At virtual lesson with IFP last night, she said she thinks I’m ready to start working with her husband, LDP (Long Distance Pro). Also, their studio is opening this week (with similar safety protocols to my local studio)......I’m driving there on Memorial Day to have a double lesson in person with LDP. Very excited to meet them in person!
It was wonderful finally meeting IFP and LDP in person! Great chemistry between all 3 of us. We had the entire studio to ourselves for almost the whole time, so even though LDP was officially in charge of the lesson, IFP chimed in regularly.
I arrived about 45 min early to change, stretch, warm up, & we went over a list of questions I had. (I also blatantly showed off my Ukrainian, which floored LDP...his wide-eyed reaction was very cute. But as I said to him, it’s too bad I can’t learn to dance as fast/well as I can learn to speak new languages [notice I said “to speak” - that’s different from understanding, writing, being fluent...my ear & tongue allow me to beautifully pronounce what I know, but I can only converse on the very limited subjects I’ve studied so far]. I admitted that the only practical use I’ve found for this ability is showing off, which made him laugh.)
The double lesson itself lasted 90 minutes, but I stayed for another 90+ minutes after that just talking with them. We discussed virtual vs in-person lessons; the difficulties of traveling for coaching (their own coach is in NY); comp participation and costs (their students pay a flat fee to them rather than a per-heat fee [!!!])... IFP delicately suggested that competing with LDP would be less expensive than competing with Pro, for several [accurate] reasons); and also enjoyed just general socializing. I tried on several different styles of shoes (Latin, Standard, practice) & brands (Supadance, Ray Rose, Paoul), & some Dance America practice wear, but nothing fit.
They reiterated that they are available to me for whatever I want/need: regular or occasional virtual lessons; regular or occasional in-person lessons; periodic random check-ins; help with concepts Pro is teaching me; competing (they emphasized that if I want to compete, it’s best not to wait till I’m “ready” to do so, since I will never believe that I am, and the longer I put it off, the less ready I will feel). In their own way, they were as charming & welcoming as the pros at my local studio.
They are both so young!!! IFP is only 29, and LDP is 33. That’s only a few years older than my own kids! But their expertise makes them seem much older, and in the videos and photos I’ve seen of their performances, they both look MUCH older when they put on the requisite comp hair/makeup/costumes. So I wouldn’t feel *utterly* ridiculous with LDP as my partner, although from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, I think I look much better with Pro (6 feet 2-3 inches and solid) than with LDP (6 feet and wiry). (And until my actual dance SKILLS are impressive, the way I LOOK on the floor will matter...no doubt more than it should.)
Ok, enough about all that. Let’s talk about the dancing itself. My thoughts & impressions, in no particular order:
1. They do Standard & Latin. They SAY they can teach Smooth & Rhythm, but it’s clearly an effort. They are much less familiar with them, were hesitant & questioning about some differences between the styles, & didn’t always know which figures/patterns were included in which levels. (This applies more to LDP than IFP.) However -
- this only matters if I’m also studying smooth/rhythm elsewhere
- these are things they can easily look up if they need to
- a good teacher can TEACH these other styles even if they don’t DANCE them
But I can’t help comparing this to Pro, who effortlessly moves back & forth between all 4 styles & all 19 dances (he has several Standard/Latin students, even though he is teaching ME only smooth/rhythm), rattles off which figures go with which syllabus levels, can demonstrate pretty much any figure in any style from memory, etc. But he has at least 15-20 additional YEARS of teaching experience than they do, and he no longer competes professionally, so all his efforts go into teaching. So...not a fair comparison.
2. It is damn difficult to follow a new Lead when you’re a beginner! I know how to fit my body to Pro’s when he pulls my right hand to him. I can recognize small adjustments in Pro’s hand positions that signal what move is coming next. I can feel him take a deep breath to signal that our first waltz step is coming. LDP, otoh, starts the waltz with an entirely different lead-up to join our bodies together (and the 2-3” height difference between the 2 men makes it feel completely different); then starts with a hesitation step (which I’ve never learned); and gives different cues to tell me what’s coming next. (He finally just started saying them out loud in my ear: “step back on your right foot...forward on left foot...change step...back on left foot....”) Hopefully this would improve with time and practice.
3. In the Latin dancing, LDP had some great new descriptions/suggestions to help me coordinate the movements of my hips/torso/arms. This is similar to IFP’s ability to explain clearly to me some concept that Pro has talked about many times but I still haven’t gotten it. A new set of eyes and a new teaching vocabulary can be extremely helpful.
4. It felt like LDP wasn’t “dancing down” to my level, and I really liked that. It motivated me to step up my efforts to match his energy. Often, Pro will tone down his dancing with me, taking smaller steps, less rise & fall, using less exaggerated hip movements and foot swivels, etc., but idk why. I’m going to ask him about that at my next lesson.
TL;DR: working with IFP and LDP in person was every bit as good as I’d hoped, and if their studio were closer, I would seriously consider making a complete change to Standard/Latin with them. But right now, I’m just not good enough or experienced enough to be able to progress on my own...I need in-person lessons a lot more frequently than I can get from a studio that requires 4 hours of driving time per lesson. I’m also not good enough or experienced enough to successfully navigate the differences in teaching styles & partnering styles of two different Leads. So my current intention is to continue regular, frequent lessons with Pro, and supplement them with less frequent virtual lessons from IFP (& maybe an occasional one with LDP too).
Of course, these days, it’s hard to plan ahead more than a week or two. So who knows what will happen.
