Ahhhh, the glow of a new ballroom dance pro.  "I have my dream job!" they proclaim.   The magic of partner dance runs so strong with the newly payrolled.  And I hate to crush dreams but NO I LOVE TO CRUSH DREAMS : The Cons of Being a Professional Ballroom Dancer Wear and tear on…

Here's the obvious and insanely fun thing post to write: the pros of being a pro. Yes, I laughed too much writing that phrase, so let's move on… The Pros of Being a Professional Ballroom Dancer It's glamorous.  I KNOW.  I told you last week it wasn't.  BUT when you get to walk in a…

I'm just going to throw this down in the first line: being a professional ballroom dancer means you teach ballroom dancing.   OF COURSE, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, if you decide to "go pro", you make your living by teaching.  Deal with it.  If you don't want to teach for a living, I…

Otherwise known as: How to Get Seen on the Dance Floor… the Easy Way Are your results all over the board?  Do you place well in small heats, but never make it to the next cut in huge heats?  Are you sure the judges saw your number? And the dancing that goes with it? But…

I recently heard someone teaching Foxtrot to a brand-new couple.  This teacher was throwing out dance jargon and acronyms left and right.  "CBM", "using your center", and "LOD" were followed up by little to no explanation.   I've overhead group classes taught where, after introducing the basic step, the teacher goes on to cover swing, sway,…

"Collegiate Competition" and "Many Amateur Competitions" or "Ballroom Newbie Competitions" could all be interchanged in the title today, but seeing as how I just judged a collegiate comp last weekend, that's my title. Why I Didn't Love You This is where it was really tempting to pull some of the 18,000 photos from the DanceFest Flickr…

The other day, I started a lively debate on The Facebooks about whether social and competitive dancing should be taught the same or differently. I was pretty vague with the question.  My exact words were, "Should social and competitive dancing be taught differently?  If yes, why?" What I really wanted you guys to do was read…

The ballroom world is full of brilliant people.  The number of PhDs, MDs, patents, and IQ points of my students alone is astounding.  Big-time CEOs and executives of multi-national companies enter studio doors every day.  Not to mention the amazing entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and creative enterprisers among us.   To make such professional headway, all these…

"Historically, they make the finals," my friend said to some spectators who were interested in watching us dance.  I had to think pretty hard about her statement; it seemed too good to be true.  But yes, my partner and I have generally made finals.  We're not top 6 in the nation or anything, but at a decent…

There's a concept of "dancing down" in competitive ballroom that I get asked about. A LOT.  There's a couple ways I see it, one of which is okay and one of which is a bummer.   The Bummer Let's say you see someone dancing a bunch of Silver freestyles and multi-dance events and also dancing in Bronze…