I always try to arrive in time to start with the beginners.
It wakes my brain up.
Otherwise, as in a party night, I feel that I am not smooth and don't lead as well as I should.
Beginners lesson only
Both beginners and intermediate
Sometimes beginners but always intermediate
Intermediate only
Neither, just the the freestyle at the end
Just goto freestyle only nights
Just goto weekenders
I'm a teacher/demo/taxi, where's my option?
Personally I rarely turn up early enough nowadays for beginners so just do the intermediate onwards. Though I will join part way in a beginners lesson if there is a shortage of men.
I always try to arrive in time to start with the beginners.
It wakes my brain up.
Otherwise, as in a party night, I feel that I am not smooth and don't lead as well as I should.
before i was a taxi i always used to do the beginners class for three reasons
firstly you never know what you might learn (no one knows everything and different teachers sometimes show different things)
secondly its a great warm up
and thirdly we were all beginners once and they need the encouragement from the better dancers which helps them learn a lot quicker
Where's the "Don't even do freestyle" option?
I went thro a stage where i wouldnt do any lessons and just did freestyles.
My dancing and my enjoyment suffered for it.
So now i do all of the lessons and enjoy the night more for it.
DTS Dave XXX XX
I've been dancing round 5 years now, some of that was as staff for a local company (setup's etc not teaching )
When working as staff I found that occasionally I could not do either lesson, this severely impacted on my enjoyment of the evening, and my reasoning being that the lesson section is where the initial socialization takes place, and the ladies get to assess you as a lead, (and human being), when I do the lesson I don't sit at all in freestyle, when I don't It takes about 4 to 5 songs out of my freestyle !
I think there are quite a few reasons for doing the beginner class, long after you progress to intermediate level:
- it a good way to warm up
- you get to meet people, especially anyone who is new
- it is a way of helping out real beginners
- if the teacher is good and you really pay attention you can still pick new things up
- a common mistake is to give up the beginner class too soon because you think you know everything there is to know about the moves
To some extent it does depend on the teacher. I would also normally try to do the class if I was at an unfamiliar venue as different teachers teach the beginner class in different ways and you may learn something new that way.
I do sometimes only turn up for the final free style but that is normally because I am either pressed for time or just looking to get in slightly cheaper.
With intermediate classes I think the main consideration is whether the style of dancing being taught by the teacher suits your style of dancing. If you start to feel that the type of moves being taught just don't suit you then my advice would be to try another venue and a different teacher if you can.
Wheres the option that says "i do interimediate & freestyle"???
I do beginner and intermediate classes if the teacher is good enough - so just freestyle most of the time
I always try to do the intermediate class as a warm up. When I stopped doing classes for a few months last year, my muscles complained.
Also it takes me a while to get into my stride.
What I hate though is the teacher putting drops in the middle of the routine. I don't even do drops in freestyle so am hardly going to be wanting to do them in class.
So option 1 is to duck out of the class and rejoin it later.
Or option 2 is to explain to every lead that I don't want to do it. This is my right to do so, but it is a bore.
Girls, don't make my mistake of saying to the guy - I can't do the drop. (because of a dodgy back) because they think you need showing and manhandle you into a drop.
Say instead I don't want to do the drop. It sounds petulant, but is safer.
Recently I was pressed for time and only managed to do the last third of the intermediate class.
Imagine my horror when the teacher started to demonstrate the dreaded mangle. I was trapped. He did tell the class to be very careful.
Last edited by Astro; 10th-February-2008 at 06:00 PM.
Was trapped (see above) because the guys were moving on.
Like Astro, when I go to Ceroc nights I have tended not to do the intermediate classes recently as more often than not where I have been a dip of some sort has formed part of the routine. I don't particularly like dips and don't feel a large class is the best setting for learning them (though accept not everyone may share that opinion). However the suggestion to drop out of the class at that point is tricky because it completely messes up the walk-around of extra followers (almost inevitably it is followers moving on). If you wait for a person to reach you and then suggest you want to drop out they aren't likely to take it well as it means they join the queue of women not dancing again. If it's a larger lady who has just reached you in the rotation the chances are she'll get paranoid and assume you just don't want to do the dip with her.
Beginner's classes I will tend to do if I get there in time and there are followers over.
dips are taught fairly regularly in Edinburgh. Drops are very rare.
A follower asking not to be dipped is acceptable and usually there is some option explained to us. If no option then improvise. The needs of both in the partnership must always be considered and acted on.
I have been dancing for around four years now and always do the beginners lesson if I arrive in time. I hope I never get to the stage where I consider myself to be above this. I have also seen teachers take part in the beginners lessons and it's not always a case of female teachers standing in as a lead. You learn a great deal from a refresher in the beginner moves and it also gives beginners a range of styles and abilities to dance with. I sit out more frequently in intermediate classes because of the high percentage of drops etc taught in these lessons of late.
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