Basic Dance Classes

[amandak04]

So I am just wondering if anyone in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area knows where I can take a basic dance class. I am talking one that will teach an adult about rhythm and beat, sort of like a pre-school dance class :) haha. I am willing to dance with the 3-4 years old HAHA. I just really need a very basic beginner class that will teach me the stepping stones of dancing.

Thanks!

Amanda

[waltzgirl]

Welcome to DF!

If no one from the area chimes in, here are a couple of ways to find dance studios:

ballroomdancers.com

accessdance.com

Both of those websites have directories of dance studios and teachers.

Or google "ballroom dancing" and your town's name.

Lots of studios have introductory packages that combine a private lesson (s) and group lesson(s) for a very reasonable price. That would be a good way to start if you are a total beginner, as the private lessons could get you started with the very basics and make it easier to participate in the group lessons.

I always recommend new students to shop around a bit and maybe try the intro package at a couple of different studios. Studios can vary a lot in price, atmosphere, experience of teachers, etc. and you want to find the place that fits you the best. (Beware of places that use high-pressure sales tactics--unfortunately, some do.)

You might also want to check with the university to see if they have a ballroom club/team. Many colleges do, and some accept non-students.

Good luck! Happy dancing!

[MissBallroomBear]

A belated welcome, Amanda.

Unfortunately, I live in Australia so am unable to assisst you with this query. I'm sure there will be someone on DF that can help you, this is a great organisation. Everything that I could say has already been said by waltzgirl and I recommend you do what she said.

Good luck finding the studio that's right for you and keep dancing!

[Indiana_Jay]

So I am just wondering if anyone in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area knows where I can take a basic dance class. I am talking one that will teach an adult about rhythm and beat, sort of like a pre-school dance class :) haha. I am willing to dance with the 3-4 years old HAHA. I just really need a very basic beginner class that will teach me the stepping stones of dancing.

Amanda:

Welcome to DF.

The tone of your message implies that you believe you need some sort of "remedial" training before you can even start dancing. Let me reassure you that no matter what your skills are now (or, to put it another way, no matter what they are not), a good dance studio can start where are and help you get where you want to be. In other words, even if you feel you need something very basic, you can go to all the same places the rest of us go.

You don't say what kind of dance you'd eventually like to do, but there are several ballroom studios in the Ann Arbor area (I know this because my lovely wife and I recently spent a weekend there and looked for places to dance while we were there). You can find them in the "yellow pages" and online. You can also check places like the YMCA, the local parks department and the continuing ed. (night school) division of the local school system. Also, we have a DF member who went to UM and might have inside information about the local studios. I'll ask her to drop by this thread.

Good luck!

[Joe]

The University of Michigan seems to have a fairly large ballroom team/club. Maybe they offer classes to the public?

[standardgirl]

There is a studio called Moonlight in the AA/Ypsi area on Washtenaw Ave (on the Ypsi side of US23). The studio will be on yuor left hand side coming from US23. A lot of independent instructors teach out of that studio and they also have a pretty nice collection of dance shoes especailly for beginners. The U of Michigan team also often hosts their parties/special events at this studio. The owner is very friendly and easy to work with. Just found their website using google: moonlightdancestudio.com. You can look at the calander on the website which includes a decent variety of different classes for adults.

one more thing, there is a website called dancemichigan (also has a yahoo group as well). The website has a comprehensive listing of studios in MI. There are 3 listed in AA. dancemichigan.com/MichiganDanceStudios.html

If you are willing to travel a bit. Dancesport Academy (better in smooth/standard) in Dearborn and Dance Elite (better in latin/rhythm) in W Bloomfields are both good choices. The websites are: w ww.dancesportacademy.com/ and w ww.eliteballroom.com/. The drive from AA to either studio is about 25 minutes, although 275 could get tricky when getting to W Bloomfields...

[standardgirl]

The University of Michigan seems to have a fairly large ballroom team/club. Maybe they offer classes to the public?

