Jack and Jills are Unfair
The JnJ is a competition of those who can tread the waters of unfair obstacles. People who do it often, and well enough, are those who are in good terms with the definition and mechanics of their dancing, combined with the comfort and connection of who they are dancing with.You are not competing with others, but with the former version of yourself. If you plan to compare yourself to others, plan to do so assessing whether or not you are equal in skill level as the others, including your ability to dance through nervousness, anxiety, excitement, injury, and whatever luck you were presented with at the moment.There are people who look good dancing together, but they don’t feel good to dance with. There are people who feel great to dance with, but they don’t look good dancing(in that moment). There are people who think they are doing the dance as defined, but are off-rhythm.
This is what you’re going up against in JnJ:
- Random Partner
- Random Song (including the possibility of DJ error, which skews the consistency and tone of that round)
- Judges unknown beforehand
- When the judges look at you(or that 5-10 seconds on average you get looked at)
- What angle point of view the judge looking at you has. Some movements don’t show well in certain angles, which is often why there’s a skew in scores.
- What criteria the judges value are skewed across the judges.
- You can come up with more of this list, but sometimes you may be going against subconscious or conscious favoritism, bias, etc. (this could both be in favor and against your favor)
** More on this: Competitors who are regularly coached by specific pros who happen to judge:
– It is possible that judges will favorably select their regular students or those recently who took lessons with them.
– It is more likely, that judges would judge you more harshly because they know and have seen you do better, the thought that they have invested their knowledge on you and you have spent time with them, that there is a level of expectation to execute.
– It does not matter how closely you are friends with pros/judges, to my knowledge and experience, they judge quite fairly, because they want to preserve the integrity of the dance, even as it evolves.
This is what is probably true despite all of the former list:
- You do not suck & you are not a bad dancer
- Judges do not hate you
- Your worth as a person is no different than before the competition(whether or not you make finals)
- Your worth as a person “to be around” for the remainder of the event may change, IF you have the results of the JnJ negatively affect you.
- If you seek guidance from judges and others who know about how to dance in JnJ, you will move towards improving your results the next competition.
- Someone who made it through to the finals made it through because they were selected, not because they are better than you. Do not let feelings get in the way of this.
This may be continued to be updated as more information gets shared.
Some jack and jill videos below from Zouk Worlds on @zoukology insta
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