Picking a teacher

[bdgrblrmdncr]

Couple weeks ago my partner and I started taking lessons from a professional couple. Usually we have one lesson with each of them. My partner and I both feel that we prefer only one of them as a teacher, however, the less favorite teacher usually does all the scheduling and doesn’t asks us which of them we prefer. We just recently met this couple and want to build a good relationship with both of them.

 

[waltzgirl]

It sounds like you'll have to make your preference known. You might start by telling the teacher you want to stay with that you would prefer to take lessons only from him/her.

How you tell them might depend on your reason for wanting to stick to one teacher. Does it have more to do with the teacher(s) themselves or with how you prefer to learn? Does one teacher teach you one style and the other another (like, one does latin and the other standard)?

It's a bit unusual for beginners to have more than one teacher and, unless they coordinate their teaching and teaching style very closely, I think it might be confusing to beginners.

 

[bdgrblrmdncr]

It sounds like you'll have to make your preference known. You might start by telling the teacher you want to stay with that you would prefer to take lessons only from him/her.

How you tell them might depend on your reason for wanting to stick to one teacher. Does it have more to do with the teacher(s) themselves or with how you prefer to learn? Does one teacher teach you one style and the other another (like, one does latin and the other standard)?

It's a bit unusual for beginners to have more than one teacher and, unless they coordinate their teaching and teaching style very closely, I think it might be confusing to beginners.

Thank you for your suggestion. We are open level dancers and compete in one style only. We feel that one teacher is a better dancer and is a better teacher. However, we don’t know them very well and don’t want to seem rude. We don’t know how to communicate our preference to them.

 

[JustAnotherDancer]

We don’t know how to communicate our preference to them.

This should be easy to get around without stating a preference.

To the instructor/scheduler: "We'd like to schedule another lesson with Teacher A, so that we can follow up on the things we learned in this week's lesson with Teacher A." If questioned, insist, "we really want to follow up with Teacher A for consistency. Is Teacher A available on that date?".

 

[dlgodud]

You pay your money to take lessons. I don't see it should be an issue you choose one coach over another one.

 

[fascination]

welcome to df...you won't get what you want unless you ask for it...and there is no reason why you shouldn't...good luck

 

[DanceMentor]

One strategy might be to say that you really need a female teacher for the next few weeks (or visa versa). Then you want to assess your progress. Bear in mind there are probably some advantages to taking from both, but there is nothing wrong with wanting more female perspective, or male perspective over a certain period of your learning. I think this is better than saying "I like this person more than this person".

 

[Piggles]

If I were in your situation, I might say something like "based on the lessons we've had so far, my partner and I feel that at this point in time we're connecting a little better with the concepts/ideas/(insert word here) presented by Teacher X. While we also value your teaching methods and feedback, would it be possible for us schedule our upcoming lessons with Teacher X for the next while?"

You may also want to first catch Teacher X by themself and ask in advance if it would be possible to schedule more/all of your lessons with them.

 

[waltzguy]

Agree with others. Make your preference known. Sincerity and clarity go a long way.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

While I mostly agree with the previous posts, I'd note that there's one caveat: sometimes it's useful for an advanced couple to have both a coach who was a leader and a coach who was a follower, especially if they are or were partners. Even the less experienced coach may know more about the part that coach did.