just to clarify

i know that this doesn't mean much to anybody, but i just wanted to clarify. i was reading a few of my old posts and realized a lot had changed in my plans for competition next year and that a lot of the info you have has now changed. :( sorry.
anyways... so my partner and i decided that we were going to compete open standard 5 dance and open smooth 4 dance.
in competition you can either compete syllabus or open individually.

syllabus: when you compete any of the dances in any of three levels of difficulty. bronze (being the simplest) , silver (being the next in difficulty) and gold( being the most difficult). you wear a white top and black skirt/pants. no lifts no props. judging in priorities is technique and then performance.

open: when you compete certain categories like standard, smooth, rythm and/or latin. in each of the categories there are either four or five dances. in champ you dance all of the dances. but in pre-champ, you only dance 3 of the dances, and you do not compete with with the champ dancers. you dance in costume and can use whatever steps you want to some degree. no lifts, no props ect. judging in priorities is performance and then technique.

in open you can dance any of the four categories standard, smooth, latin and/or rythm

standard 5 dance: includes waltz, viennese waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and tango. even though it's open, you don't have a lot of freedom. you are in closed dance position most of the time and you rarely leave it. i will be in a formal ballroom gown. :)

Smooth 4 dance: includes waltz, vieneese waltz, foxtrot and tango. no quickstep. darn. in smooth you have a lot more freedom than in standard (aka you dont always have to be in closed dance position). you wear a different, more casual gown than in standard.

so my partner and i have already started our choreography lessons with our lovely coach nicole! :) she is wonderful. we are working on the waltz right now. i like it. and we are also working on finding a technique coach.... yeah.
so that is what is going on right now and if it changes again, which is likely, then you will all be the first to know about it. :) so yeah...