My problem with dance classes

[klwilliams]

I finally realized why I don't like taking beginning waltz classes: everyone in them is a beginner. I don't want to learn to dance with a bunch of men who are also learning to dance, because then all we do is stumble around stepping on each other. I want to learn from black belts, not white belts. It goes much faster that way.

Comments

[zoccolaro.livejournal.com]

The best beginner classes are the ones who have advanced dancers to help guide the beginners. Having beginners dancing with beginners is an easy recipe for slow advancement, unfortunately. =/

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I saved up my money and bought private lessons at that dancing place in Santa Clara (I think it was Santa Clara....)

[darcyjavanne.livejournal.com]

I like the notion of black belt ballroom dancers!

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

If you can afford even a few private lessons, it will be well worth the expense.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Absolutely. And in the heyday of this, of course, there were dance professionals who did just that, which is much more sensible.
We need a weekend away in a nice hotel with nice young men who are paid to teach us to dance.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I like that plan.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

If you ever have the time (bwhahahahaha!) I recommend going to one of the summer dance weeks at Stanford. If you are willing to be a noob, you'll be pushed from beginner to black belt in a week. I found this worked for every dance form I tried, except Tango. I just wish I had more time to practice.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I'm just about old enough that I learned ballroom dancing (firstly from my mother) as I was growing up and was then lucky enough to find a partner who had also learned it in his youth. BB was in the ballroom dance team and the formation jive team at school (which I can hardly credit to this day because his school was in an area which was - shall we say - not brimming with culture.)

I did go to ballroom dance classes with a friend (girl) when we were both about ten or eleven, but that was terribly slow and more like the-blind-leading-the blind. As a teen, in formal dance situations I tended to get whirled round the floor by friends of the family - chaps of my dad's age who could really dance, and one of the best dancers I ever encountered was the father of a college friend.

BB is a strong dance partner in terms of having a good sense of rhythm and space and of being a good 'leader', so as long as I forget what the dance is supposed to do and concentrate on following where he's heading, we're fine. He and I are both out of practise, now, but we can still manage a waltz, quickstep, foxtrot or cha-cha if we have to, and we can both hold out own in a ceilidh, though I tend to try and pick the less energetic dances. (It's more a question of stamina rather than not knowing the moves for every dance.)

At number one daughter's wedding we ended up doing the quickstep and the cha-cha. Sadly there wasn't a waltz (my favourite) on the menu.

And last week while running the village tea-dance I discovered that I could still manage a valeta.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

That sounds great. I wish I could do all that, but I keep being stymied by these beginner classes. I think I may just try private lessons.