how are your lessons going? thread II

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rounds rounds rounds this week and next. cleaning up and clarifying little bits, and trying to stay as grounded as possible. I'm currently only doing one style - rhythm - and it is nice to have that laser focus on it. however, we have a guest teacher coming in next week, and he's latin and standard, and i'm SUPER excited to take some latin lessons from him. And here's hoping he decides to stay as a permanent teacher because if my pro/owner doesn't get another male pro in soon, he's going to burn the heck out.
 
My lessons have been going great! I now have two teachers (which I always thought was a good idea for many reasons, but couldn't implement effectively at the "old studio".) I feel like I'm improving dramatically both in my "competition dances" and my "club" dances. The competition dances are with my "new young guy" and the "club" dances are with the "old young guy". Anyway, the results seem to confirm that two teachers helps. (BTW, one reason is -- oddly-- my brain shuts off hearing many of the same things from the same person multiple times. But it doesn't when the other person says the same dang thing. Sometimes it's pretty much the same thing in slightly different ways, but it's still the same dang advice because... well... I need to work on the things I don't do well and that's the same no matter which teacher I have!)

My husband takes the West Coast Swing with me on Monday and he's also improving a lot. We managed to dance it "in the wild" (as opposed to lessons or our living room). Jim even danced with a friend he hadn't danced WCS with and felt good about it, and I also danced it with other people. We felt good about that.
 
lucia_l said:
my brain shuts off hearing many of the same things from the same person multiple times. But it doesn't when the other person says the same dang thing. Sometimes it's pretty much the same thing in slightly different ways, but it's still the same dang advice because... well... I need to work on the things I don't do well and that's the same no matter which teacher I have!
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I'm there too.
 
well, i am scheduled to have a lesson tomorrow. and a couple more for the rest of the week. I don't know if those will actually happen - the situation with the studio and franchise is actually getting worse. It didn't happen directly to me, but now it's starting to impact me. I now have a trial lesson scheduled with a new instructor at a different studio on Wednesday and with an independent (not studio affiliation) teacher on Saturday. The question is - i've really improved in the last three years - more in those last three years than in the 5 years before. I do attribute that to the teacher change. hoping that if i do switch, i don't lose the progress i've made. Literally just got to the point where i am seeing the dancer in my head when i watch my competition videos.
 
Thanks! It’s terribly draining emotionally. Hard because a lot of people don’t get why it’s such a deal. I have a trial lesson tomorrow with a teacher you know ;) and another one on Saturday with a different teacher.
 
I had a lovely trial lesson with a different pro/studio today. It went well - I've known him for a bit but never taken a lesson. Supposedly the situation with my studio has been resolved - which was rather surprising to me, as it was a rather big deal. So much so that word of it traveled to this new studio. I meet with my current pro/studio owner tonight to see if I'm part of that resolution.

Lesson was closed latin rumba, and my latin rumba ALWAYS needs work. so it was a nice break from my usual, and he's a decent teacher.
 
meetings and a lesson last night at my studio. The owners are husband and wife, and i cannot imagine how they are separating work from home at this point, since they are a bit at odds on the resolution of the issues.

There was a lot of things that lead up this situation - and what happened at the national competition last week was just the last straw that set people off. I know I'm being vague, but it's intentional - it's already been hashed out on social media and in person. And I will admit a small part of it was because the people affected didn't push back on issues earlier - they are not push back-y type of people, then tend to try to smooth things over. Very much the opposite of me, and I do think that if they'd escalated things internally earlier, it wouldn't have gotten so bad. but there was a whole lot of the issue caused by the studio/corp.

My pro/studio owner pushed back and got more flexibility on how he runs the studio, what comps to offer, and got people to realize they need to adjust some of their interactions and expectations.

