I've only visited two international dance style studios. Actually one studio and one teacher. As far as I can tell both are highly competent. I noticed that the lower group classes rotated partners but the other classes did not rotate partners. By rotating I mean you dance with one follow, then everybody rotates, etc. Is it common for group classes in international style to not rotate? If so, what is the advantage of not rotating?
Partners don't rotate in international group classes?
- Thread starter tacad
- Start date
I would prefer in group classes to change partners. It takes a while for the intermediate-level folks to switch, partly because at that point, they want to practice with their own partners rather than approach learning as purely a lead-follow exercise like me. But I do push it with my own group if at all possible.
Elizabeth
Member
Its probably based more on the level of the class, especially since you noted that the lower level class did rotate partners. At a fair number of studios the advanced classes have a higher number of people who come with their partner instead of solo. A lot of folks who go to a class with a partner just prefer not to switch.
Laura
Well-Known Member
At the higher-level classes I've been to, people bring their competition (or prospective competition) partner, and so don't rotate. My partner and I don't rotate in the class we're taking. Our practice time is limited and the class is an excellent "workshop" for us, so we stick together and really focus on what's being taught and how we can apply it to our competition dancing. We did ask the teachers in advance if we could do this, and they were very supportive of the idea.
Chris Stratton
New Member
And before anyone jumps in with "you'll never learn lead and follow if you don't rotate" I'd point out that group classes with a fixed sequence of figures aren't a very good setting in which to learn that anyway.
Yeah, this is really true. I don't know why instructors don't give 2 or 3 minutes from time to time to just practice leading and following the moves. They all give sequences and then the women backlead (who can blame them). I guess my instructor would say that that is what our bi-monthly dances are for. My first instructor who only taught the simplest of moves would give us those 2 or 3 minutes of free dancing. That was how I discovered what leading felt like. And the funny thing is that I'm remembering back to that class now as I'm learning to dance with more advanced women.
Chris Stratton
New Member
The routine-oriented classes do have a use though; they can kind of be the sustaining foundation of dancing when you don't have something more specific going on. If practice is getting stale, the class can provide some new ideas, or even just enough structure to balance freeform practices. They are a kind of catch-all answer, but for any specific purpose, there's probably a better option.
On the other hand, a class that really tries to teach technique rather than being oriented towards a routine of figures, and combines some more free-form experimentation time - that may be the most efficient way to train dancers in quantity.
On the other hand, a class that really tries to teach technique rather than being oriented towards a routine of figures, and combines some more free-form experimentation time - that may be the most efficient way to train dancers in quantity.
My class is very oriented for technique. That's why I like it so much. We do use a routine though. It's only 4 or 5 patterns though. Nothing big. For clarification each pattern takes 6 or 8 musical beats. But each pattern gets a lot of attention as to technique.
What did you mean by "efficient way to train dancers in quantity"? Learning as much as possible with regard to technique, patterns, and lead/follow in a small amount of time?
What did you mean by "efficient way to train dancers in quantity"? Learning as much as possible with regard to technique, patterns, and lead/follow in a small amount of time?
Chris Stratton
New Member
tacad said:
What I meant was that good technically oriented group classes are probably the most efficient use of the instructor's time, and hence the student's money. But classes like that are rare, and only work with a cohesive, dedicated group of students having similar goals.
Laura
Well-Known Member
I really love the Gold-level syllabus class I'm in, it's been an amazing review for me and my partner -- we didn't dance for 10 months because he was off geting knee surgery. It's really kind of like a coached practice...there's 16 people in the class, and everyone gets individual and group attention. I would so love for our teacher to continue on with some sort of "Master of Syllabus" type class so we could keep having this kind of weekly training session. Unfortunately, the class reverts back to Bronze level next month. I'd take it, except that experience shows that there will be about 40 people in it, 95% of them beginners, so the individual attention that we're experiencing now will go away in many respects.
It certainly would be excellent training to find about 9 or 10 other couples who are already in steady competitive partnerships at Novice level or higher to join up for this "MOS" class and go back to Bronze again, though. It's one thing to teach a bunch of complete beginners how to do a waltz basic, and another thing to be in a class of experienced competitors starting over again and working on a waltz basic.
If anyone is in the SF Bay Area reading this and is intrigued, drop me a private message. My teacher told me that if I could help find enough couples, she'd love to teach the class.
It certainly would be excellent training to find about 9 or 10 other couples who are already in steady competitive partnerships at Novice level or higher to join up for this "MOS" class and go back to Bronze again, though. It's one thing to teach a bunch of complete beginners how to do a waltz basic, and another thing to be in a class of experienced competitors starting over again and working on a waltz basic.
If anyone is in the SF Bay Area reading this and is intrigued, drop me a private message. My teacher told me that if I could help find enough couples, she'd love to teach the class.
Laura, what do you mean by a Master of Syllabus class? It sounds like a higher class than Gold. How do you do a MOS class and go back to bronze? Once you get up to this level do you find that people partner up mostly or are there also a lot of "floaters" who don't have a comitted dance partner? Also you mentioned once that you don't enjoy social dances that much because of the relatively lower level of the dancers and so you don't get to dance as you would like (please correct me if I got that wrong). I've actually been worried that might happen to me, and I really enjoy social dancing. Is this normal or does it just depend on the person?Laura said:
Joe
Forum Master
MOS is a category where anyone can dance, as long as they restrict themselves to syllabus patterns. It's a way for syllabus dancers to test themselves against open-level dancers with a level playing field, patternwise. Also a way for open-level dancers to prove that they've learned the basics.
Laura
Well-Known Member
tacad said:
It would be a syllabus class for people who have already been dancing for a while and who want to go back and really review their basics.
Well, MOS isn't a level, it's a concept. I want advanced dancers to be taking this class so that the teacher could focus on details about how the steps are danced and how people can improve their technique rather than having a class where the steps are taught assuming that half the class has never danced them before. Imagine a bunch of Gold, Novice, and Pre-Champ level competitors getting together and really working on basics one night a week. With the right teacher, I think it could really improve the level of everyone's dancing. Right now all the Gold-and-Higher classes in our area teach out-of-syllabus choreography and frankly I don't think they really help some people with the fundamentals of dancing. I don't think people need more choregraphy -- we all already have competitive routines -- but rather some of us could use reviewing the syllabus because of the opportunities it provides to bring new understanding to the basics of each dance.
I think it depends on the person.