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Ballroom Dance Competition Rules

What I've done here is put together some *very* abridged rules for ballroom dance competitions. I have no intention of copying full rulebooks because some of them like the USA DanceSport Rulebook are available online. I'm sure others could be obtained in printed form from appropriate organizations. What I wanted to do for these brief rules is give a rundown of the various levels competitors can enter, the dances commonly used, and some details about the music like tempo and how long the music is played. I hope that if you are preparing to enter a competition, this information will give you some idea of what to expect. If you're just plain curious, I hope you learn something. :) However, always remember that every competition has its own set of rules and the rules for any individual comp always takes precedence over any general rules such as the ones I'm providing here or that you may find elsewhere. Thanks to my friends at GW and their competitor's FAQ for some of the info about college comps that I didn't have handy.

Quick Links: the dances, college comps, adult comps, music.

The Dances

As mentioned on my main ballroom page, the ballroom dance competitions are divided into four main categories based on the style of dancing and the kind of dances in each cateory. Here's the full list of dances in the order they are danced (when all of them are used) for these four categories of competition along with common abbreviations for the dances: Most copies of the ISTD syllabus do not have the recent revisions; my copy of the ISTD syllabus does, but it may be revised later if I've made any mistakes. However, the majority of levels of competition do not require you to dance all four or five dances in a category. Which dances you do normally depends on which level of competition you enter. Oh, as a little side note East Coast Swing is commonly just called Swing, International Foxtrot is also refered to as Slow Foxtrot, and you may also hear International Waltz called English Waltz or maybe Slow Waltz.

College Competitions

Since I began competing in the college circuit, I'm going to start with the dance levels commonly used in college competitions and the usual breakdown of dances for them. The rules have been changed recently -- as of Fall 1999 the new rules are in effect. The old time-limit restrictions are gone and college comps are now using the same syllabus levels as adult comps with the exception of the newcomer category which is still a characteristic of college competitions and may have a time limit attached to it. You have to check the rules for specific competitions, but normally you are allowed to "dance up" if you desire. This means entering at a level higher than the minimum one you are eligible for. As far as I know, you are *never* allowed to "dance down" -- e.g., if you've already placed out of the silver international quickstep, you must dance it at gold, not silver and not bronze. This is how all dancers are given a fair chance. There is usually at least one Open level at college comps to allow dancers the chance to dance open level routines; plus, once you've placed out of gold syllabus, where else are you going to go? :) (See the section below on moving up for details on earning proficiency points and placing out of levels.)

Typically the newcomer and bronze levels are one-dance events while the silver and gold levels are two-dance events. For one-dance events it's pretty clear what you do -- you go out, dance one dance, then the judges mark you based on how well they saw you dance. For two-dance events it's basically the same thing, but you have to do both dances and your marks are based on how well you did in both dances together. Obviously the two dances are judged individually, but the scores for both dances are put together to actually determine who moves on to the next round or what place you end up with in the finals. The one- and two-dance events I have here may not be exactly what every college comp will use, but it's probably close enough to give you a good idea of what to expect.

You should notice a few things here. At the lower level one-dance events, typically not all of the dances are offered. International foxtrot and samba may or may not be included, depending on the comp (typically they're included at bronze level but not at newcomer level). The two-dance events can't pair everything up since three of the four categories contain five dances. The one that isn't paired usually gets offered as a one-dance event by itself. This means you may see viennese waltz alone in standard, paso doble alone in latin, bolero alone in rhythm, and you might see tango and viennese waltz as two separate one-dance events in smooth. As I said before, these may not be perfect, but they should be fairly accurate.

Moving up: there are specific rules now regarding how long you are allowed to remain at a particular level. This is done in order to keep the playing field level, so to speak, to give all dancers a fair chance at their level. It is based on proficiency points and is essentially a modified version of the standard USABDA rules, but a little more complicated to fit the college picture (e.g., how long you're a student). Proficiency points are earned based on your placing in a particular dance and style. The exact rules can be found on the Ballroom At Maryland site's YCN Proficiency Points Rules web page. Note that seven (7) points places you out of a given (sub-)classification and style. I'm not sure if this is the currently used system or not. Make sure you check the current rules for the comp you plan to attend before assuming anything.