Definitely not the outcome I expected at all - as evidenced by the fact that i had already had trial lessons set up. They were a bit taken aback by me giving full disclosure on that, but i reminded them that i am action girl, and given that my pro is also recovering from a back injury, I had reason to believe that i may need a new teacher.

this is really long, sorry. Net of it is, I'm still staying with this studio and my pro. I like where my dancing is, and a large part of it is due to having him as a teacher. I have more opportunities to compete at different comps.

And my very eastern european pro watched my videos and for the first time didn't come up with a "wellll there is a big glaring issue we have to fix". Instead it was a "not bad". so...for a while, i guess, everything is coming up Millhouse.
 
so bummed....had to cancel again due to my work,,,sometimes I feel like I will never be able to get back to dance enough to compete....it's hard not to just throw the towel in and accept that it is all a part of my past....but I have taken a week off next month and have lessons then so at least there's that
 
fascination said:
so bummed....had to cancel again due to my work,,,sometimes I feel like I will never be able to get back to dance enough to compete....it's hard not to just throw the towel in and accept that it is all a part of my past....but I have taken a week off next month and have lessons then so at least there's that
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Bummer to hear that! I hope you get to do it at least a little more :)
 
Lesson last night. Showdance and drills only, as my pro takes it easy on his back. Did find out that we can cancel a planned August competition for a full refund if he's not up to doing it (and I don't think he will be, based on the progress so far). My showdance is a relatively simpler number, with no real lifts, so we can do it without causing more injury.

I do have to get my brain back into rounds/routines mode starting with practice tonight, though, just in case we do decide to do this August comp. between the studio drama, his back injury, and getting the kids ready for school to start, i've barely practiced since those since competition two weeks ago! :oops:

And here's hoping that the discussions the owners have been having with two new potential male pros will work out SOOOOON.
 
Lifts?! Ahhh to be young and brave again. I'm never going to do lifts.... But I love watching other people do them. That's really neat.

I'm trying to learn to do body ripples. Yeah... I know. Everyone else can probably already do them, but I figure I can do that without falling down and breaking something. I should go practice the ripple now. (Actually, I'll probably go sew. )
 
So made a last minute decision to do the showcase with the new pro. We are just going to take one of comp routines we have been working on and add an opening and closing. I am very worried about how this will go. I was away from dance for years and wanted to pick up where I left off, with a long lead time to first very small comp next year. My ability to remember choreography just sucks now. New pro has a very different style than the old one, so very different moves. (one of the things I liked when I started taking lessons) ugh, three weeks to performance... :eek:
 
Oh gosh.... I grabbed my Zumba show bag instead of my ballroom shoe bag today! (Hubby likes Zumba and I'm going. It's actually good for me.)

The Zumba shoes are Sansa Sanchettes (sp?), which are great for Zumba....

But I was on my way to my rhythm lesson. Fortunately, my teacher started with Bolero, which was not so bad in the soft, pillowy, Zumba shoes. But then we moved on to Cha cha. The "new young guy" is trying to get me to be more "snappy" or dynamics, which makes sense for Cha cha.. But there I was with with these shoes... that make it feel like I have pillows strapped to my feet. I attempt to snap. Body feedback "s_low_smoosh".

Does this sound like an excuse for not snapping my feet? Well... yeah. In principle, I should still be able to snap. But, still, as hard as I tried to snap.... I try to snash foot down... into a .... pillow... Oy!

It was frustrating for me, but OTOH, I could kinda sort of tell it was "the shoes".

It may have been more frustrating for "new young guy" who, (I think) may be sort of used to me (mostly) improving, and here I was suddenly dancing as though my feet were stuck in viscous gooo. Or just unable to understand "try to 'snap'"... or whatever. (Not that the "slow pillow-goo" was the only not-so-great thing about my dancing. But... still...)

Anyway: Sansa Salchette shoes (marketed as Zumba shoes) are great for Zumba. For competitive Salsa? Not so much.

Note to self: Keep an extra pair of NOT gooey shoes in car for dance lessons. Because dancing with pillows on your feet may be fine for protecting your joints, but it is NOT great for achieving the character of Cha Cha.
 
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