In the latest issue of Dance Beat (or Dance Bleat, as it was referred to by Donnie Burns recently), Maxim Chmerkovskiy made some interesting comments about the stamina levels of couples who dance. He said that he has noticed a consistent flaw in even the top couples, related to mental and physical preparation. He compares the activity level of dancing to figure skating and basketball, and doesn't understand how some couples find it challenging to dance through a five-dance semi-final, or a final round.
"How do they allow for technique/stamina to become non-existent after a minute of Cha Cha, forty five seconds of Samba and half way through Rumba?" he asks, then goes on to say, "Some couples barely 'live through' the third gipsy of Paso Doble and have zero mid-section action in Jive." He has found that even though he would have loved to mark some couples well as a judge, he couldn't, because they would finish the dance barely moving.
Maxim says he's a strong believer that great competition produces great couples and in his eyes this includes their level of stamina. I too have witnessed competitors -- sadly even the under-21 group -- coming off the floor almost collapsing from exhaustion. There's no excuse for that. We need to help motivate each other to stay fit enough to make it through several rounds of competition with energy to spare. Competitor practice is a great way to do that, since the regular effort of dancing five dances in a row multiple times for an hour and a half does a wonderful job of building stamina.
In the dance world, we see splits all the time. Dance partnerships are fragile things and changes are to be expected. But the most recent splits in the Standard world have created some interesting backlash that made me ponder the PR (public relations) aspect that top couples should consider in how they deal with these kind of changes.
Christopher Hawkins and Justyna Hawkins, who are married, have split. Timothy Howson and Joanne Bolton, who are not married but have been together for many years, have split. In both cases, injury of one partner have been key factors. Justyna has been struggling with foot problems that prevented her from competing for several months. Timothy has also found himself canceling major events due to injury. Now Chris Hawkins and Joanne Bolton have formed a new partnership.
Many people who compete are aware of the nature of dance partnerships and how or why changes like this happen. They know that it's perfectly legitimate to be married to someone and dancing with someone else. There are many others who instantly see this scenario and begin to draw conclusions of backstabbing and blind ambition. Already people are crying foul, suggesting that both are irresponsible for leaving a 'helpless' partner behind and implying that they are selfish and uncaring.
Top competitive dancers need to keep that reality in mind when announcing changes.
Were Timothy and Justyna the unwitting victims of selfish ambition? We don't know, but a properly organized public announcement would have gone a long way to avoiding this perception, whether true or not.
The way this new partnership was announced (that is to say, no official announcement at all), leaves lots of room for speculation. This will affect public perception and support for this new couple. What if the whole thing was arrived at in a friendly and mutually respectable way? If so, controversial opinion would be a sad way to start the new dance relationship. If not, it still would have helped to plan the communications properly.
While watching an Olympic event on TV, where the athletes were clearly not performing up to their normal standard, I was reminded of something Nigel said during the finale of this year's So You Think You Can Dance.
He said that the dancers looked a little tired. They had been working especially hard for this week's performances. There's no doubt that their dancing was not quite as strong as during the previous few weeks. Nigel's point was that you can't allow it to matter.
Nigel went on to say that the audience doesn't care if you're tired. They don't care if you're having a bad day, or you aren't feeling as strong as you should. For the audience, the moment you are on for your performance is all that matters.
Whether you're performing a show dance or a competition, somebody has paid money for you to provide entertainment to a group of people. Maybe it was the mall promoter, maybe the wedding couple, or the individual audience members who paid for tickets to be there. In any case, they deserve to be treated to the best show you can give. They don't care if you're tired. They don't care, nor should they, if you're having an off day. You need to perform and to do so brilliantly. Every time.
Naturally, professionals who make their living through dance understand this better than amateurs do. But the amateurs who "get it" and perform up to their highest level at all times will always have a significant edge over the others.
As someone involved in a variety of cross-training activities to stay fit, I was curious how DanceSport measured up. A German university study in 1984 showed that championship Jive and Quickstep matched the heart rate, muscular intensity and oxygen demands of Olympic sprinters. So I strapped on my heart rate monitor and went off to Latin competitor practice.
I'm an avid cyclist, and felt that it made sense to compare my measurements to the demands of cycling. Though no longer in race shape, I can still hold my own on a road bike, but I no longer go on the long 170+ km rides I used to enjoy. On a typical 90-minute ride, I'll average 150-155 beats per minute, with bursts of over 200 on steep hills, and 180 on smaller hills. How did dancing measure up?
My average heart rate over the 2-hour practice was 144. While lower than a bike ride, this was better than I had expected, especially because it was not continuous -- there were short breaks between dances and longer ones between rounds.
