The Private Advantage
Private lessons are an important part of any serious dancer's development. The one-on-one personalized design of these lessons presents an invaluable opportunity for aspiring dancers to work with an experienced and able instructor, whose devoted attention and encouraging critique can quickly propel a student's dancing from mediocrity to excellence. Of the many advantages of private lessons, here are just a few you should take into consideration:
- Freedom In Scheduling: Students who regularly have schedule conflicts with group classes can schedule a private lesson at their liesure, as long as an instructor is free.
- Choose Your Dance: Majority rules in a group class, but in private lessons a student may focus on as many or as few dances of choice as he or she likes.
- Go Your Own Pace: Group classes are paced in consideration of everyone in the class. Those who wish to move slower or faster may benefit from additional individual attention.
- Eliminate Trouble Spots: Targeting individual students' trouble spots is more much difficult in a group setting, given the variety of needs within the group and the instructor's obligation to distribute himself evenly among its members. A private setting, however, allows for devoted aid.
- Improve Technique And Styling: Patterns are easily communicated in a group setting, but technique by its nature is better learned and retained through personalized instruction.
Despite all the advantages that private lessons have to offer, it is more important, especially for new students, to aim at becoming a part of a regular group class than to engage solely in private lessons. Private lessons may be necessary for entrance into an advanced group class and are useful for honing technique and styling over the course of a group class, but they should properly be considered for all beginning and intermediate dancers as a supplement to a healthy group environment � whether that be weekly parties or a midweek group class. Only when one graduates to advanced levels of ballroom dancing do things begin to change. So how do you know when you've crossed that line? When is it better to seek purely private instruction?
Advanced dancers can typically pick up a relatively complex pattern after having seen it only two or three times. And when they first dance such a pattern, it already looks pretty good, needing only a few minor adjustments to really make it shine. "But how is this possible?" you ask. It's possible because advanced dancers are aleady familiar with the component patterns that comprise these complex patterns, and they already know the techniques and styling associated with the dance they're performing. It's not that they learn faster. They're just that much more familiar with the material and likely have begun to specialize in certain styles. As a rule, the more advanced one gets, the more he will specialize, and the more he specializes, the more difficult it is to group him together with others of the same level and interest. The advantages of group instruction don't disappear, they're simply overruled by the need for the very particular personal instruction available only in private lessons.
Until that day comes though, you should make it a priority to invlove yourself with other dancers in some sort of group setting. If you can find a preestablished group, great! If not, see if a couple of friends would like to divide the cost of taking private lessons, so you can have your own little group. Not only will this help your finances along, but it will give you accountability and encouragement, which are so vital in the early years of ballroom for all but the most motivated individuals. Whatever you decide, private lessons are always available whenever you may need them and at an exceptional price for all of our regular dancers.
