Should competitions be broken down by levels and age groups?

jo0

Very nice description of your system, curl. I've been out of competitions for a while now, but I'll attempt to give a basic description of the system here in the US according to the USABDA rules (United States Amateur Ballroon Dancers Association). Should you care, you can find their rule book on the web, look through usabda.org, but I'll break it down by memory, which may be somewhat out of date.

USABDA does have both age and level separations. I don't remember them exactly, but under 18 has a couple of divisions, I think these are all considered Youth groups, and from 18 up there are only a few divisions. I believe they're known as Adult A for 18+, Adult B for 35+, and Adult C for, hmm, maybe 55+? I forget. Often they will have a separate category for students, people under 35 who are enrolled in some college or university and I think you have to be full time. So we do have some age category divisions, but I don't remember exactly what they are or whether it's one partner or both partners that determine it. It may be that if one partner is in a higher age group and the other is in a lower age group, the couple has to compete at the higher group, but I really don't know. I always did college or Adult A events.

As for levels, we use syllabus levels. I don't know what they use for American style rhythm and smooth, but for international standard and latin the ISTD syllabus is the generally accepted one. I think they made some smaller changes to the levels, but the basic divisions have three syllabus levels and three open levels. If you run them together, you'd go Bronze, Silver, Gold, Novice, Pre-Championship, Championship. Typically the syllabus levels feature either one or two dance events, maybe three if you get to gold, I don't remember. Novice is a three dance event, Pre-Champ is a four dance event, and Champ is a five dance event. I think they're the same as in your system, curl, but I'm not certain. I think they added in a Master of Syllabus level which is kind of like an open level, but not exactly, it's a separate branch: you go bronze, silver, gold, then split off the Master of Syllabus on one side by itself and Novice, Pre-Champ, and Champ on the other side as another sequence. The Masters of Syllabus thing is new and I never did it, so I don't know the details.

Now, for moving between levels. Well, age ones are pretty obvious, when you get old enough, you change categories. They're there basically to keep kids from competing against adults and stuff like that. As far as the abililty levels go, there's a point system and I'll probably forget exactly how this works, too. The point system is used to determine when you "place out" of events; that is, when you're so good at one level that you have to move up in order to let everyone have a fair chance at winning. The lowest level you can compete at is the one that you have not placed out of yet. If you have zero points, like a new competitor would, you can start anywhere you want. As I understand it, there are provisions for points trickling down to lower levels so if you decided to start at gold and did well enough, the points you earned would apply in some form to silver and bronze syllabus, too. It's a little complex and I think things have changed since I remember it, so maybe I should just skip it. The basic concept though is that the better you do the more points you get and the more points trickle down if you're at a higher than minimum level. The full name of these are "proficiency points", BTW. Once you've gained X number of points for a given dance, style, level, (and age category), you have to move up to the next level for that dance and style. This allows you to be mixed all over the place, say silver rumba, bronze samba, novice waltz, gold tango, champ American tango, pre-champ American swing, etc. The only level you can't place out of is Championship because that's the highest level and there's no where to go after that.

So, if that wasn't too vague or outdated, that's basically how the USABDA system works. There are age and level divisions and a proficiency points system determines when you're good enough at one level that you have to move up. But it is very separated so that you can be at a different level for every dance in every style. So to the original question, I think it is appropriate to break down events by both age and level in order to give everyone dancing a fair chance at winning their chosen events.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

Just to add to Jame's post:

Competitions for kids under age of 18 devide as such:

Pre-teen: age not over 12 years old by D.O.B.

Junior: 13-15 by D.O.B

Youth: 16-18 at the time of competition day.

Unfortunately, some competition organizers would only offer kids' American style open Championship level with only 3 dances ( Chacha, froxtrot and swing ) instead of 9 dances. How can ballroom dancing be promoted for kids this way? In the meantime the same competition had included lots of NON-real-ballroom items like show dance, Polka, disco-hustle, night club 2 step, country western, WCS (there are many competitions strictly for CW and WCS anyway). Sure, organizers need to justify his/her expenses and make a profit but shortcut kids is not a very wise way. For these kids are to carry on future ballroom activities and they are the future participants of many competitions to come.

Keh

since I dont know how this is handeled in the US I give you an idea how this in europe , especially in germany works.

there are 2 sections:

latin
standard
(There is a special section 10 Dances Adult and Youth, too , only couples with minumim level A in one section and S level in the other section are allowed for these special competions)

we difference follwing classes:

kids <14
juniors 14-16
youth 16-18

I am not sure since his changes often
-
adults both partner >18
adults II one partner >28

adults II are allowed to start at adults, too
-
seniors both partners >35
seniors 2 one partner >45
seniors 3 one partner >55

there are some restricted events for couples >66
-

levels D,C,B,A and S (special) level

you have to start at D and make your way up to S.
to move to next level the couple have to make an amount of finals (normaly 6or 10 times places 1-6 [D->C] or 1-3 [A->S] ) and an amount of points (120 - 200), for every couple beaten a couple gets 1 point, maximum is 20 per competition. It depends on how many couples are registered in one class/level of a region.

To reach S takes normaly several years.

D have to perform 3 dances:
latin: ChaCha, Rumba, Jive
standard: Walt, Tango,Quickstep

C have to perfom 4 dances:
latin: Samba,ChaCha, Rumba, Jive
standard: Walt,Tango,SlowFox,Quickstep

B,A,S perform all 5 dances:
latin: S,Cha,R,PD,J
standard: W,T,VW,SF,Q

D,C class are low level , B mid level and A and S class are high level.since there is the possibility of partner change there are some cheaters, too.

The adult S top couples are unbeatable for "real" amateur couples because they do only dancing,eating,dancing,sleeping,dancing,...

At all I think its a fair system, since you are not forced to move to a weaker class ( adults is the strongest class). to move to adult II or senior classes is volunteer. Only the youngsters have to move up to adults.

thanks dronak.

i forgot to add :

there is only one winner of a comp... no seperated winners of the dances, the results of all dances are added . so you have to master all required dances to win

for D and C level there is a limitation of the variation danced. its similar to the sylabus of US "gold" or so. for B,A,S the only limitation are that lifts are not allowed.

if you get pissed of dancing in S level because of not winning because of the "amateur" top couples (remember dancing, sleeping, eating, dancing...but no regular job...yes they are still amateurs) than you can move up to the Pro´s.

3 sections:
latin
standard
10dances

2 levels

rising-star ( the performance of the couples there is equal to A/S amateur level)
professional (the queens and kings on the floor )

offical amateurs are not allowed to accept money or price awards, Pros are allowed.

[This message was edited by curl on 08-09-01 at 12:29 PM.]

[This message was edited by curl on 08-09-01 at 12:31 PM.]