The Jive was, not surprisingly, the most intense dance, reaching 176 bpm. The Rumba, a slow dance that still uses lots of internal muscles, was the least intense with a heart rate of 138 on average. The Cha Cha averaged 155, while the Samba and Paso Doble were slightly lower. To keep the average up, we danced all five dances three times in a row, then took a 3-minute break. During the break, my heart rate dropped to less than 100, which obviously had an impact on the average.
I would say that when it comes down to real-world comparison, DanceSport would be pretty equivalent to cycling in athletic intensity. The difference is that your effort is turned on and off rather than being steady throughout the workout. But a real competition is also much more intense than a competitor practice because of all the other factors involved.
I suspect that the Standard dances will have slightly lower demands on heart rate, though the intensity of the athletic exertion isn't all that much lower. I'll be testing these dances in an upcoming competitor practice to see how they compare. We're not at the same skill level in Standard, which will certainly affect measurements, but it still should prove useful information.
So if you want to stay fit, keep dancing. Or start dancing, if you haven't yet experienced this exciting athletic activity.
A friend introduced me to an interesting new training tool: an mp3 player that lets you sync two Bluetooth headsets at the same time, allowing both partners to listen to the same music while practicing.
I had watched them practicing with this setup, and was intrigued because it was so discreet and effective. It allowed them to practice in perfect sync to their music, regardless of what was playing on the speakers. So, I decided to give it a try. The system relies on two items: the Samsung P2 and Motorockr S9 bluetooth headsets. They are shown in the picture to give you an idea of the look and sizing.
The Samsung P2 mp3 player is halfway between the size of an iPod Nano and iPod Touch. It feels good and has reasonably good graphics, though being a long-time iPod user, the shortcomings of any other mp3 player are glaring. Unfortunately it does not support the Mac OS, so I have to launch Windows XP on my Mac to sync the player whenever I make changes.
The Motorola Motorokr S9 headphones are sports-style behind-the-ear Bluetooth headphones. They are comfortable and have a firm hold, so you can even use them in Latin or for Tango, with sharp head movements or spins, and not worry that they'll fly off. When dancing, they are surprisingly unobtrusive, so other people may not even notice you're wearing headphones. They also sport play/pause buttons and volume control buttons. The sound quality is better than I expected, quite impressive actually.
I was able to find two Motorokr S9s for just $49 each, and found a P2 for $149, so the entire combination set me back only $250, which is less than a typical iPod these days. I also picked up an ActionJacket to hold the P2 in place. It comes with a solid belt clip as well as an armband.
The only frustration is that this isn't an iPod. The cumbersome process of using the software to load the player, going through way too many steps to get to the music, and having to connect the headphones each time you turn them on takes away from the experience, but once you go through all that you enjoy a very smooth practice session. No more worrying about what the other dancers in the studio would like to listen to.
The Fitness Industry Council of Canada recently sent a notice to dance and fitness studios alerting them to a royalty fee threatening to be imposed on all fitness and dance studios across the country. The royalty was proposed a year ago by the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC) with the Copyright Board of Canada.
The proposal called for the collection of fees for publicly played music. The fees are pretty outrageous: $5 per month per person for dance venues, $3 per class for fitness classes, and 5% of gross revenues for fitness studios. If a dance venue can't determine an exact capacity, it would pay an annual fee of $250 and fitness studios would pay $100 if their gross revenues can't be calculated.
What's interesting is that the Copyright board received no written objections. Because this hasn't yet become law, the FICDN has stepped in and is objecting to this proposal in the hopes of averting problems. They are asking dance and fitness studios to get involved in fighting back.
Fitness Australia also struggled with music fees that increased to an absurd level -- some as much as 3,000 percent.
Once a tax like this is in place, it will never be repealed, and the amounts would only increase.
The music industry has long been aggressively trying to find what amounts to tax revenues. A few years ago, Canadian retailers were required to add a costly levy on the sale of all blank CD-R and DVD discs on the assumption that they were going to be used to "illegally" duplicate music. It didn't matter if you never use it for such purposes, you pay the levy anyway. In a complete reversal of standard precedence of Canadian rights and freedoms, you can't even avoid the fees if you prove that they don't apply.
Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that fuel prices are the biggest economic issue facing every nation these days, impacting the cost of everything we buy. During a recent discussion with an active competitor who travels to many DanceSport competitions, it occurred to me that this reality will have an indelible effect on the dance world as well.
He mentioned that the price of airfare for an upcoming event in Europe has doubled from last year's cost. This is causing him to rethink his competition calendar for the year ahead. I realized that this will affect all of us, especially in Canada where the cost of traveling to competitions around the country has already been an issue.
