the Price of Dance Lessons

While I had been socially dancing for a number of years, I decided to seek some formal training in a specific area of dance this summer. I have found dancing instruction usually falls into two categories. You either have a dance studio that promotes a number of instructors who share space in a dance environment or you have a single individual, who teaches either group or one on one dancing. I sought out an individual that taught the specific style of swing dancing, called Push dancing, and took one of his group classes. He also did not require that you sign up for months and months of lessons just to learn from him. The difference between the individual and the group class is an individual class will allow for more specific one-on-one instruction, but it usually will be more expensive. While a group class, doesn't have that one-on-one instruction, it does offer the camaraderie of your peers, who are all trying to learn the same thing. Most group dance classes also have mandatory rotation of partners, which forces you to learn to dance with different expertise levels and styles of dance partners.This in my opinion is a much more normal social dancing experience. You will seldom be dancing with just an expert dancing partner. This also allows for single people to show up and not be concerned about not having a partner.

The lessons took place on a Sunday afternoon, in a large dance studio with wooden floors. There was between 18 and 20 people, divided between leaders and followers, which is also men and women. There were a couple more women in this class present than they were men, as normally is the case. There were extra men present that were utilized as dance host for the extra lone women . The class started off teaching the basics of the steps with both sets of partners in straight lines across the floor facing large mirrors, so we could see and practice our technique. Then we practiced in two straight lines facing each other. After we had mastered these basic steps, we were paired up and practiced walking through the steps with a partner. Once we started working with partners, periodically every three or four minutes we would rotate so that we would not become dependent upon the style or the expertise level of the person that we were dancing with. As a male this is very important to becoming a good leader.It probably wasn't until nearly half way that we used music to complement the new steps we had learned. The class lasted for three hours with a couple of short breaks, though it was informal enough that any time that you needed to excuse yourself, you could do that. This was just basically one class, and I know it takes many to become a good dancer. The instructor also broke up some of the time by explaining some of the history of the dance steps and where they had come from and been developed.

I felt this class provided a very good value at $10 a person and that there would be no problems coming back over and over until one felt that he had mastered the basic technique before moving up to a more intermediate level.

The instructor that I chose was highly respected and very experienced in the local dance community. He also has a set of videos that I partook of so that I would have a point of reference to remember what I had learned. This also allowed me to see the steps again over and over and so that I would have the extra opportunity to practice on my own.