The fact that someone hires a DJ to play at their events could be taken as sincere flattery.
*sigh*
It appears that Ant is saying he has suspicions about the thread from the outset, so he must be talking about my review.
For the record, I have absolutely nothing to do with Jive Addiction, I pay full price for any weekenders I go on and I tend to review all events and weekenders that I go on, independent and Ceroc.
If I was one of Johns “favourites”, he would have pulled some strings for me to go to Hemsby in June, but he told me the same as everyone else, you’re too late, tough luck, you snooze, you lose! That’s the way I like it too…I don’t want to be affiliated to any “camp” as I pride myself on giving honest reviews on my own personal experiences to all events.
I wasn't a debate at the time, it was a review
I didn't.......
...... cos I was pretty sure, before DT wrote this, that this was the case!
Like I also know this ones sense of humour!
MODERATOR AT YOUR SERVICE
"If you're going to do something tonight, that you know you'll be sorry for in the morning, plan a lie in." Lorraine
I think it is difficult to draw conclusions when considering a single operator and to say the operator has no influence is a stretch.
Given you've got more people to spread the cost of the teachers over you might expect a more impressive line up at bigger events (though they are as you say teaching to more people).
Then again I've got a quite a bit out of some pretty large scale classes with Amir.
Not sure why you couldn't do (what you described above) with a larger class.
I'm not.
The quality of dance classes at Franco's weekenders (when he ran them at Camber) and at Jive Addiction's (when they ran them at Southport) was equally low - no reflection on the teachers.
The quality of dance teaching at Ceroc is no worse than those.
So it's silly to try and pain this as a "Ceroc" thing, it's a "big weekender class with inexperienced dancers" thing.
It doesn't matter who teaches. I did a chacha class with Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag at one Southport - there were 300 people and they couldn't teach much, any more than a Ceroc teacher could with that number.
The only thing you can do with a large class is demonstrate a routine and hope that people will listen to any technique points you throw in. Class size is a vital factor in teaching; it's actually far more important than teaching ability. A poor teacher with 20 students will do much, much better than a genius teacher with 100 students.
, much the same as when I tried to do a Tango class with Vincent and Flavia at Southport. The room was so rammed with star-struck people, that I stayed for about 2 minutes before deciding that I'd rather just be in the blues room and would probably learn more there too.
Since that experience, I actually find "celebrities" on the bill quite a turn-off because that's one more class that I won't be going to.
Yeah - plus, celebrities aren't necessarily good teachers. As I know from Tango, any old guy with a pony tail and a name ending in "o" is revered as long as they come from Argentina.
And to be fair to Ceroc, they have semi-catered for this with their masterclasses at weekenders (although even those are fairly large, 30 or so from what I remember) - but this at least gives some chance to learn properly.
Personally I think they should do more of these and less "mass event" classes, but it's a balance between good business and good teaching.
A big gulf, from my point of view. IMO it seems silly to say the quality was equally low.
But I do notice a tendency for people who do private lessons to dismiss anything else. I guess the scale is so wide a big difference for people with a smaller scale doesn't register. However it still matters alot if you're not doing private lessons etc.
Anton and Erin are famous. That isn't any guarantee of being good teachers.It doesn't matter who teaches. I did a chacha class with Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag at one Southport - there were 300 people and they couldn't teach much, any more than a Ceroc teacher could with that number.
The only thing you can do with a large class is demonstrate a routine and hope that people will listen to any technique points you throw in. Class size is a vital factor in teaching; it's actually far more important than teaching ability. A poor teacher with 20 students will do much, much better than a genius teacher with 100 students.
So what is the critical size. At around the 40 people mark I haven't noticed much benefit over a far larger class.
I have. As I said, all of the classes I went to were around 30ish people, maybe a few more, I wasn't counting. The benefits I noticed, for me, are as follows.
In one class in particular (H & Kim's), H danced with every follower in the room several times. He did this by including himself on the rotation and as the circle of people was quite small everyone could see what he was doing without him having to be on a stage 50 feet away.
If there was something you were unsure about, you could ask questions during the class.
Similarly, you could make sure the class didn't steam ahead and leave you behind as it's less intimidating to ask for help in a small class. Plus, the teachers can easily see, with smaller numbers if anyone is falling behind and help, or in our case with Adam and Tas, see we were finding the swing class easy and offering us a bonus, more challenging move.
It's more sociable with, say, 30 people because you're dancing with the same 15 leads over the hour so more likely to chat, get to know names, who's with who, etc. In a class of 200, you spend 1 minute with a lead and that's it...never see them again. I don't like that.
Also, I just find being much closer to the teachers makes it easier to learn the moves. It's easier to see what's going on 10 feet in front of you, as opposed to being at the back of a hall and seeing two dots on the stage.
I know these are my own personal reasons but I got the feeling this was the general consensus in Manchester too.
Last edited by Double Trouble; 5th-February-2011 at 05:13 PM.
I agree. In other words, to me there isn't much difference between a class of 40 people and a class of 400, as long as everyone can see and hear the teacher, and has space to practise. There isn't much time in an hour to help people individually once you have more than about 40, so it comes down to other factors.
I suspect they are good at the kind of class they have experience with, which probaby doesn't include gigantic weekender classes. I think I'm good at the kind of classes I have experience with, but as soon as I have to teach a new size/ability/age group I find I have a lot to learn.
For example, I have only taught teenagers once or twice, and although I can comfortably organize 400 modern jivers, 20 teenagers is another story all together.
Recently I've also been teaching much smaller groups than I'm used to, just 4 or 5 couples - it took me a few classes to get used to it. I don't think my teaching was great the first time.
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