I’ll write up a quick introduction to DanceSport, so that when someone hasn’t heard about it I have something more to refer them to. This is not an encyclopedic definition of DanceSport. You can find that on Wikipedia. I’ll write what DanceSport is to me. DanceSport is competitive dancing in any of the DanceSport dances – the 5 Standard (ballroom) dances: Waltz (Slow Waltz), Tango, Slow Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz and Quick Step. And the 5 Latin dances – Cha Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive. When competing, you can choose to compete in the 5 Standard dances only; in the 5 Latin dances only or in all 10 dances. Because of the competitive nature of DanceSport, methods of dance training, technique and ways to achieve highest quality of dancing have been developed to a very high level in DanceSport.

When children / beginners learn to dance ballroom dancing or prepare for DanceSport, they also learn – ‘how to do the ballroom figures’ or ‘where to step in the figures’. However, later at a higher stage the dance training is mainly about HOW you dance whatever you do and which way you can achieve the highest quality dancing. Many of the principles, bits of technique, ways of doing things to achieve better quality dancing are very useful in other dance styles as well.

There is a myth about ballroom dancing that many people who have not really got to know it to a deeper - higher level believe. It is that “ballroom dancing is about dancing stiff through a set of defined figures.” How many people do you think believe this … and it is nonsense. It would be an interesting experiment to ask a top ballroom champion to do a demonstration of how they dance normally and what it would _really_ look like if they were dancing stiff. You can believe me, it would look very different. Each of the 10 dances has its own character, its nature that the dancers should show in their performance - that, while also expressing their own personalities and what they feel in the individual piece of music they are dancing to. Every dancer has to create an image of the impression they want to create on the audience by their dance in their own mind and then create the impression using the ‘tools’ they have – the figures, technique, … great body flexibility is only one of them.

DanceSport can be great relaxation and tough workout at the same time if you want to do it at high level. The choice is up to you and you can really start at any age (though if you start at 50, you will probably not make it to the World Championships any more).