Why do people expect you to compete?

[emeralddancer]

Well for me .... I am now expected because that is ALL I have wanted to do and talked about for the past 2 years. Now I want to tell people to take a leap because it just isn't (at this moment) in the cards to do it.

AND I am actually cool with not competing at the moment because I will just only be better WHEN I do compete. 

[Dancerette]

I like your attitude

[Rugby]

I always had people trying to push me into competing but I really wasn't interested.  I was competing in other sports and that was already eating up my time.  I didn't think I had the time to add in something else.  My instructor wanted me to compete and I finally decided I would do it just to see what it was like and to get him off my back so to speak.  He may as well have given me pot to smoke because after the first one it became addictive.  It was another way for my inferiority complexed self to prove to myself that I could do something else well.

I think the reason that people want you to compete is because they know you have talent and want you to put it to good use.  I know I have encouraged other couples to compete and it's because they have talent and I think competing is a way for them to show off their ability and also a way to keep ballroom dancing levels up.

[elisedance]

I love to dance - but I have to admit that competing was an incentive from the beginning.  I suppose I have a competitive personality.  Odd then that once on the dance floor I did not compete at all but froze! 

A defective competetive personality to boot

[QPO]

thankfully no-one expected us to compete. it was something we wanted to do ourselves.....in fact we had the opposite. But we are enjoying ourselves immensely and when that stops we will stop competing.

[Rugby]

It's easy, especially when you get up into the higher levels, for the pressure to make dancing more like a chore than fun.  Working on small details that can lead to frustration between the partners, financial outlay, expectations of others and the large amount of time devoted to training can suck the fun out of not only the dancing but your relationship too.

Better to look back and know you had a good time rather than look back and see it as a bleak point in your relationship, filled with frustration and arguements.

[emeralddancer]

Rugby ... I am experiencing that now and I am a beginner .... LOL

[Rugby]

Rugby ... I am experiencing that now and I am a beginner .... LOL

Don't let anyone put pressure on you, including yourself.  Enjoy the ride rather than trying to race to the end of the journey to end up looking  back to see nothing but a rocky road.  Enjoy each victory, even if it's small and know the moves that are difficult now will not be down the road.  Time fixes all things and right now you have to see them as a challenge in the game of dancing.  If it were not for the challenges the game would not be as fun or as satisfying when you finally figure them out.  If it were easy then we would zip through the levels, look around and see nothing left to achieve so move on to something else.

I have had so many competitors that have gone through the levels and are now retired from competing tell me to enjoy the ride and appreciate the journey.  They wish they had not let the frustrations, arguments, resentment, name calling and blaming each other take the fun out of dancing.

To me the real fun and challenge is working together through thick and thin as a team and the satisfaction of being able to do something we couldn't before.  It's not the trophies that are important but the journey we go through to win them.  In the long run you won't remember how many you won or lost but you will remember if you had fun or if it was just a pain in the rear chore. 

 

[QPO]

To me the real fun and challenge is working together through thick and thin as a team and the satisfaction of being able to do something we couldn't before.  It's not the trophies that are important but the journey we go through to win them.  In the long run you won't remember how many you won or lost but you will remember if you had fun or if it was just a pain in the rear chore.  

 

I love this it is so true, this is how we approach our dancing  

[elisedance]

great advice R - the hard part is keeping to it   after all, even the most cherrished career requires dedicated and hard work at times.  But the big picutre should really be as you say...

[Ginger]

Wow... You just... this... is a ... Shatner... Moment...

Anyway- I usually just say "I just don't feel like I have to." If they keep on, I continue with "Well... do you *really * want us to kick your ass? I mean, if it means that much to you, pick a spot, we'll do it by the book..."

I keep hoping that when I turn thirty-five in four years, that people will finally give up on the brat-having. The dancing, maybe if I suck bad enough, they'll stop asking.

What I hate though, is if I act like I might find a comp do-able, things immediately always change. I get that "ha, ha, I KNEW it"... and that just really makes me not want to be with the person who says that. It's like they're trying to rub something in my face by being smug, but... there's nothing to rub in.

Then we have the people around here who go to compete and rub it in everyone's faces when they come back with a handful of "awards"... most are participation awards, the firsts are usually because they're the only ones in a heat, and the rest are because the other couples fell down and died on the floor.

The thing is now that we do some teaching, a competition record or "something tanigible" is expected of us. I think this is starting to put some wear and tear on the partnership on my end, because I'm just way too emo and things are bothering me more than they should, and bla bla bla.

[Dancerette]

Wow... You just... this... is a ... Shatner... Moment...



I keep hoping that when I turn thirty-five in four years, that people will finally give up on the brat-having. The dancing, maybe if I suck bad enough, they'll stop asking.

What I hate though, is if I act like I might find a comp do-able, things immediately always change. I get that "ha, ha, I KNEW it"... and that just really makes me not want to be with the person who says that. It's like they're trying to rub something in my face by being smug, but... there's nothing to rub in.

Then we have the people around here who go to compete and rub it in everyone's faces when they come back with a handful of "awards"... most are participation awards, the firsts are usually because they're the only ones in a heat, and the rest are because the other couples fell down and died on the floor.

LOL!!!!!  You are absolutely hysterical! But more than that, you've illuminated exactly what bugs me about the competition "thing" and I didn't even realize that it was the basis of my lack of interest.