Adult Competitions

Next up is the regular adult competitions. As you'd probably expect these are typically run a bit differently than the college competitions (although as mentioned above, college comp rules are now more like the adult rules). For one thing there are six levels of competition, three syllabus levels and three open levels. These levels are based almost totally on what steps you can dance in them. Other divisions are also included (normally age) so that children won't have to compete against adults, for example. Since that's a different story, I'll just stick to the dance levels here. The syllabus level events may be arranged however the competition organizers see fit. Most likely you will see one or two dance events. I suppose you could also see the open level groupings used for syllabus, but I don't think that's too common. The open level events have specific rules according to the USA DanceSport Rulebook. Novice level has one three-dance event, Pre-Champ has one four-dance event, and Championship has one five-dance event. In some sense, you could think of Novice, Pre-Champ, and Champ as the open level equivalents of Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced, but not exactly. These events are judged in a way similar to the two-dance events (i.e., all the dances are judged separately but your scores in all of them are combined together to determine whether or not you move on or your final placing if you're in the finals ). American Smooth only has four dances in it though, so both pre-champ and champ dance four-dance for smooth; I have written the four-dance smooth in with the other five-dance events though, just so they're all together. Since I've taken these from the USA DanceSport Rulebook in particular, it's not unlikely that elsewhere in the world you'll have different rules. If you needed the rules for other countries, I'm sure you could find some way to get a copy.

Moving up: Under USABDA rules, a proficiency point system is used for determining what level you are eligible to dance at. You can check the rule book for exact details. The basics are about the same as the new college rules. To quote the rulebook from the web:

Note that the placings listed above are the only ones that will earn proficiency points; lower placings do not earn any proficiency points and if only a final is danced no points are earned. As soon as you have earned three (3) proficiency points in a particular dance, style, and level, you are no longer eligible to compete at that level in that dance and style and you must move up to the next highest level. It is certainly reasonable (and legal) to be at different levels in different dances and styles. For example, you might be at gold in international waltz, but silver in international samba, and bronze in American foxtrot. Also note that you only earn one point at a time under the standard USABDA rules.

I'm only giving you the basics here and there are a few things you should check the full rules about. If you earn a point at a level higher than your current classification, you might also automatically earn one for your current classification as well; I'm not sure though. Since there are three open levels, I think you place out of Novice and Pre-Championship the same way you place out of syllabus levels, but I think syllabus points are distinct from open points. Once you reach Championship level, you can stay there forever, you can't place out of it (but if you've placed out of the lower levels you can't go back down). As I said, check the full rules if you need to know the exact details.

The Music

The information I wanted to provide about ballroom competition music can all be placed in one big table. Here are the minimum lengths of each dance and the standard tempo of each (again, according to the USA DanceSport Rulebook). Oh, in case you didn't know, mpm = measures per minute.

Dance Minimum Length Tempo
International Standard
Waltz100 seconds30 mpm
Tango100 seconds33 mpm
Viennese Waltz70 seconds60 mpm
Slow Foxtrot100 seconds30 mpm
Quickstep80 seconds50 mpm
International Latin
Cha Cha100 seconds30 mpm
Samba100 seconds50 mpm
Rumba100 seconds27 mpm
Paso Doble70 seconds62 mpm
Jive70 seconds44 mpm
American Smooth
Waltz100 seconds28-30 mpm
Tango100 seconds30-32 mpm
Foxtrot100 seconds30-32 mpm
Viennese Waltz70 seconds54 mpm
American Rhythm
Cha Cha100 seconds30 mpm
Rumba100 seconds32 mpm
East Coast Swing70 seconds36 mpm
Bolero100 seconds24 mpm
Mambo100 seconds47 mpm

In case you're wondering about other dances, the American style ones outside of the normal nine, here are their tempi, also from the USA DanceSport Rulebook. You might see some of these danced as "fun" or "non-traditional" events, so I guess it's good to know what speed you can expect the music to be at.

Dance Tempo
Hustle28-30 mpm
Merengue29-32 mpm
American Paso Doble58-60 mpm
Peabody60-62 mpm
Polka60-62 mpm
American Samba52 mpm
West Coast Swing28-32 mpm

James Marshall
dronak@yahoo.com (plain ASCII text only, please, here's why)
This page was last updated on November 22, 2005. (links removed/updated)

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