In a sea of dancing and an impending sense of FOMO, how do you decide where to focus your attention?
1. Progressive Lessons
Ah yes, the good old weekly lesson, the staple of the dance industry. No, this is not just a marketing ploy to get your money out of your pocket every week but actually a method of learning that every dedicated dancer should take seriously. The purpose of these lessons is to teach you the next sequence of foundational skills for your specific level and give you the small-group focus you need to master them. Another benefit is actually that week in between lessons. Something important happens in that time and it’s called integration — the new learning settles in the off time and makes room for more learning the following class. When designed properly, weekly classes should provide you with exactly what you need to improve your dancing right now. Theoretically, in a leveled class, you should not be able to pass to the next level until you have acquired the skills in each previous level, just like a math or foreign language course. If you can’t add and subtract, you’re not ready to multiply either and the same goes for dancing. This is where many instructors get held up because honesty feels mean, but inevitably, failing to uphold standards in class leveling leads to chaos and frustration for learners. Sometimes, it leads to teaching moves and patterns and ignoring skills altogether. However, when instructors do it right, it can be seen as an act of compassion and faith that you will be able to reach your goals. I remember when taking an intensive Salsa series years ago, I was making excuses for my struggle with a certain exercise and my instructor stopped and asked me in a kind voice, “Do you want me to be nice to you or do you want to get better?” I sunk my head and murmured, “I want to get better.” He cared, and this was how he showed it - by holding me accountable. I have never learned so much in a few months as I did then and everyone noticed. Do all progressive classes need to be leveled? Not necessarily. My own weekly Bachata classes focus on foundations welcome learners of all levels because I know how to differentiate for beginner, familiar, and experienced learners, letting each student know what they need to be focusing on — the rudimentary movement, building confidence with the movement, or even the finer details the learner wasn’t ready to pay attention to before.
Pros:
Sequential skill learning
Personal attention & feedback
Personal, long-term relationships with instructors
Learn to lead or follow many people
Cons:
Limited by the scope, perspectives, and level of one instructor
Infidelity to leveling when not designed correctly
2. Special Workshops
Special workshops can be a gift in your life. They can ignite a new passion, let you try out a new style or instructor, provide you unique perspectives, and introduce you to new dancers when done at a festival or weekender. They are often not progressive, as the instructor has no idea who will show up (and again, dancers usually don’t actually know their own dance level. We over-estimate, sometimes by a lot! 😂). Many of my favorite learning experiences were in special workshops. Something the teacher said maybe turned on a lightbulb inside my head and got me excited for this new understanding. Sometimes it was that I was introduced to something I didn’t have any access to in my hometown and I realized I freaking loved it. (Fun fact: This is how I fell in love with “traditional/Dominican” Bachata.) I left these workshops feeling like I possessed something golden. You couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. On the other hand, I’ve also taken special workshops so far above my own level I either had to struggle pathetically for the rest of the workshop or just drop out. I’ve also been utterly bored and even disappointed that a famous dancer was not, after all, a good instructor or even a nice person. You never know what you’ll get but with time you’ll learn to follow the instructors that inspire you and you’ll also know how to use your network to figure out who would be a good fit for your interests. Sometimes discovering what or who is NOT right for can also be a very good thing, too.
Pros:
Diverse content
Try something new without the commitment
Access to famous instructors
Meet new people outside of your town
Get inspired
Good instructors can design open level workshops where there’s something for everyone
Cons:
You never know what you’re going to get
You often rely on your own judgment of your skills which can be faulty
No progressive sequencing
Can be so large you do not get personal feedback
3. Private Lessons
Private lessons can be a great complement to any learning series. You get 1-on-1 learning with the instructor of your choice with nothing but personal feedback. I repeat, NOTHING BUT PERSONAL FEEDBACK. Unless you come prepared with what you want to learn, be careful, because these lessons can expose some things you weren’t ready to hear about yourself. I remember one of the times I took a private lesson with Darlin García, I asked him to help me work on whatever weakness he perceived in my Salsa dancing. To get an idea of what that might be, he asked me to start dancing my basic step. I got through 1-2-3 5- and bam! He stopped me. He had found something THAT quickly. Yeah, you think you know how to do the basics until you ask a pro-level dancer and they’ll let you know you right quick that you’ve been faking them. (Admit it, we’ve all been caught faking them in our attempt to convince ourselves we’re advanced dancers!) Be humble and be teachable. Private lessons are worth their value when you’re ready to hear this level of feedback.
Private lessons can also be used for progressive learning when you want to learn at a faster pace than the weekly lessons or when you just don’t have access to them. After about a year of trying various weekly lesson series, my latest instructor had moved away and I started taking weekly private lessons with another one of the local instructors who did not offer group classes. I continued taking them for almost 6 months and I grew tremendously then because the instructor was not only an accomplished dancer himself, but he was also a natural teacher and had a magical way of complimenting my growth while simultaneously setting my sight on the next goal. It was exactly what I needed at that time.
Pros:
Perfect the fine details of your dancing
Get 100% personal feedback
Learn more and faster
Access instruction you can’t get elsewhere
Cons:
Larger financial investment
Can be overly influenced by 1 perspective if you don’t take lessons with any other instructors
Lose the social benefit of learning with other people
Overall, I recommend taking all kinds of lessons because they all have value and can help you get where you want to go. Don’t be afraid to try new instructors, styles, and learning methods, because you might be surprised by what actually works for you. And most importantly — stay open and teachable.