If You Try Something, You Are An Olympian Too Elita Sohmer Clayman

Dancing in a ballroom dance competition is a feat in itself. It is a declaration of you feeling you are ready to compete against other people doing about the same level of dancing you do. In the old days of 1980 or so, things were a bit different. When you signed up to compete, you may be put in a division with many different age groups. That was not a competent way to expect dancers to dance and compete. At that time, you at forty-three could be competing against someone who was twenty-three. It was too far an age difference to really get good results. A fifty year old could have been competing against an eighty year old dancer and that was not a great way to grade people.

Everyone who decides to become a competitor wants for the time they have studied and prepared to be a fair time and they want a chance to be a winner. If you have a disparity in ages, it becomes inequality and inharmonious in full force. Everyone who chooses to be a dance competitor has to spend lots of money to take the lessons to become prepared to go the dancing route. If someone is twenty years younger than you, the student, it lessens your chance to show that you excel in your dancing hobby.

When I first competed in 1983, my husband and I were going to do one round together, as the rest of the dancing I was going to accomplish with my dance coach. My husband and I took a set of lessons to prepare us for this big event-especially since he never wanted to compete before this time. We were well prepared with a routine and we were going to go into about four heats as they are called. When we got to Kansas City, Kansas for the competition, we immediately read the program and saw we were competing against about two other couples. That was a fine way for him to be initiated into competition days.

The first night there we had dinner as a group and we saw a couple whose names were listed as competing against us. At that time, I was forty-nine and he was fifty-three. We realized that Amber and John were about twenty five or so. Here they were listed to be dancing against us at those ages. The third couple listed in the heat, we did not know their ages.

When my husband realized that, he decided to opt out of dancing. The next morning, we did not show up for the event and later we realized that neither did Amber and John. They had drunk too much the night before at the introductory party and never came down. Of course, we felt bad because we realized that we could have won a trophy with only competing against one other couple.

After many years of this way of pairing couples with other couples in heats, the judges decided it was not a fair policy of running competitions. They instituted age brackets. Now if you are twenty-five to thirty-five in age, you will be competing against your same age group. They have even divided us seniors into groups like fifty-sixty five, sixty five to seventy-five and over that it becomes seventy five and above.

This way everyone who has the desire to spend the money for extra coaching lessons and to spend it to travel to the location and also to pay the teachers for their time; wants the chance to be able to possibly win an award. This is fairer to the competitors and also to the teachers who have to choreograph what the student will attempt in their competition times.

Wouldn’t be lovely if other events in life could be divided by age grouping? For instance, if someone wanted to learn to play the piano and then wanted to compete in a concert against other amateurs; it would be relevant if someone who took lessons for four years was competing against another person who was taking lessons for about the same time. They might not have to have age divisions too much in something like that. If of course, it was a kid who had taken piano lessons for four years, he or she would not be competing against a person of fifty who had taken for four years.

A dentist friend of mine has a nine year old daughter who ballroom dances with her ten year old male partner. They dance in competitions against children who are basically in their age groups; perhaps up to eleven would be a good group. Teens dance against teens, seniors are divided as I stated above and two amateurs dancing together do not get placed in a duo of one professional with his student. Amateur couples mentioned above like the nine year old only dance against kids in their own age group, possibly others can be about two years difference.

If in life, we could sometimes be paired in things against our own at the present age group that could be a different kind of event.

Our first cruise to Nassau in about 1970, the majority of the cruisers coming from Baltimore, were all card players and they had small little competitions between them on the cruise. The leader of their group paired them against each other based on how long they were card players and how much knowledge they had to compete. We watched them once in the afternoon and that is the way she divided them into sections according to their knowledge. There were no age barriers or divisions; it was purely based on competency of the card games. All who had gathered to be on this trip with the card maven (expert) leader were very happy in their competition hours. It proved that anyone could win and everyone who was a contender and who strived to win at this game; did indeed have an equal chance.

Equal competitiveness is like equal opportunity, but in the hobby world. Card playing, tennis playing, ballroom dancing all belong in the categories of leisure activities. Leisure means having fun and feeling fulfilled.

Equality is just that and Herman Melville said “it is the center and circumference of all democracy.”

Therefore, we need democracy in life with fair treatment, even in hobbies that match us against others in various activities. This way we can hope to win sometimes, not necessarily all the time, but it gives us the opportunity and therefore we strive and make the effort to win. Even if we do not win this particular time, we know that eventually we do have that chance, because the age groups are individualized and all our hard work will eventually pay off. We also know that we are champions because we tried and we were entitled to have the opportunity to do so.

To try is to really be a victor whether you attained a trophy or medal. After having five physical therapy sessions for my aching right knee; the kind therapist Cheryl Conrad told me today she was proud of me because I was persevering in doing the exercises, which sometimes hurt doing them more than the actual pain I came there to ease. I did not need an age group for these therapy sessions; I was only competing against myself.

Whatever you desire to compete in, always know that you are a number one person and it is always great to be a ‘number one anything ‘at any age, from nine years or to ninety-nine. Just the thought of competing, makes you an Olympian right here in this country, in your own city.