We used to think nothing of a drive to Seattle, and that's just once every three or four months. As the cost of that drive now increases, these will still be cheaper than more distant events, but they begin to show the picture. For my wife and I, the smallest Seattle area competition will now cost a minimum of $200 to attend when you add fuel, entry fees and meal. Traveling to Vancouver Island, with the added cost of a ferry, runs about $700 with a hotel stay. A trip to Edmonton for the Northern Lights Classic will cost $1100 if booked now. The Embassy Ball, with entry fees and meals, will run about $1,500 for the two of us. Add a visit to Disneyland or other extracurricular activities and you're nearing $2,000. And Ohio Star Ball will run a little over that for two people. Those costs are only a little higher than they were a year ago. One wonders what the airfares might look like 6 months or a year from now.
For those who travel to take lessons, this begins to become ever more painful. Some competitors travel weekly to Everett WA for lessons, and we talked to one dance teacher there who travels to Vancouver weekly for lessons. As the cost of a tank of gas drives that trip price to $75 or more, a weekly trip will add almost $4,000 in gas alone to the annual training budget, not to mention the depreciation value of adding 18,000 km per year to the car's odometer. As costs go up, we'll see those increases applied to the cost of everything from guest coach fees to the price of rhinestones.
The recent news story about the battle over video rights between Prince and Radiohead made me think about parallels in the dance world. For those of you unfamiliar with the issues, Radiohead is a band that favors the publicity that comes through free availability of their music. They even released their latest album as a digital download with optional pricing, so you only pay for it if you want to. So, when Prince performed their song, then demanded that YouTube delete any videos of his performance -- even though they were shot by fans -- Radiohead got miffed and is asking YouTube to show those videos since they own the rights.
Not long ago, a competition organizer complained to me about people uploading to YouTube a number of videos shot at his annual event. "What, you don't like the publicity?" I asked. He hadn't thought of it as publicity because he was so focused on the legal issues of who owned the "rights" to the footage.
While shooting pictures of my daughter at the Crystal Leaf competition in Toronto recently, some goons came up to me and told me to cease and desist because they had exclusive rights to take pictures. I talked to organizer Oleg Yedlin and informed him that the IDSF actually published a document decrying these kinds of exclusive photo arrangements because they inhibit publicity and awareness of the sport. The best publicity possible for any business or organization is the free publicity that comes from people sharing with others, like taking pictures or videos and posting them on YouTube or Facebook. These are essential marketing tools for the digital age.
Dance event organizers need to get with the program and not only allow photography and amateur videos but encourage them.
In a study of online behavior, book publishers found to their surprise that when books were available on the Internet as free files, the number of physical copies sold of those books actually increased. Music publishers have found that offering DRM-free music has actually increased legal downloads. In contrast, those who inhibit these activities are feeling the pain of the outcry against them. The most popular YouTube clip about Prince the other day was a rant by a "former Prince fan" attacking the artist's tactics. That's bad for business! When you allow people to be fully part of the events you hold, they become even more involved. That's been proven by the success of events where photography and video are allowed. People still buy just as many of the shots taken by pros as they do now. They still buy the video footage taken by the official vendor, just as they do now.
It's been very interesting to see the change of emphasis in the marketing messages of the CDDSC, the Canadian affiliate of the WDC. While I'm no fan of the politics taking place in the DanceSport world, the simple fact is that the IDSF has developed to a point where it represents choice in the amateur competition world, and WDC has no voice at all among amateurs. As I've pointed out in other posts, I admire the WDC's emphasis on quality dancing, while the IDSF is entirely focused on organizational structure. But the IDSF has done a masterful job of creating a market for both competitions and audiences, and this is paying off as competitors become comfortable with the many event choices available to them across the country and around the world. There are literally thousands of competitions available to members of IDSF associations, and this is what develops better dancers.
Success is always about who has the larger market. VHS won over Betamax despite being an inferior product, because it developed a bigger market. Blu-Ray won over HD-DVD because it created a marketplace, while the HD-DVD camp (though first to market) talked a lot about the market but didn't deliver the numbers.
A few days ago, the CDDSC released a
new document begging dancers to join its ranks. It's almost pathetic to read, but shows an interesting change of emphasis. It seems that they are aware that the WDC's Amateur League will never get off the ground and are now putting the focus on moving amateurs into the realm of professionals. The document makes repeated references to making the transition from amateur to professional.
Like many dancers, I'm not in favor of bans and restrictions on where one can dance. But, for better or worse, that's the way it is and life goes on. The WDC Amateur League has no future, and this document, full of vague references without facts to back up its claims, ends up looking like piteous proof of that. Kind of sad, I suppose.
I've been reading an interesting book by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman, called "The Elements of Persuasion." It's a business book related to advertising and marketing communications. But the principles in the book actually relate to all of life, including dancing. The premise is that from our earliest moments, we use stories to interact with others; to share our needs, our joys and our disappointments. When an infant finishes the contents of the baby bottle and says, "All gone," he or she is telling a short yet powerful story that we all understand.
Maxwell and Dickman outline several elements that define every story. What struck me is that these apply equally well to the stories told in a 90-second dance performance. Here's what they believe makes a story effective:
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