This thread is NOT intended to be controversial ... just interested in others opinions

Having had a week or so of New Zealand Ceroc, its rather got me thinking about previous concersations about int v advanced dancers and whether Ceroc should be for dancing and/or social.

My brief observation about Ceroc down here is that the focus is very much more on the dancing rather than the social. They have beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons and the lessons are llnger, with about 6/8 moves per session. There is a far greater preponderance of drops and they seem overall to take their dancing more seriously ... and that shows in the finished result.

Thinking back to the UK ... the biggest difficuly that advanced dancers is finding other advanced dancers to practice with. For social dancing, no probs ... lots of lovely dancers countrywide ... BUT, if you want to take your dancing seriously, where do you do? There are bno advanced classes, few workshops and at a freestyle event, how many dancers are there that you can do you most complex/interpretative moves to. The ladies have a far harder time of it. My dance partner feels she needs to get down to London and Rock Bottoms to get her 'fix' of good dancers.

Coming back to music, my personal view is (and please feel free to flame me if you think I'm wrong) is that the vast majority of dancers basicaly do moves to the music, whereas only the minority of dancer really interpret the music and DANCE accordingly. This is no more clearer than when a blues or jazz track comes on. The floor can clear leaving just the really experienecd daners making something of what can be a complex beat structure. As a DJ I would love to put on more complex tracks ... e.g. "Talking all that Jazz" ... but I know that 70% of dancers won't enjoy it.

So ... is any of the above making any sense or am I just setting myslef up to be labelled an elitest saddoo ... again.

Just as a last point, as a teacher doing the Kiwi advanced (and some intermediate) classes ... its been refreshing to be part of a class again finding it hard to do moves, doing them wrong, forgetting the sequence and been corrected by my partner ..... reminds you what its like for people in your class ...