Everyone can dance you just have to find a way! Ive been taking lessons at arthurmurray for 3 years now and i absolutly love it! For all of the people talking bad about it im sorry for your experience but i tried going to the ymca, colleges, and other independent studios in my area and it was horrible! Me and my husband felt we dident learn anything. So my advise is shop around and if it turns out something you really want to do then i would look for more proffessional instruction.

As a man dacing actively for about 8 years, here are some random obervations about AM:

1. I know a few AM dancers who switched to independent studios in the are, when they talk about their experience, they usually "dont count" the years they were taking lessons from AM :) (Not from the same franchise either).

2. A top AM instructor in the region for many years starts taking lessons from my instructor after she quit AM, go figure...

3. All you have to do is go to a general dance event or a competition in your area and watch people dancing. Wait a minute, the AM people will not compete in an open competition, may be they are afraid of making everybody else look bad? And they dont let anybody dance in their competitions either, I guess for the same reason.

I am sure there are a few good AM instructors in the country :p

In defence of Arthur Murrays, all Arthur Murray studios are Independantly Owned. This means that each studio you go to will be different. I have many students who have been ripped off at a non-franchised studio. In one case, there was no contract or evidence that they purchaces any lessons. As it was, they had no proof that they bought lessons. They could not get any refund. The contract protects you. Another thing I never recomend anyone to continue if they don't think they can afford it or feel the value. Buying cheap sometimes means getting cheap. When you go to MacDonalds, you know what you get for your money. However, having said that, there are many independantly owned non-franchised studios that have good quality as well. Inquire before you buy and try a sample lesson where ever you go. Just be smart.

"The contract protects you."

Is it negotiable?

Didnt think so.

Real teachers don't do contracts - you get their best rate while paying one lesson at a time.

"Real teachers don't do contracts"

Completely untrue. It is true that many of the top coaches don't need to do contracts because they are in sufficient demand. But it's unlikely that they would take on absolute beginners and it would be a waste for a total beginner to take those lessons. Somebody having sticker shock at AM would probably not want to pay top coach prices either. Most people starting ballroom dance as adults do so in local studios. In that context, it's good to shop around and there's no problem signing a contract for a reasonable number of lessons once you've decided you want to pursue dance. Most studios give a discount the more lessons you buy at a time. A studio is a different kind of business from a single individual working independently as a coach and contracts serve both the student and as a business tool for the studio to be able to project income for financial planning, getting loans, etc.

If you know now that your goal is to compete steadily for years and want to reach your highest potential, sure, go ahead and see if you can book lessons with a top coach. But if you want to social dance and maybe do a bit of hobby competing, a good studio is fine place to start.

Let's put it this way - if you walk into your local studio and sign up for lessons, the 99% chance is that you will get assigned to a trainee or someone stuck in a dead end job, not a "real teacher". The purpose of the contract is to lock you in to that, usually letting the studio switch you to any of their trainees - the contract is not with the teacher, but with the studio.

A real teacher with real knowledge has no need of a contract - in fact they are better off not doing contracts because it makes their life much simpler, prevents bad financial planning on their part, etc. Of course you should never pay for future lessons without a contract, but you should never pay for future lessons anyway.

And as for prices, they are generally lower when you do not work through a studio, because you are then actually paying the market value of the teacher's time, not some inflated number that has no relation to the value of what they provide. But yes, they will expect you to them and the activity by making a serious effort. Most teachers like this would be happy to take dedicated beginners, and many do take wedding couples. But they do expect you to take your lessons seriously.

Well, I'll agree about the trainee part. If you are starting from absolute scratch, a trainee can teach you some basics but for a long term commitment I would recommend looking for an instructor who is a current or retired pro (not solely pro-am) competitor. That way, you know they have been exposed to high quality dancing and are actively working to improve their own dancing.

In the independent studio I go to, there are six such instructors, including the owner. A couple of them are national champions or finalists at either the amateur or pro levels. The least experienced of them took lessons from a competing pro at the studio for several years, then went through teacher training there, and now teaches and competes as a pro. I wouldn't recommend a gold level student to take lessons from her yet, but she is certainly totally competent to take a dancer through bronze.

The studio offers contracts for 5 lessons up to 20 lessons. You can certainly take and pay for lessons one at a time, but the per-lesson cost goes down with a contract.

Once you've done your comparison shopping of instructors available in your community, if you decide to go with a studio I recommend starting small on the contracts. Take the intro package first, then the 5 lesson, etc. In my fourth year of taking private lessons, I now commit to about 6 to 9 months of lessons at a time, but I would never have done that until I was sure I had the right instructor and knew I'm committed to dancing long term.

When a studio offers you a discount to buy a package of several lessons, what they are basically saying is "We don't think you are serious enough to stick with it unless we are holding your money hostage"

When a real teachers gives you their best rate for a single lesson, what they are saying is "I assume you are serious about wanting to dance (and of course showing up) If it turns out you aren't, then I don't want to waste my time teaching you any more"

You could argue that some people who might be reluctant can make it if you put enough pressure on them. But those who really know dancing how it's enough of an effort for the determined that it's not worth wasting time and effort on those who don't ultimately "need" to dance.

No, what a studio is saying is "Not only do we provide the time your teacher spends teaching you, to make it possible for you to have a place to dance we also need to pay the rent, install and maintain a decent dance floor, pay music royalties, provide heat and air-conditioning as needed, pay the phone bill, pay the janitor, pay the receptionist, etc. To take on those kinds of costs and make a go of it, so we can stay in business and you can continue dancing, we need some financial stability and ability to predict that we'll be able to pay all those bills next month. So we offer you a contract at reduced rates, which seems to us to be a win-win situation." Studio owners are entrepreneurs; they do expect to make a living and hope to make a profit.

If everyone took Anonymous' advice and only studied with the independent coaches who can afford to take pay-as-you-go students, there would be no studios. And where would these independent coaches teach? A few may have their own space, but most teach in studios (and pay a floor fee just for the hours they use, so they have little or no other overhead costs). So indirectly, the independent coaches are benefiting from the contracts the studio has, too.

I'm not saying that there are no unscrupulous studio owners who try to squeeze every penny they can from students, but you can't generalize that all dance studios fall into that category.

"If everyone took Anonymous' advice and only studied with the independent coaches who can afford to take pay-as-you-go students, there would be no studios."

Realistically, many studios do not have enough real dance business going on to stay open without taking advantage of both newbies and either trainee or sponsored-visa staff. For those where that's true, perhaps they should not be open, at least not as seperate entitys. It probably takes 6 or more top-flight teachers to keep a full sized ballroom open and dedicated to ballroom dancing. Either the guy with the biggest floor invites the others to use it and offers to treat them with real respect (this usually only works if they are allowed to be independent rather than employees), or if each teacher wants their own little fiefdom, they go and rent space by the hour from the church or tap school or elks club.

I'm not going to insist that those studios that take advantage of beginners and junior staff close; I'm not even going to avoid them as long as I can get good terms there. But I am going to campaign against that business model, and feel a lot happier when in a place where everyone can be generous while preseving their own self interest at the same time.