From: death@alexandria.lcs.mit.edu (Mark A. Sheldon)
Subject: Restricted syllabus
Gatewayed-From: ballroom@athena.mit.edu
Reply-To: death@alexandria.lcs.mit.edu (Mark A. Sheldon)
Organization: None
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:50:48 GMT
Keywords: ballroom, mailing list


   Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 20:30:22 +0100
   From: troyer@ips.id.ethz.ch

   ...
   death@alexandria.lcs.mit.edu (Mark A. Sheldon) writes

     Competition entry materials clearly state that
     competitors must obey the ISTD syllabus for chosing figures, alignments,
     and legal precedes and follows.  Thus a Gold Foxtrot dancer may dance a
     reverse wave (a bronze figure) and a back feather (a gold figure), but
     these two may not be danced in combination because of the
     precedes/follows restrictions.  (This was true when I competed in Gold;
     the syllabus may have changed in this case, but the example still
     conveys the sort of restrictions there are.)

   These are exactly the restrictions that I find unnecessary. There are a lot
   of ways in which basic figures can be combined or varied. And I see
   no reason not to allow that particular combination. In fact we danced it
   at the time when we competed at lower levels. But now these variations
   are not allowed any longer for the dancers at the novice levels.

   I am glad that I do not have to compete at closed syllabus levels in 
   Standard any longer. Just imgaine you dance Standard and are about to
   collide with another couple. Sure, for an experienced dancer it is no
   problem to dance an out-of-trouble step and continue. But for a 
   beginner it's very hard and there is just no time to think of the 
   syllabus restriction in such a situation. What should one do? 
   collide? stop dancing? risk disqualification? I believe that the 
   people who invented these restrictions did not think about such 
   a situation.

Well, I have to agree that I find at least some of the restrictions
silly.  The one I cited above used to get under my skin especially.
However, the problems with obstacle avoidance are not so bad as you
might think.  In fact, the syllabus figures include plenty of
opportunities for hovering, changing direction, or whatever.  The
problem is that once you get in the habit of using contra-checks, basic
oversways, left whisks, chair lines, stalks, etc. etc. to avoid people
and find clear floor, it's hard to purge the instinct.  In syllabus
waltz I could use hesitations, impetus turns, and whisks (with the
different allowable amounts of turn :-) to avoid people.  I'm better at
avoiding people now, but I don't think it's the figures.  My coach does
a good job of floorcraft when he competes with his students in closed
events.  You just have to learn to think again in terms of the syllabus.
Admitedly, things get easier as you get a larger vocabulary, but the
syllabus does provide a fairly reasonable collection of figures.

I think the syllabus was not designed for people to migrate from
unrestricted to restricted categories, but the reverse.  Now what they
were thinking when they outlawed reverse wave to back feather, I haven't
the foggiest.

Could we have some input from other countries?  How about England,
Japan, Norway, Canada, or anywhere else?

-Mark