Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Another class change - no foolin'!

Hello again, dance friends in LA and Pasadena! If you are on my email list, you have already seen this announcement.

 I am changing my Thursday evening 6:30-8PM class level from Advanced Beginner to Beginner/Intermediate. This is a very slight level increase but one that I think will be more inclusive of a greater range of dancers.

Why the change? A year ago, I added the Thursday class at Dance Arts Academy with the intention of it being a complement to Tuesday. I had hoped students would come to both of the classes or perhaps find that one or the other suited them better. What I discovered was that the more consistent students tended to be slightly more advanced than Advanced Beginner and could handle a bit more challenging combinations, particularly in the center.

This change comes on the heels of the name changes of my classes in Pasadena (by the way, there is no change to my Tuesday evening class). It's very true that my classes tend to skew more difficult than other teachers'. So a Beginner class with one teacher might be what I do with my Basic students. When you call a class by a particular name, that - to me - is the highest level it can be. It can certainly be lower but not higher.

Example: my Beginner class will never be more difficult than Beginner, regardless of who attends. But if everyone who shows up is brand new, than I will lower it for that day to Basic.  By expanding the name of the class, I expand the range of technical difficulty I can give to my students.

Which brings me to Thursday. By calling it Beginner/Intermediate, I welcome students who are both or anywhere in between. For my current students, it is really not much more difficult than it has been but it will give me (and you!) more freedom to try different things. I will still structure the class in the same way, still answer questions in the same way, still provide you with fun exercises that make you work hard and hopefully grow as dancers.

If you have any questions about it or are wondering if you are technically skilled enough to take it (trust me, you are!), just send me an email. Hope to see you in class soon! Happy dancing~

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