U of Michigan has both a ballroom dance club and a team. The team is limited to those affiliated with the college and the club offers classes and open dances to the public on most Sundays. The website for the club is http://www.umich.edu/~umbdc. The size of the classes (especailly beginner ones) on Sundays is HUGE and I really mean HUGE. Very step oriented, and it doesn't sound like it will fit OP's needs as described in her post. However, given the low cost and the number of people that show up at the open dance, it's a really nice place for open dancing and just meeting new people.

[DWise1]

IJ, she had mentioned two-step (I assume country) and line dancing in her first thread.

Amanda, I'm glad others have answered, since I'm sure you were getting tired of my lectures. As you see, most all of us have been where you are now. Remember, I was certified for 25 years as being totally without rhythm and unable to ever learn to dance and now I get compliments on my natural rhythm and on being a "natural born dancer". So if I can learn it, anybody should be able to. Similarly, my Lindy instructor, an excellent dancer, also describes himself as having started out with no rhythm and two left feet -- such instructors, as opposed to those who have been dancing all their life (such as my ex), are often the best for complete beginners because they still remember what it's like to be a beginner and they understand the hurdles you have to get over and how they had gotten over those hurdles.

Here's how I did it. It's probably the wrong way and the hard way, but then it did take me a few years before I could allow myself to realize that maybe I could learn after all -- remember the decades of brainwashing I had to overcome (and still do, as I constantly stress over every little mistake I make -- my Lindy instructor too; when a girl who was struggling with Lindy asked him "how long before you no longer suck at this", he replied "I still do."). If I had started out thinking that I could learn to dance, I would have done it a lot smarter and gotten results a lot quicker. As it is, it took me 1.5 years to find and follow the beat with any confidence -- OK, the first 6 months were salsa and there was some broken time and we dabbled in a few dances before settling on West Coast Swing, so is was about 6 months of WCS that really did it for me.

For one thing, I have done nothing but group classes since I started in 2000. I have never ever taken a private. If I had worked out a plan to learn, then I would have included privates. But since I started learning as something my wife and I could do together, even though I "knew for a fact" that I could never actually learn, the group class itself was what I was after. Then after tragedy struck and the preamble to the divorce ground on, followed by the divorce and its aftermath, the group classes became my way to keep going, kind of my therapy, now my addiction (I only have classes every day now; keeps my tequila bill down). Group classes are good for learning certain things, but privates are much better and effective for dealing with specific problems you want to solve. Price-wise privates seem more expensive, but results-wise they are a lot cheaper than group classes.

Back to my experience. In all the beginning classes, the teacher would count us off and would very often continue to count out loud as we went through the steps. I would listen to the teacher's counting and to the music and try to correlate the two. I would assume that a teacher would also do this in a private. In the absolute beginning classes, some teachers will also explain to the group about down beats and up beats and would point them out in the music that's playing. The same, I'm sure, in a private, though the teacher may test to see if you can hear it and work on you more if you don't. Then the class would go through the basic step in time with the music (or in the case of WCS, which has no basic step, step through the rhythm). At that point, if most of the class seems to be getting it, the group class will move on. In a private, the teacher won't move on until you are at least starting to get it.

Now, at the same time that I was going through those first months of West Coast, I was also taking beginning piano. That may or may not have had an effect. I think that it at least reinforced thinking through rhythm (though "rhythm" in music means something slightly different than in dance) and using counting to work with rhythm. I'm not telling you to start taking piano, just that it was part of my own learning experience.

Another thought is tap dancing. It is very challenging -- it's quite beyond me (ironically, the instructor, my Lindy instructor, would tell me that I had the rhythm right, but I just wasn't making all the weight changes). But it seems to be very good training for footwork and for working with rhythms (not straight rhythm like in two-step, but dividing the beats up in all kinds of different ways, like when you play a musical instrument). For example, my partner in a recent WCS team competition has been dancing tap for a long time. While the rest of us would struggle with our footwork in a number of the steps in our routine, she had it nailed every time.

Taking tap right now would probably be overload and not really solve your current problem, but look into it later to improve your dancing. It should make your line dancing phenomenal!

So, bottom line: approach your group-class teacher for privates to get over your initial hurdle of finding the beat. And, I believe, of not losing the count coming out of a turn.

[DWise1]

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