Taking Ballroom Latin Dance Seriously
How To Look For The Right Teacher For Your Private Lessons
Jun 10, 2009
For those dancers who are starting to take their dancing seriously may opt for private lessons where they can progress at their own pace and take their dancing to a new level. Before finding the right teacher, there are a few things to consider:
- Decide what kind of dances to do, Ballroom Standard or Ballroom Latin. It is better to look for a teacher who is a specialist in one particular dance style.
- Check the local studio and find out teachers available for private lessons.
- The dance scene is more international nowadays. If possible, check the nationality of teachers and the medium of teaching.
- Check qualifications of teachers and teaching experience for reference.
- Check the fees charged per lesson and packages available.
- It is not advisable to ask too much opinions from friends. Chances are that their comments may be too subjective. It is always better to do your own research. Private dance lessons are a very personal experience, after all.
Having got some ideas, it is better to go for some trial lessons. The trial lessons can be treated as an interview. Students are actually hiring someone to teach dancin, so it is no different from any other kind of recruiting.
At The Trial Lesson Note The Following
- Prepare some questions to ask. They could be about learning goals. See what the teacher has to offer to match these goals.
- Dancing and teaching are two different matters. Dancing is an art not science that is abstract. It cannot be taught like mathematics. It is important that the teacher can illustrate steps clearly as well as explain the basic technique patiently.
- Check the availability of the teacher. Avoid teachers who have to leave town often for competitions. The teacher needs to check progress of his students every week and to correct mistakes in a timely fashion. If a teacher is absent too often, the student may suffer in his learning.
- Do look for teachers who also take lessons themselves so that they can also update the students with the latest techniques.
- Physically fit teachers tend to inspire students more, because their physical condition shows they also practice hard themselves.
It may take more than one trial lesson at different studios to make a choice. But it is worth the effort because teachers and private lessons are for long term. And it is to the best interest of the student to get the most out of his or her investment.
What the top class professionals do not teach
It is common in Asia for Ballroom and Latin students (apart from professional competitors) to take lessons with current ranking world champions in Ballroom or Latin Dance if they happen to be in town. The fact is, these top dancers may not be as good at explaining techniques as a regular local teacher. They can obviously demonstrate complicated movements with great ease, but with little explanation, the student will end up copying the movements without understanding the theory behind.
It is therefore not advisable to go to these top-class professionals until students are at a high level in dancing themselves.
Return On Investment Only Comes From Hard Work
No matter how good a dance teacher may be, he o she cannot make a student dance well unless the student practices. Private students must be prepared to take in lots of information from the teacher and practice hard for the benefit of improving their dancing. There are cases where rich students spend fortunes in private lessons, but never get good results in competitions. The return on investment can only come from commitment to hard work.
