When it comes down to it, dancesport is about competing, so the competitions a competitor goes to will be of supreme importance. If you choose your competitions wisely, you'll find the sport to be much more satisfying and fun.
Frequency
Even if you are mostly interested in dancesport as a way to polish and charge up your social dancing, attending a competition or two every year is still a good idea. Competitions give you excellent deadlines you can use to focus your efforts. Also, you might just decide you like it, and want to dedicate yourself more fully to the sport!
On the other hand, even the most dedicated competitor can have too much of a good thing, especially when they are new. Remember that in addition to being a place to show off and potentially win ribbons or trophies, competition is a gauge of your progress. Your performance and placements will give you excellent feedback on what dances you are weak in, and where your strengths lie. That information is useless, however, if you have no time to address your weaknesses before you have to perform again. The new competitor should allow at least a month between competitions, so they can work on their problem areas.
Availability and Specializing
Depending on the choices you've made in your training, certain competitions are going to provide more opportunities for you to compete than others. Do your homework, and try to maximize you on-floor time. There's nothing more stressful that going to competition and waiting around for hours to perform!
For example, if you train exclusively in International style dances, a competition that offers only International competition will often have more possible entries per dance for you than one that offers both International and American. Likewise, even if you are a generalist, and compete in both American and International, but are competing Pro-Am, many competitions will offer few events for you, so make sure to track down ones that focus more on Pro-Am events.
Budget
Competition can be very expensive, so budget what you are willing to spend on them in a year ahead of time. The new competitor needs to come to terms with the need to compromise. Picking a cheap competition that offers only a few events you can compete in will leave you unsatisfied, as will having to give up all but one competition to go to that perfect extravaganza that eats up your entire budget.
As we discussed in the last chapter, university competitions are usually the least expensive, but they generally only offer a few events, mostly group events in American (in North America) and International styles. They may have an occasional team event, but almost never any Pro-Am or Theatrical Arts events. Along the same lines, closed competitions are usually the most expensive, but they generally offer a smörgåsbord of events, so every competitor get to dance as much as possible. The others will fall somewhere in-between, and only your own research will find you the right balance between cost and opportunity.
First Year Recommendation
As a rule of thumb, the new competitor should try a little bit of everything, so try to attend a mix of as many different kinds of competitions you can manage. Dancesport competitors should attend at least two competitions per year, so they always have a goal in sight. However, it is best to attend no more than six competitions a year, allowing an average of two months between to work on your skills.
Once you are active in the sport, your own experiences will tell you what's right for you.
