Just come back from a band night, where I met a dancer new to MJ and keen to learn.
My son broke her dance virginity and I followed up with a 'welcome to the world of MJ freestyle', where she danced wonderfuly.
She wanted a recommendation as to where to learn on a class night.
One local company is REALLY friendly, with so so instruction, the other dance company is not so friendly with good instruction.
Which would you recommend to a new dancer?
(her male flat mate also wants to learn)
I'd go for friendly as long as the so-so instruction covers the basics properly. Personally I think that most people learn best in a welcoming environment at the beginning and I think that most of us do not go dancing initially with the idea of being the best dancer we can be - it's largely a social activity which is normally better if friendly.
I know that in my own case I tend to react badly when faced with detachment or unfriendliness and that is not good for learning.
Agent 000
Licensed to Dance
I agree with Agente Secreto as i would much prefer a friendly class when first starting out. People can be put off never to return by a little incident or comment. As her confidence increases she may decide to opt for the class with better instruction a bit later - or attend both classes as suggested ^
When discussing various venues with fellow jivers, - sometimes i've heard things like "oh, such a place is full of couples/very cliquey/not friendly/instructors are terrible/etc" - although my experience has often been very different to what i've heard. I think different people with different tastes experience different venues in different ways (!) - further dependent on who turns up on the night and whose path you cross
Simple - go for the better instruction if you want to dance, go for the friendliness if the social aspect is more important
Go with the friendly co everytime. After a while she will pick it up anyway, all she needs to learn is how to follow. Give it a bit of time and then worry about the quality of the dance tuition. Get her hooked 1st, friendly all the way.
Ps how are you martin?
DTS XXX XXX
I would recommend both for classes but to spend the evening at the friendly one until she gets more confident and gets to know more people. Personally though I would not care how good the dancing is, as it seems very demoralising to go somewhere where people are not friendly.
Martin didn't say that they were not friendly. Just not as friendly as the other place.
Of course, I've spent some time trying to work out which companies he's talking about
Firstly, how big are the differences? When you say, "so so instruction" does that mean they're actually bad or just that they don't stand out as being good teaching. Similarly, it depends how bad "not so friendly" actually is.
If the "not so friendly" place would mean that neither she nor her flatmate would get asked to dance by anyone, then the quality of the instruction is largely irrelevant. On the other hand, if the "friendly but rubbish" place means they get taught a lot of bad habits, then it's probably not such a good idea.
That's in addition, of course, to the sort of things others have already mentioned - in particular, how serious do you think she'll be about dancing?
Thanks for all your input folks,
It is a friend of my son's from work, and I have just asked my son, his opinion, is for her to go to the REALLY friendly one.
Her flatmate is a male, who wants to try and learn a bit from a dvd first, as he is nervous about looking bad.
The good thing is that they are both keen.
"so so instruction", is my biased opinion as to how I like to learn and how I consider a class should go, it does not mean it is very bad instruction, it means I have a preference.
My "not so friendly" is based upon beginners feedback, not my own... I dance with anyone and never get a refusal, I do not normally feel a them and us thing, as I just blunder in and break down barriers, but then I am not a beginner.
The thing is, at the company with IMHO the better instruction, friends of mine who have danced less than 6 months feel the "them and us", for example, one male dancer got refused 6 times last week from the more experienced dancers.
At the other dance company, I have not heard of beginners getting refusals.
Not only is my concern for her, she will probably do ok, as she is a good looking young chick, my concern is also for her male flatmate, who will come along, and could get put off by refusals and blank looks from the more experienced dancers.
PS I am doing well thanks DTS
This is the crux of it. Egos are fragile at the beginning and all you need is a couple of bad experiences and your dancing collapses. The advice has to be start at the friendly venue and then after a few months they'll hopefully have enough confidence to try the other venue and give them the finger if they are as cliquey as they sound. I hate this sort of elitism, it's thankfully never happened to me but I've seen how it's deflated friends of mine.
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