fun to do, and is easier to get addicted if you are serious about it.
The first year I think I was horrible -- learning all those 10 dances left me wondering which was which. changed one dance into another in the middle of song ... especially quick steps, foxtrot.... could not dance one dance right in 3 minutes music. However, I think I learned these -- dance supposed to be fun, good pasture, good frame, good basics, on time, listen music, differences in each dances, how to compete... He gave us routine on paper and seemed never emphasis those routine in classes... which was not good for slackers like me, who almost never pratice hard enough. After two years, I think I am still in silver bronze level -- this part sounds depressing.
In the end, I realized that knew those routines on surface would never make us good dancers... only upon those good basic fundamentals, you can do the difficult routine right. Now, I have not danced about two years.(except last Saturday) knowing that dances need time, good partner and devotion... First two are probably two most difficult things to have for most of us.
so I am golfing now -- bring down the intangible elements to one - time. If the time is right, got time, permission and partner, I would like to go back to dance. :_) Dance is much more fun, enjoyable than playing 18 holes under the sun -- 曬得像煤球. haha
Could not answer "there is a will, there is a way" question either.
Ballroom dancing is something you either give up or addict to it. I have seen so many addictive actions around, though I've never been in that level.
It seems you are playing very well in your father's role now. I can see your dedication from your blog, quite interesting to read. Maybe you have to skip dancing at this stage of life, but can still do some individual exercise to keep yourself in shape for future coming back. There are so many things one can do to improve his/her physical capabilities. Another option may be hiring a baby sitter sometimes (I guess your wife may not be happy for that).
我也想有個 way 能讓我回到 dance floor 上。但現在我和太太晚上的時間就是一人照顧一個孩子－－我是負責小的。等她入睡後，時間已經晚了，大多數的 studios 都關門了（我以前的主教練的關得比較晚，所以我那時可以去上課和練習－－不過那時也隻有一個孩子）。沒有時間練習和上課，也就沒有 partner 可言了。。。 ：－（
God,where's the way?!
Thanks Fei-Fei for coming. Ballroom dancing is full of illusion, in a nice way though. Maybe you should give a try as well, instead of watching :-)
Hi 海鷗, I'm glad that you like it. Yes, the Bronze and Silver syllabus levels for American Smooth are mostly in close position, which are considerd as basic and foundation. More open figures are involved in gold level. For open level, people are free to chose how many open and closed figures they like to have. Some people nowadays may only have 10% or so in closed position. I remembered that I was so eager to dance open figures which seem more fun and beautiful.
Hope you can come back to dancing again someday. I just began to warm up again now.
自從離開 Arthur Murray,我就沒怎麽認真學 American Smooth and Rhyth．後來比賽 American styles 時多是拿 International style 來 goofed 的，哈！有一次跟我的 new comer partner 還混了個 American Tango 第四名（silver) 和第二名 (team match)．其實我們跳的98%都是 international style! :)
BTW,那張照片很美,光打的很好.
謝謝靜觀自得來訪。
International Standard has to keep closed position all the time. For that, the pair has to synchronize really well to reach "two become one". There are lots techniques involved to achieve that. You have to take lessons to learn them, and to practice hard to really make sense to you. American Smooth allows closed and open positions, and people may use only limited closed position. The open position allows freedom and less dependency to each other, so is easier, the same as for Latin.
Comparing the Waltz video in your blog, and the Waltz competion pieces in my blog (not the show dances), you can tell the difference.
Usually, the routine is created by the coach and the couple working together. Both of the couple know the routine very well, and practice over and over again to refine the movement and presentation. But, on the floor, anything can happen, you likely have to dance away from your routine from time to time. At these moments, man has to provide quick response to the situation, and woman follows. Some experienced woman can lead in this kind of situation as well in certain way. Two people have to be sensitive to each other.
Still not so sure the difference between American Smooth and International Standard. And what are the 硬功夫 for international standard?
Thanks. I know more about ballroom dancing. Very interesting.