Class standards

This subject has been addressed a few months ago on Arlene’s pages but I wanted to blog about this subject again because of a recent class I attended and a particularly stubborn leader.

I had previously met Mr Stubborn last month at a milonga and after chatting realised I’d also seen him once at my usual class. I asked him about it and he complained to me that he thought my class had been too hard and had not been what an ‘intermediate’ class (which is what he considered his level to be) should be. I explained that a lot of the dancers who attended my class were very experienced and that perhaps he might like to try the ‘improvers’ class instead. ‘But I’m intermediate’, he said ‘I’ve been dancing on and off for about 6 months’. I was tempted to roll my eyes but refrained.

Anyway, he turned up again at the class this week and predictably he found it quite hard. In the middle of the class, the teacher stopped and explained that as there was a large range of abilities, she would like to teach us a step with several progressions and asked that we each stopped at our own level. Needless to say, this was not the case for certain people. At the end of the class, the teacher explained that although she didn’t want to send anyone backwards, it was very hard to learn something well if people weren’t honest with themselves about their ability. In the end you are just short-changing yourself as you will only ever be able to reach a certain level and then you will just stagnate.

This lesson has inspired me to start again simply and so you will now see me re-visiting the beginners class next week! Unfortunately, I don’t think Mr Stubborn will be joining me.