Hey,
I just started ballroom dancing 5 months ago, and it's really great! I was wondering how long it would take me to get to Gold level. Right now I am doing it at the group level, but thinking about taking private lessons for maximum results. How long would it take at each level, going group or private lessons?

It all really depends on so many factors that it's VERY difficult to give an estimate.

It depends on how fast you learn, how much you practice, how good your teachers are, what your goals are (patterns? good social technique? prize-winning competitive technique?).

I'm so happy for you that you are so excited about dancing and want to work through the syllabus levels. That's a great goal and it can be a very fun and interesting journey. Best of luck to you and happy dancing!!!

Hi CCCL, Just to give you another perspective I started my first year of dance (ever) completing the 3 Bronze medals for Modern, Latin and New Vogue(Australia). Because of the expense I only took 6 private lessons over the last 6 weeks of each lot of 13 medal classes. In total 18 lessons and 39 medal classes in order to get some basics. I then danced socially for 2 years. This year I have had weekly lessons learning Silver medal routines and the difference is signifigant. Between, reading syllabus books, advice from reliable friend, advice and info from this site and practise I am really prepared for each lesson where my teacher takes me a bit further. Time and planning is what you make of it but I can say the weekly private lessons certainly help with good technique for beautiful dancing and achieving those medals. Happy Dancing!!