I'm shaping up, (shaping up?) for the ACT Salsa Championships which will be held in Canberra on Saturday July 11, 2009. The event is a qualifier for the best performing couple in a category for the Australian Salsa Classic 2009 (Championships).

The state/territory events are organised and run around the country with the big event The Australian Salsa Classic on show in Sydney 28-29-30 of August. Winning this, then qualifies the couple for the ESPN World Championships to be held in Las Vegas all expenses paid. Shite, there is money to be had in dance!

Dance competition which is a sport has, unlike martial arts comps unique peculiarities (challenges) one of which is, you are in close proximity with a dance partner. That close proximity generates tensions that must be addressed in order to be successful. But there are other factors as well.

What are some of those challenges/factors?

First of all like all sporting competitions, being familiar with the rules is non negotiable. You MUST be aware of the rules and what the judges will be looking for in order to maximise your chances of winning a place.

If you select the wrong piece of music, then creating choreography can be a nightmare. By selecting the right piece that both you and your dance partner like, will go a long way to not only enjoying the music but also enjoy the process of creativity which of course is your choreography. Dancing should be fun right? But it’s also about providing a show that is entertaining to the audience and the judges. If your routine is all of that, then you have seriously intimidated the other competitors!

You must also leave yourself enough time to create the choreography before the event. Doh! This seems obvious but you would be surprised how late in the piece a lot of dance partners leave this and then decide. It’s a no brainer then to realise how much tension and frustration is generated because time is rapidly running out and hence how unprepared you are or will be in fact. Unless both of you are pro's and have 8 hours a day to spare for practice, then leave plenty of weeks or even months ahead of you for a polished product.

I mentioned earlier, the tension that is generated when in close proximity with your dance partner. This could be as simple as bad BO (body odour!) but all jokes aside no matter how much you both connect with each other, it will be an extremely rare couple to experience no tension at all during the course of training.

Some of that tension could be things like: musical interpretation, timing with the music, technique and styling and even what costume to wear. Blockage, meaning that you've hit a spot in the music and no ideas are being generated for choreography and even feeling sore and tired. Sometimes, frustration can occur with a dance partner in the sense they have more experience than you and therefore feel they 'carry' you over the course of training. Another source of frustration could be that one person in the couple is more committed...

How to generate success.

Having had a lot of experience in martial competitions, I believe it’s important to find 'triggers' in yourself that will allow you to relax and thus to perform better. It goes without saying that half the battle is won if you are thoroughly prepared. The trigger or triggers that I am referring to are ideas, beliefs, attitudes or rituals that you might use to help prepare yourself for the big day - the other 50%

A concrete example for me (and I realise this is a bit silly but hey it worked!) is that when I started competing in martial arts, I ALWAYS competed unshaved. My results were nothing to write home about. I then decided after a few years to thoroughly groom myself and lo and behold, I started to win. Of course it could be argued that over the course of a few years, i got better at skill but I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that being clean shaven, for some weird reason helped me to sharpen up (pun intended!) and decimate the opposition. Perhaps this goes to the heart of the Samurai ethic that you should always wear clean underpants when preparing for battle...

Another concrete example is taken from Slim the Hammerman. This bloke is a master at breaking chains and leveraging sledgehammers. In order to successfully break himself out of the chains that were binding him and to leverage the hammer (incredible feats of strength mind you) he ALWAYS approached the feat in the same manner by taking the same steps and swinging the chain 3 times and never altering once. This worked for him.

To conclude, keep the following in mind: prepare yourself thoroughly so as to be 100% ready for the competition. This will give you a 50% chance in taking out the top spot. Unlike the lotto, these are good odds. Find yourself a method that will allow you to relax and to be comfortable and confident and therefore to further increase the odds to your favour. My method was to be clean shaven; the Hammerman’s was to approach his strength feat without altering his steps. Find your method and stick to it.