Updated October 3, 2026

When I was new to the world of competitive pro-am ballroom, I was overwhelmed by the numerous style, age and skill level categories, not to mention the different heats that you could enter at a competition within those categories. Here is a basic breakdown for anyone who is just getting started and feels like their head is spinning from trying to keep it all straight.

First, pro-am is short for professional-amateur. In pro-am ballroom competitions, a student (the amateur) partners with a professional dancer (typically their own teacher). The student can dance the lead or follow role. The pair dances against other teacher-student pairs in the same style, age category, and skill level. The students are the ones being judged. Typically, leader students are judged against other leader students, and follower students are judged against other follower students, though sometimes they are combined into one event when the total number of dancers is small.

At one competition, a teacher will often be dancing with multiple students, but obviously not in all of the same categories (you can’t dance with two students at once!). When you are watching a competition, you may see people on the dancefloor who aren’t actually competing against one another. If only one or two people entered a specific category/dance, such as Full Bronze Waltz A (that will make more sense at the end of the article), to save time, the competition may have them go out to dance at the same time as Full Bronze Waltz B. You could have three couples on the floor dancing in three different categories. So if you are watching a competition and wonder why you are seeing drastically different age groups or skill levels on the floor, you may be seeing multiple events happening at once.

The opportunities to compete as a pro-am ballroom dancer are vast. In the United States, there are multiple organizations that sanction competitive events, including the National Dance Council of America (NDCA), USA Dance, Fred Astaire Dance Studios, and Arthur Murray Dance Studios. My experiences as a competitor were mainly at NDCA competitions, and the terms I use here, such as for age groups and skill levels, may be different from what you’ve heard.

Skill Levels

There are four styles within ballroom dance: International Latin, International Ballroom (a.k.a. Standard), American Rhythm, and American Smooth (often just called “Smooth” as the style has grown in popularity around the world). The skill levels for pro-am are, from lowest to highest, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. These levels are based on the dance syllabus levels and may be listed as “open” or “closed”. When you are dancing in a Closed Bronze event, you must stick to the dance steps or patterns that are categorized as Bronze level moves. If you compete in an “Open” skill category, you are not as restricted to specific steps or patterns of that level and are permitted to add more styling and flair to your dancing. Open Gold is often just called Open and is the highest level you can compete at as a pro-am dancer.

The skill levels may be subdivided further, including pre, intermediate, and full, based on the steps and technique you’re expected to learn as you progress in your dancing. For example, someone competing in Full Bronze would be expected to know more than someone competing in Pre-Bronze. Competitions also offer a Newcomer level below Pre-Bronze for those just getting their feet wet. You can move up to a higher level whenever you want (i.e. Bronze to Silver), but once you do, you can’t go back down. Some people will stay in Bronze for years. Others will move up to Silver in their first year of dancing. You can also skip levels. After I won a world championship in Closed Silver, my teacher and I moved to the Open category. Every person is different, and there are no rules about how long you stay in one category.

I once heard the Bronze and Silver levels described like elementary school and high school. There are a lot more years of elementary school because there is a lot more to learn. The foundation of your education has to be large enough to support whatever is built on top of it. Therefore, you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) move up into the higher levels like Silver or Gold until you have mastered all of the basics that Bronze covers.

Age Categories

Along with the skill levels, there are age categories identified as letters such as A, B, C, and S. Each category represents an open-ended age range, with A being the youngest. Per NDCA rules, A is age 19+, B is age 36+, C is age 51+, S1 is age 61+, S2 is age 71+, S3 is age 76+, and S4 is age 81+. You are allowed to dance “down” an age group, i.e. you can be 40 and compete in age group A, but you cannot dance “up”, so if you are 30, you cannot enter age group B. Not every competition will include every age category, and some will subdivide them further, if the number of competitors is too high for one event.

Single Vs. Multi-Dance Events

When you are ready to enter your first pro-am competition, your teacher will be your guide in deciding which events to enter at what skill and age levels. Your events (also called heats) may be single dances or multi-dances. Single dance heats are judged individually, so you receive a placement for each dance. If you are dancing the Smooth style, for example, and entered single dances for Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot and Viennese Waltz, you would receive a placement for each of those four dances. Multi-dance events are judged as a whole, so after dancing your four Smooth dances, you would receive one placement based on your performance in all of the dances. Single dances are typically scheduled before any multi-dance events, and many pro-am dancers enter them as warm-up rounds. The multi-dance events at competitions are where you can dance away with a trophy and/or title, and therefore come with more “prestige” than the single dance events.

Pro Tip: A multi-dance event called a Scholarship usually comes with a cash prize, so I always recommend my fellow pro-am dancers to make sure they enter that one. 😉

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I hope this piece helped clarify the basics of how pro-am competitions are organized. If you want to learn more about what to expect as you venture into the world of ballroom dance, check out my e-book, Dance Diaries: Learning Ballroom Dance: What I Wish I Had Known.