ONE OF THE burning regrets in my life is that I do not speak fluent Venusian. The nuances of the language have eluded me despite my best efforts, and I am slowly beginning to accept that I will never fully comprehend it.

I have also realised the average Venusian has little knowledge of the language of Mars – for the length of this intro, let’s take John Gray’s sweeping generalisation founded on the gender differences hypothesis without the mandatory sack of salt – and absorbs a lot less of her partner’s communication than is ideal.

Which can be a recipe for disaster in competitive ballroom.

The extreme interdependency in dancesport – after marriage, it is the highest form of contact sport, I believe – produces a different kind of team dynamics, requiring a more sensitive and demanding communicative chemistry. My own research into this – mostly by way of proactive eavesdropping on the practice floor – stresses the need for better verbal and non-verbal interaction, particularly during the extended practice sessions most competitive couples tend to put in. Just count the number of times you have seen malevolent stares and rolling eyes on the floor this week, and heard “You are dragging me!”, “What are you trying to do?” and “You are too high!”, and you begin to get the picture.

Fortunately, ‘good’ partnerships manage to work through this somehow. The high levels of intrinsic motivation – the degree to which a participant’s engagement in the sport is driven by his/her inherent interest in it – and task orientation – the pleasure s/he derives from acquiring the ability to perform the activity in question effectively – that most successful athletes seem to have arguably help them tide over it, and partners evolve their own ways of negotiating the situation.

That is great. But counterproductive athlete-athlete communication – and I use it as an umbrella term to include non- and mis-communication as well – is still limiting. At best, it is a frustrating irritant; at worst, a major drag on the performance resources of the partnership.

Again, as many scholars would agree, so long as there is continuing communication, there is bound to be miscommunication; perfect communication is as much a rarity as the perfect dance (and that, as we know, happens only on Strictly). Still, there is plenty dancers can do to bridge the communication gap and encourage better performance.

Which brings us to this column. The idea is to present some broad thoughts that competitive dancers might find useful. This comes very early in a research project that sports psychologist Amanda Wilding and I are engaged in at the Bournemouth University, into a need gap we have identified – surprising how little academic attention dancesport has received despite its popularity – and is in no way exhaustive, but, hopefully, it is a beginning, some food for thought…

Recognise the centrality of communication

Communication is the glue that holds together a partnership (for that matter, any group, big or small), yet it is not something we consciously focus on or work at improving. An excellent piece of indicative evidence is the space most sports texts fail to dedicate to this crucial aspect. By and large, sports psychologists and coaches write about concepts supported by communication (motivation, goal-setting, leadership, teambuilding, that sort of thing), relegating communication itself to the backyard, a small section tucked away somewhere deep inside.

In the practical sphere, elite athletes seem to comprehend the significance of communication. But this comprehension, I get the feeling, is rather peripheral, leading to not much concrete action on it. Most dancers reflect on the positives and negatives of a training session, but how many actually analyse his/her communication and think, “Shucks, I shouldn’t have put it that way when I fed back on that running weave. Next time I will phrase it differently!”

A more awakened recognition of the centrality of communication is needed if dancers are to proactively work on improving it. Think of communication the same way you think of maintaining a strong ‘centre’ while dancing. Imagine letting your core muscles go as you begin your routine. Will you survive? Not. Soon everything collapses – your frame, your posture, your connection, your footwork. Communication serves the same central purpose in a partnership, and needs to be recognised – and worked on – as much.

Expect to misunderstand – and be misunderstood

Also known as ‘Be prepared to clarify – and listen to clarification’. Osmo Wiio, a Finnish communications scholar, has an interesting take on this, which can be summarised thus: if communication can fail, it will. Now that may be an overtly pessimistic view – Wiio has come up with the equivalent of Murphy’s law for communications, a set of seven-plus statements, every single one as discouraging as its fellows (read a commentary on it here) – but it is telling on the issues we face in our interpersonal interactions.

Fact is, communication is never simple. The thought we ‘encode’ (formulate our message into words) and ‘transmit’ (speak or write or telephone or email that message) to the listener is rarely received and ‘decoded’ (reconstructed into a message from the words received) the way we meant it to be.

There is too much ‘noise’ – anything that distracts, interferes – going on as we encode, as we transmit, as we decode (articulation or language issues, bias and preconceptions, personality, attention span, whether your boss yelled at you that day; besides of course ‘external’ interferences such as someone calling for your attention, your partner’s verbal or non-verbal cues, bad ‘turn-taking’, loud music, etc, etc), too many variables to wrestle with. Proof? Just think of the times you hear “No, that’s not what I meant!” or “You are twisting my words!” as you go about your business.

So, in essence, expect to be misunderstood – and be prepared to remedy that misunderstanding, to rearticulate your message in a different way. Equally important, expect to misunderstand. Be aware of the danger, and – this is crucial – cultivate the patience to hear the partner out when s/he says the magic words (or the equivalent thereof), “Let me clarify that…” Take it at face value, then reanalyse, modify your own earlier response. Not much purpose will be served if you stick to your guns and go, “No, that’s not what you just said!”

Continue reading this article: Message from Mars 2

Image: Kind courtesy clipart.com

Tags: ballroom, communication, dance, dancesport, latin, standard

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Footnotes, Reports on Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.