Quote Originally Posted by Twirlie Bird View Post
In the weekly Ceroc classes the classes are always dumbed down to the lowest level. I do feel this is wrong.
I think I can understand where you are coming from, but not sure that I’d totally agree. Before we start complaining about whether some is advanced or not ... aren't we back to the old debate about what 'advanced' actually is?

Bringing it back to a specific example. I've now seen Marc teach standard ceroc lessons about 3 times over the last 4 weeks. At a Notts class he had dancers ranging from 6 weeks to 10 years experience. However, because of how he structured and layered his moves there was something there for everyone. For the newbies there was 'just' the moves. For more experienced dancers like myself there were tips on timing, little tricks and style tip about body movement. What really hacked me off though were the number of dancers who have hit the 12 month mark who obviously thought they 'knew it all'. If teachers are doing the class and learning I think that the problem is more in those doing the class than the teacher . . sometimes.

I mention Marc because I highly rate him but there are hordes of other instructors, Russell, Paul Harris, Bill etc who give lots more than 'just moves' but sometimes it must feel like pearls before swine. I bet you could take 20 'good dancers' and about half of them still don't do the first move right ... sorry ... there would be "room for improvement"

Moving this on to 'Advanced Classes' ... well many of them are based on fundamentals being right, like connection, timing, balance etc. If these aren't right ... well the best you could hope to do is get a pale imitation of the taught move, but real understanding of what was behind it. Example in point, Carla and Ben's cool tricks workshop at Blaze. This really was advanced. I had sort of hoped just to breeze in and pick up a whole host of new moves ... not the case. The moves they did were based on Swing so you had to have the feel of lindy style to be able to execute properly. I did some lindy seven years ago and it was really hard work to get anywhere near the basics to let the moves work. this was NO reflection on the teaching (which I thought was superb ) but a reflection on me NOT being 'advanced' when it came to that particular dance form.

So ... after all that rambling I'm not really sure what my point was Maybe its about identifying what area of dance is the workshop 'advanced' in, e.g. Blues experience, footwork or timing capability, Lindy experience etc. Its also about (somehow) allowing people to realistically assess whether they will benefit form the class, but not at the detriment of the teachers and other students.

HEY ... how about this for an idea. Adopt the Haraang approach. If you want to do the top level advanced workshops there you have to be 'assessed' to see if you are good enough. some on .. for the sake of a few bruised egos, wouldn't that make the advanced workshop better?