I know a lot of people,
mostly girls, want a partner to practice dancing with, if not a
regular partner, random partner would also be better than nothing. In
my opinion, it is not too hard to find a man to dance with, it is
hard to find a man to practice dancing with. Whenever I go to a club
or a party, seldom I can't find someone to dance with, the problem is
I want a serious practice instead of random grind and skill-less
wiggles, if you know what mean. Only when you get serious about
dancing and want real improvements, you realize that few people are
as eager as you, and what the majority people say about 'dance
passion' is actually passion to get close to another gender.
Now, let's see how should we prepare ourselves in order to find a partner.
It may be true that
girls dominate the floor and men are rare; however, when it comes to
serious training and practicing, men and ladies both find getting a
suitable partner hard. So where can we find partners?
There are partner
matching sites, while they may not be absolutely useless, truly
speaking, I haven't yet met a dancer who can successfully find a
partner matching the expectations.
In order to find a
suitable partner for yourself, first of all you need to know your
expectations. Are you find a person to go partying with? Are you
aiming at social dancing only? What level are you at currently and
what level you are achieving? What level do you expect your
partner-to-be? What goal are you setting, medal test, professional
exams or performance? Will you create dances together or you want to
take a class together? Are you willing to follow your partner-to-be's
instructor or you will insist the partner to join your coach? Will
you go for competitions together or you just dance it for fun? Then
do you mind the partner trains hard with you but in the end refuses
to compete? Do you expect a long term partnership or you just want
occasional partnership?
Upon knowing your
mission, you can go and meet some dancers. Matching sites are
convenient but mostly you just post your profile and no one rings you back. A better way is to go to the a decent class. Remember, not a night club or party. Of course
you may meet some nice and great dancers in parties, but they may not
have the same goal as you. Going to a studio class can narrow down
your search effectively, because studio class goers usually have a
bigger ambition about self-improvements. Yet, the best way is to join every
competition of your level. In this way you can know more competition
dancers and you will find that most dancers are trying to find
partners. You can exchange ideas and see if there is any potential.
Surely, you need to have a partner to entre a competition, just ask
your coach, a professional dance teacher can entre you in a Pro-am,
if s/he can't find you a partner out from the pool of students.
But then, you need to
know that this is going to cost some money. Entering a competition
itself is a cost, a pro-am is even more expensive; then training
under a professional teacher is also a regular budget; studio booking
for all practices even though that's not with your coach, or you may
stick your Ray Rose or Supadance into the concrete road and practice
dancing in the street; and, the competition costume! A bigger bill
comes rolling because you would probably go for a number of
competitions. However, what might hurt you most would be that, all
these effort does not guarantee you to find a partner of your dream any sooner.
If you have some luck,
you at last get a partner. But a partner is a dance partner, the
partner may go and partner up with other dancers. How to keep a good
partner is another important issue. As you dance for longer and
connection establishes, you two may become romantic partners, and
things seem sweet but then sour and it gets really complicated just
like any other couples, the worst is to break up, and you not only
lose a SO but also a dance partner and you start your quest again.
Trust me, I have seen too many of these.
*I'll share with you how I did in this partnership issue in part 2*
**Or you can jump to part 3 to get a conclusion**
**Or you can jump to part 3 to get a conclusion**
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