The description of levels of dance classes at our dance studio.
Depending on their approach and their philosophy, each studio decides how to sort dancing into different levels of experience. Here is how we see
Dancing
Novice – Courses 101-102, also known as the First Step, takes you from your first moments in the dance studio to around the initial 4 months of dancing. During this time, the focus is on learning how to learn, understanding your body, and moving around your dance partner. You’ll delve into concepts like leading and following, tuning in to the music, grasping rhythm, and realizing how your posture affects your ability to dance. The course introduces you to Swinging, Latin American, or Ballroom Forms—or all three—providing a broad overview and the chance to choose your favorite style.
Beginner – more or less your first year of dancing – you already know how to learn and what you want to learn. Throughout the Beginner level you get introduced to great number of things and you get to try them. You learn a bit of everything, so that you get a fairly broad – but not very detailed – picture of the dance you have chosen for your hobby.
Improver – you already understand basic concepts and can consistently execute examples. Time to broaden your repertoire by adding more complicated combinations to your dance. You get to focus on how to dance things you already know better and with more fluidity. This is when dancers are most pattern hungry.
Intermediate – this stage of learning is about more complicated stuff, but also about returning to basics, with understanding, that it’s the good basics that make the complicated stuff easy. It’s also time to start doing things that previously out of lack of control were impossible to attempt. Patterns become secondary, doing things well becomes more important.
Advanced – at this level the “doing” is no longer an issue, it is only the “how” that becomes a main thing. You suddenly understand how basics are the most important thing, and with that understanding you start the journey of patently relearning everything. A second First Step towards becoming a Master of your art.