Exceeding the parameters
The other day, a guy next to me in the gym was wearing a 20-lb weighted vest and doing more chin ups than I was ever able to do in my best form. It occurred to me that he was exceeding the parameters of the test. It's a smart thing to do in any sport, and something I don't believe we give enough thought to in DanceSport.
In the book "23 Days in July," a definitive look at the Tour de France, the world's most difficult race, journalist John Wilcockson points out how all elite athletes routinely train beyond the parameters of the competition. Lance Armstrong was especially good at this. While other cyclists would ride the Alps in the spring, he would be climbing those crazy mountain passes in the winter, in -20 degree weather, roads barely drivable by car, never mind bicycle. And when he got to the top of a 4-hour climb, he would go down and start again, even surprising his coach. He would sleep year-round in an oxygen-deprived hypoxic tent to train his lungs to produce more oxygen so that when he got to the Alps during the race, he would not find himself short of breath like the other athletes. He would push himself more than anyone else, going well beyond the demands of the race itself, so that when the race came he was more prepared than anyone else to win.
So what do we do in DanceSport, which is every bit as athletic a sport as cycling or running? We regularly practice to music that's slower than regulation speed, to develop quality, but we never, ever, practice to music that's faster than regulation!
Yes, if you try dancing to music that's too fast, you won't be able to keep up. You won't have good form. You won't feel good about it. But we all go through that at first. Remember what it was like when you first learned to ballroom dance, or even when you first learn new choreography? Even slow music seems too fast! But after a while we begin to get it and before long we become comfortable with full regulation speed. Yet that's where we stop, even though we know that when the music is slower we can dance better and with more control.
Years ago, the Rumba used to be played at 30 bars per minute, not the 24-25 bpm that's common today. That's ChaCha speed! Dancers were used to it, and now they're used to slow music. Of course you can't move the same way at 30 bpm as you can at 24, but that's not the point.
The point is to train your body to respond faster and your mind to think faster during each dance than what's actually required on the floor.
I read once that Wayne Gretzky had a special gift that he could process the action around him faster than other hockey players. It was almost as if he could slow down time, seeing opportunities and taking advantage of them while other players were still figuring out what was happening.
During the first syllabus rounds at a recent competition, the music was slowed down by about 12 percent. I'm sure it was a mistake by the DJ -- the system may have been set that way for a lesson during the day and nobody changed it before the competition. It was interesting. While many dancers simply performed to their normal patterns, getting ahead of the music, some athletes took advantage of the slower pace and milked all the dancing they could out of the music. It was awesome! There was more control, more elegance to every movement from these couples.
I think there's a real lesson here. We should make a point of exceeding the parameters in our training in this sport, just as elite athletes do in many other sports. Spend a few minutes during each technical practice training to music that's faster than regulation -- just 5 or 10 percent. The muscles and body will have to adapt. When the music slows back down to regulation speed, it will seem slow. You'll seem to have more time to develop your lines. It won't happen overnight; at first this will feel awkward and uncomfortable, but after a while it will be powerful. Dancers who exceed the parameters like this regularly in their training will look like they have more time than other dancers on the floor.
In the book "23 Days in July," a definitive look at the Tour de France, the world's most difficult race, journalist John Wilcockson points out how all elite athletes routinely train beyond the parameters of the competition. Lance Armstrong was especially good at this. While other cyclists would ride the Alps in the spring, he would be climbing those crazy mountain passes in the winter, in -20 degree weather, roads barely drivable by car, never mind bicycle. And when he got to the top of a 4-hour climb, he would go down and start again, even surprising his coach. He would sleep year-round in an oxygen-deprived hypoxic tent to train his lungs to produce more oxygen so that when he got to the Alps during the race, he would not find himself short of breath like the other athletes. He would push himself more than anyone else, going well beyond the demands of the race itself, so that when the race came he was more prepared than anyone else to win.
So what do we do in DanceSport, which is every bit as athletic a sport as cycling or running? We regularly practice to music that's slower than regulation speed, to develop quality, but we never, ever, practice to music that's faster than regulation!
Yes, if you try dancing to music that's too fast, you won't be able to keep up. You won't have good form. You won't feel good about it. But we all go through that at first. Remember what it was like when you first learned to ballroom dance, or even when you first learn new choreography? Even slow music seems too fast! But after a while we begin to get it and before long we become comfortable with full regulation speed. Yet that's where we stop, even though we know that when the music is slower we can dance better and with more control.
Years ago, the Rumba used to be played at 30 bars per minute, not the 24-25 bpm that's common today. That's ChaCha speed! Dancers were used to it, and now they're used to slow music. Of course you can't move the same way at 30 bpm as you can at 24, but that's not the point.
The point is to train your body to respond faster and your mind to think faster during each dance than what's actually required on the floor.
I read once that Wayne Gretzky had a special gift that he could process the action around him faster than other hockey players. It was almost as if he could slow down time, seeing opportunities and taking advantage of them while other players were still figuring out what was happening.
During the first syllabus rounds at a recent competition, the music was slowed down by about 12 percent. I'm sure it was a mistake by the DJ -- the system may have been set that way for a lesson during the day and nobody changed it before the competition. It was interesting. While many dancers simply performed to their normal patterns, getting ahead of the music, some athletes took advantage of the slower pace and milked all the dancing they could out of the music. It was awesome! There was more control, more elegance to every movement from these couples.
I think there's a real lesson here. We should make a point of exceeding the parameters in our training in this sport, just as elite athletes do in many other sports. Spend a few minutes during each technical practice training to music that's faster than regulation -- just 5 or 10 percent. The muscles and body will have to adapt. When the music slows back down to regulation speed, it will seem slow. You'll seem to have more time to develop your lines. It won't happen overnight; at first this will feel awkward and uncomfortable, but after a while it will be powerful. Dancers who exceed the parameters like this regularly in their training will look like they have more time than other dancers on the floor.
