Ok, after reading all that, here’s my two cents:
When it comes to franchised studios… I have heard many stories… good and bad. I have heard that AM competitions are judged on how much you pay, and not necessarily how well you dance (quote came from a former AM instructor who got out of the business and tried to regain his amateur status after making the “biggest mistake of his life” by going pro via AM instruction). I have heard from franchise studio teachers that they don’t feel that they are really qualified to teach cuz they don’t know really what they are doing. At the same time, I know of good instructors from each. Instructors that are passionate about dancing and dedicated to teaching, and improving their own dancing as well, a friend that is one of the commenters on this forum is one.
I have heard of people’s displeasure at their AM or FADS instruction, but at the same time, I’ve also had good experiences from AM and FADS lessons and teachers, some better than others. I am a fairly aggressive student and learner, so I have always walked in knowing what I wanted to learn. Those who are new and walk into a studio saying, “I want to learn how to dance” sometimes can be susceptive to manipulation. But I have always come in saying, “there are the concepts, figures, and things I want to work on today” and I always ask lots of questions if their information contradicts another instructors. Most of the time, I get everything on my check list in a lesson. One FADS studio only let’s me accomplish half of my “to-do” list in a lesson because the instructor feels that I am too overzealous with my requests. But another FADS instructor at another studio can run through my week’s worth of list in one lesson with “well you pick up stuff fast, what’s next on your list?”.
It is true that each franchised studio is different and is dependant on who runs it. But at the same time, there is regularity in franchises. I can imagine that it must be difficult to maintain a level of “regularity” across the board for a chain dance studio. Getting students, keeping students, keeping a steady income… these are all factors a business owner must consider in addition to teaching dance. It is difficult to balance. One wants to be a great teacher and keep dancing affordable and make their students love to dance, but at the same time… they need to keep a steady income into the studio so it can stay in business… which means they might need to pressure people to continue with their lessons. Sometimes this can be done by incentives (learn bronze 1, then you can move to bronze 2) or by punishment (if you don’t plan on learning bronze 2, get out of my bronze 1 class, you’re wasting my time).
I can see where a lot of people are coming from with the “six week wonders” phrase. I know a few. But what better way to get more people to join a sport/social activity than by having cute “eye-candy” as a reason to go? Come on… ballroom represents romance. If the instructor is a hottie… wouldn’t you want to take more lessons and show up at the studio more? (Actually, there is a scientific study on attractive people being good dancers, it has something to do with symmetry, and how symmetrical people move/dance better, and are more aesthetically pleasing… hence, beautiful people are good dancers, don’t you just love nature? It’s like circular.) All fun and jokes aside… Franchised studios do have a purpose in the world of ballroom though. They introduce the masses to something amazing a fun. The common average person truly enjoys their experience. Those who want to branch out into more advanced instruction will. These franchised studios in America are best for American style ballroom. Their syllabi is American. You can find a good national champ instructor at a franchised studio… that can teach you all the dances. Franchised studios get people dancing, then as people get more into it, they will start expanding their horizons, and going to things like dance camps and dance festivals where they will learn from world renown instructors and take all they learn and piece it all together. They will come back and ask their teachers questions that everyone answers differently, and then start to decide for themselves what the answer is. Ballroom is ever-growing, always expanding, and always changing. It is interpretive. Ballroom will become what we make it. The competitors now will shape the future of ballroom. It isn’t dictated by one teacher, or lots of teachers, or even an association. Ballroom is beauty in a fine form. People know what they like to see. Ballroom will mold to that. It’s like Darwin’s theory of survival. Ballroom keeps evolving. Remember old English partner dances? Not quite socially “cool” in the modern age, even though it was “all the rave” back then…
About regularity with other teachers… you won’t find the same kind of “structure” but you can learn any move you want. A true professional knows all the figures to most major syllabi. You can set your goals and which syllabi you want to learn from. Or the teacher will have a general idea and that idea will change as you grow and learn. It’s kinda like an artist… he sees what he has to work with, and teaches you according to what you have to work with and what works for you the best. It is an experience. Structure isn’t always best. If you have a hard time learning step # 3 in Bronze 1, or something like that, then you are stuck on that forever… and can’t move on, but you know that you can live just perfectly fine not ever doing that move, with independent instructors you can chose the figures that you like best and put that in your personal repertoire. Your teacher will (or should) work with you, and not dictate your learning, but rather guide it. You can make your own check list of any syllabi you chose to learn (ISTD, NDCA, DVIDA, etc…), and even create your own “book”. Check out the Dancer’s Notebook. I can’t paste the link here, but you can search for it (google “Dancer’s Notebook”).
Oh, and AM and FADS have American versions of International dances, like Samba, and Paso (which is funny as hell… American Paso… you should see it!). And to my knowledge, Bota Fogo isn’t part of the American Samba syllabus that they use. Hence the unfamiliarity with this commonly familiar move among new AM/FADS instructors.
There is a sort of culture that develops around each studio as well. It’s like a small community that builds. There exists a community in competitions as well… Collegiate competitors is another form of “community”. Studios have a social dance “community”. People are drawn to a studio because of the social atmosphere, and stay because they continue to enjoy it.
In other places, your level of moving up either depends on your competition results, or your level of proficiency of foundation concepts… like, if you can do all the basic concepts, you are out of “newcomer”, if you can get the simple general dance concepts (like cross body lead, promenade position, etc…) you are bronze proficient, if you can get the slightly more complicated things (like slip-pivot, shadow position, etc…) you are silver material, and if you get the more advanced concepts (like … uh, I’m lacking examples cuz I’m not there yet… but my guess would be good clean technique in everything… oh, oversways…) then you’d be gold. And then there’s open stuff where a lot of flexibility, understanding of body movement and complete and total partner connection, musicality, and etc are key. This isn’t saying that bronze dancer’s don’t have some advanced concepts like connection, musicality, or that a social dancer can’t choreograph fancy open routines by the steps and put on a good show. Many competitive dancer’s call themselves at a certain level based on their comp results that put them there. Social dancer’s don’t really categorize themselves in that way. But even comp results aren’t really indicative of how good one is at dancing. A dancer who hasn’t officially “pointed” out of bronze by ribbons, could possibly dance gold or silver and do very well. A gold dancer who got there by being a good competitor, may not have a lot of bronze foundations down. Judges even admit that the best dancer doesn’t always win a comp. It sometimes is the best performer.
