Am/am dancers, how often do you have lessons and practices?

[Terpsichorean Clod]

I've setup two friends. I think it's an unusually good match:
-height/build
-dance ability
-personality
-age (especially rare, in my opinion)

So they've met once. They like dancing with each other. They seem to get along. But it looks like the primary hang-up may be number of lessons. She wants to take 1/week (they live about an hour apart). He wants to take 4/week, as he is currently. She's had one or two am/am partnerships. His only experience is pro/am. I'm trying to convince him that 4 lessons/week isn't really the norm in am/am.

Am/am dancers, how many lessons do you take per month, or how many do you average per week? And what is your ratio of practice time to lesson time?

 

[ash_sk8s]

If we were regularly taking private lessons, we'd be doing an hour a week.

 

[biggestbox]

If they work together, take 1 or 2 lessons with the partner and 2 solo with a focus on leading/following or technique.

I dance am/am and take 4-5 lessons a week (like 2, 2hr lessons) on the off season, can take 2-3 lessons a day when really working hard.

 

[tunape]

I've setup two friends. I think it's an unusually good match:
-height/build
-dance ability
-personality
-age (especially rare, in my opinion)

So they've met once. They like dancing with each other. They seem to get along. But it looks like the primary hang-up may be number of lessons. She wants to take 1/week (they live about an hour apart). He wants to take 4/week, as he is currently. She's had one or two am/am partnerships. His only experience is pro/am. I'm trying to convince him that 4 lessons/week isn't really the norm in am/am.

Am/am dancers, how many lessons do you take per month, or how many do you average per week? And what is your ratio of practice time to lesson time?

take as many as you need to achieve your goal(s).

 

[latingal]

one or two lessons a week, anywhere between 6 to 10 hours a week of practice.

 

[Chris Stratton]

How about they split one, and if he sometimes wants to treat the partnership to a second he can.

Then there's also the question of with which teacher. I think its often useful if the partnership goes to someone other than either partner's pro/am teacher, as making the partnership work may require addressing some issues that the existing teachers had been tolerating. Of course seeing something from the outside can be usefully diagnostic, so an existing teacher may start being newly beneficial - but still its important to be aware of the possibility that different inputs may now be needed, and especially the risk that the partners may disagree on this.

 

[NUdancer]

In my am partnership, we usually required anywhere from 5-7 hrs of practice per lesson to really feel like we had time to carefully work through all of the material and absorb/incorporate it into our bodies. So 2 lessons per week.

On the rare occasions when we had 3 lessons in a week, we often felt too overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material to properly apply it. Then again, those weeks usually consisted of 2 lessons with our regular coach and 1 lesson with a visiting coach.. it's possible that the multiple perspective compounded the difficulty of application.

When I danced Pro-am, I usually felt that lesson time was essentially beefed up practice time with my "partner." I think in Am-Am partnerships, more practice time is required per lesson because (I assume) both of you know less than your pro coach, and therefore you need more time together outside of lessons to figure out the applications of what you've learned.

 

[Lioness]

One 1-hour lesson a week.

We don't really get practice time most weeks...so the lesson is our only dancing for the week. We soak up most of the stuff like sponges, but practice time would certainly be beneficial. Some weeks we get a couple of hours practice in, but not often.

 

[Mengu]

We currently do one 90 minute lesson once a week. Occasionally one of us will be out of town, and the other will have a lesson by themselves, or both of us or our instructor will not be available and we'll skip a week. We try to practice once a week for about an hour, but it doesn't always happen. We try to go to a social once a month, but that doesn't always happen either.

For a while, we were taking from 2 instructors, and did 90 minutes with one, 60 minutes with the other. But due to time constraints and for a financial break, we stopped with one of the instructors. We may pick up lessons with him again at some point. I liked the twice a week lesson tempo. I don't think we'd ever do more than that though.

We also take guest coaching when an instructor we like is in town, but that's like maybe once a quarter.

It's also worth noting we dance only one style.

 

[middy]

We take between 1 and 3 lessons a week and practice about 4-6 hours a week or so? Would ideally practice more often though...

Is it a budget issue or a time/traveling issue? I think having 2 lessons a week at first could be a decent compromise. You could also remind him that going from pro-am to am-am means going from working on one person's technique/improvement to two people's, so it requires some degree of taking more practice time to figure things out and apply what you learned in lessons?

 

[suburbaknght]

My partner and I do one private lesson and four group classes together each week. I average two private lessons on my own each week, both with a different teacher, while she does about one solo private per month, but does an extra two to four group classes. We practice together about three to four hours per week, while solo practice fluctuates a great deal according to each of our schedules.

 

[danceronice]

I don't know many pro/am dancers who take 4+ a week, to be honest. That can get expensive really quick and if you're driving an hour to get there tack on gas and time...I would think 1-2 is reasonable, depending on how much you can process from each lesson and how much time there is for practice.

 

[jjs914]

one or two lessons a week, anywhere between 6 to 10 hours a week of practice.

What she said! This is what DP and I do.

The only time we take more is if there's a visiting coach in town, etc.

The difference between am/am and pro/am is that in am/am you can have more practice time...and sometimes that's as beneficial, if not more so, than more lesson time, if you have lots of lessons and not time to work through everything.

 

[Debra]

My partner and I take one private every other week or so. I take 1-2 privates solo a week as there is difference in our experience level. We practice abourt 6-8 hours a week and then we've been averaging one coaching a month or so.

 

[JANATHOME]

Our lesson format has changed lately.

Beginning of week we seperate and take a 45 minute lesson with pro followed by a 45 minute lesson together. End of week we take a 90 minute lesson together. Somewhere in between the 2 lessons are a few hours of practice, more if getting ready for comp.

In addition I also take another 90 miunute lesson with pro because I will start to do pro/am in addition to AM/AM

So in total for me that is 6 lessons a week. Seperating and taking a lesson by ourselves with pro has been a huge help. I had concerns about doing this at first, glad we changed it up.