Quote: ." So now we have an example of someone who worked as hard as any amateur does and made the jump into the pro ranks and is doing admirably well her first year.
Sorry, but this is just not what happened.
An old issue of Dance Beat that I have contains an interview with Blondell after she won the pro-am event at USDSC. In it she says that she danced as an amateur for a long time and made the semis of the Usabda national championships. Then she started dating Agrello and began dancing with him in this unusual pro-am arrangement that went far beyond what most pro-ams student can expect, except in cases where they have lots of money and a teacher with sufficient time to provide them with that much practice/lesson time (and generally, teachers with that much time are not current competing pros at the top of their game).
So all I am saying is that the idea that Blondell popped up through the pro-am system to become a pro is hardly an accurate representation of what happened.
Okay, good point. I've noticed that many of the really good Pro/Am dancers do dance in amateur partnerships, or have for a while, or go back and forth between them depending on whether there's an appropriate amateur partner available to them or not. Some started in Pro/Am, some started as amateurs.
Did Adriana Chessa ever have an amateur partner before she turned Pro? She danced Rhythm with John Abrams professionally and did quite well while they were together.
What about Scott Anderson's talented young ProAm competitor of two years ago(I apologize for blanking out on her name, I am getting old and forgetting names constantly)? She won Standard and Smooth at every comp and was about to turn Pro but had a baby instead? OK her parents paid for her lessons and I don't know how many she had a week, but wouldn't she count? And do you all remember when Adrianna Chessa was ProAm, dancing with Andrew Phillips for Latin and her dad for Smooth. OK, that doesn't count either, her dad owned a studio. Ann Zebinski anyone? Danced ProAm with Rosendo Fumero then turned pro with him. Dina DelPriori, who danced ProAm with David Rosario then turned Pro with him. Lori Putnins, whom we all saw grow up doing ProAm with Dan Messenger.Shirley Balas had an incredible student who turned Pro(forgot his name too), I know there are lots more ProAm men and women who are not married to or daughters of, paid for their own lessons and were young enough and good enough to turn Pro.Help everybody. Steve M., where are you here? Especially as you were targeted in that last paragraph (married to a Pro but dance with an amateur)?
Quote: To tell you the truth, the lives of the top amateurs also have very little to do with the typical adult amateur out there.
Yes, there are people in the amateur ranks who got an inordinate amount of support for an early start. But there are also people who are fairly competitive and different from you and I only in the degree of the choices they make. Most adult amatuers on the other hand are primarily limited by the choices they refuse to make.
I'd take Mark & Didi as an example of the 'degree of choices' middle group. No, they won't win the worlds, but finals in senior at Blackpool puts them well up there in the rare category compared to the rest of us. I don't know when Didi started, but for Mark it was in college or perhaps graduate school. While they certainly practice and travel more than most, they both have careers and families and seem like fairly ordinary members of the local community. I'm not saying every one of us would be free to make the choices and achieve the results they have, but they are a fairly convincing demonstration that a high level of dedication and resulting achievement is at least plausible.
A good list Berry, especially with regard to Adriana, who never danced amateur as far as I know, and especially Corky Ballas, who even though he married his teacher and danced with her has to earn extra points as the only pro-am dancer ever to win a Blackpool event.
To go back to my original point, it was was that the writer of this piece seemed to know little about his subject and and picked a bad example to make his case.
Quote: Steve M., where are you here? Especially as you were targeted in that last paragraph (married to a Pro but dance with an amateur)?
I wasn't specifically thinking of Steve when I wrote that...I was thinking of two other people first, and then I realized that it also applied to Steve. And I just thought of yet another person who it applies to. There's probably more than those four. It doesn't matter to me, I brought it up as a sort of "so what's the next thing people are going to start complaining about" comment.
Quote: And what about amateur dancers who are married to Pros but dance with other amateurs...are we going to start saying snarky things about their unfair advantages too?
I have an unfair advantage, which is that I have a fabulous dance partner to compete with.
Quote: Yes, there are people in the amateur ranks who got an inordinate amount of support for an early start. But there are also people who are fairly competitive and different from you and I only in the degree of the choices they make. Most adult amatuers on the other hand are primarily limited by the choices they refuse to make.
Wow, it is so clear to me now. I am not at Championship level because of the sacrifices I haven't made. The first thing I am going to do is get a new partner. My current partner is my wife and if I leave her to take care of our son, that leaves me free pursue my dream. I will surely find somebody younger and richer and already knows how to dance at a high level. Without a time machine to go back and change certain decisions I made before dance, I will just have to make the tough decisions now. If it works, I am stealing this idea from Chris and then write my own self improvement book. I will call it, Cut the Dead Weight Out of Your Life, or Scrape the Crap off your Shoes and Move On.
