I have been meaning to write about this for sometime and koolricky‘s post on Beginners I like, beginners I don’t finally tickled me into tackling the subject.
I have never liked the Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced nomenclature. Especially not the systems where these are directly mapped onto years e.g. a beginner is someone who has danced less than a year. They imply somewhat that you can progress simply by putting in the time. Or, having put in the time, one can consider yourself advanced. I have seen beginners that were ready for the next level on their third class and I have seen people who wouldn’t be seen dead near a beginners class drag down a high level workshop.
On the fencing side of the shop the progression is slightly more straight forward. When someone starts they take eight weeks (in some schools it’s six months) of lessons before their first bout. The next milestone is being comfortable on the piste. Once they have achieved that they may consider themselves a fencer and something other than a beginner. Advanced fencers are those that are seriously adept with more than one weapon. All of this occurs without any grading, there are no tests to acquire a belt. That is because the fencer grades himself in every bout, is tested by every opponent. A fencers progression is only in their personal perception of their skill and their confidence in that skill.
Tango can only move past some of its problems if it drops its ridiculous time based beginner/intermediate/advanced class description model and instead clearly states that this class deals with X, to do this you should be comfortable doing Y and Z.
But Tango dancers also grade themselves! Perhaps that is the problem
Besides, fencers have sharp, pointy objects to keep them objective. Oh wait. In Tango we have stilettos. And even the basest novice has license to wield at will….
Tango dancers do grade themselves, but too often it is in terms of how long they have danced.
Fencers are helped in keeping themselves objective in that they can win or lose (and they can win or lose well or badly). Under what criteria do I evaluate whether I won or lost a dance or a tanda?
You’re completely right that the time-based model is useless. Where someone is after a certain amount of time depends so much on their own motivation, approach, and goals. And there is such a huge difference depending on whether you lead or follow, but classes are marketed as though the same amount of experience got you to the same class level for both. In reality, a lot of intermediate classes do more harm than good for a moderately experienced follower, and she would be better off attending a beginners’ class, or going to a milonga.
How do you think class descriptions should go? I think your approach is the right one, and I’d be interested to read what you come up with and how people react. Any proposals?
To be quite honest, I’ve always graded myself more or less on the fencing model. In that dance or lesson, did I deliver what was led, or not? If not, what did I not deliver, and why? What is the next thing I can work on or fix?
Actually I’ve usually had at least two things on the go so as not to get bored.
If I were leading I’d have to take a slightly different approach. It would still be a progressive one-thing-at-a-time approach, but I wouldn’t be benefiting from the leaders’ input as I do following.
The problem is, once you can deliver everything that normally gets thrown at you in social dancing, it gets much harder to find the next thing to work on. You can just end up getting distracted by shoes. Which is plain depressing, compared to steady improvement.
Nobody ever explains what they expect you to be able to deliver after one year, six months, or whatever, so I’ve never taken any notice of that.
Hi there:
I think the time gradation is also necessary. For example, in the last event that i organised I described the levels with a time reference and a description of what people should be comfortable with when applying for this level.
I also think that if one wants to start teaching he has to have had a good few years of tango behind him even if this person is a prodigy and can learn a lot in 1 year. Sometimes, time is also valuable, not to understand things but to let them mature…
But obviously that the time notion on its own is very precarious.