Anonymous. Winning perhaps a World or Blackpool title.
That is ridiculace and you know it. If the Worlds were first held in 1920 there are, or I should say were.If they were all still alive there would be only 86 people capable of teaching. Include Blackpool in that and you can double it. Even thoes who were dancing in the early 50's would be in there 80's today. So according to you there are, and we will be generous here. In this whole wide world there are less than a 100 capable of teaching up to world class according to you.Try thinking before you write.

"Anonymous. Winning perhaps a World or Blackpool title.
That is ridiculace and you know it."

You can call it whatever you like, but the majority of leading ballroom coaches - the people current champions and finalists study with - are ex-champions with many years of judging and coaching experience.

Shouldn't you be consulting with one of them from time to time?

Or will you always be content to be the student of the student, getting everything confused by hearing it second or third hand?

Don't you have any interest in taking things back to their best living source, to get the real story?

"If they were all still alive there would be only 86 people capable of teaching. Include Blackpool in that and you can double it."

I'd put the number of leading coaches currently active at maybe two dozen for each style. It's an exclusive club - you don't get into it just by winning, you get into it by winning and then helping your students win.

Anonymous. So you reckon there are possibly two dozen teachers only that are worth going to, to learn the Standard style of Ballroom Dancing. Is that correct. Most of them teach in the UK Italy and Germany. So one of those very select people go all the way to where you live to teach you. Or do you regularly pop of to London or Munich or Rome.

"Anonymous. So you reckon there are possibly two dozen teachers only that are worth going to, to learn the Standard style of Ballroom Dancing. Is that correct."

No, that is not correct. Don, you really need to work on your reading comprehension skills!

What I said is that there are only two dozen or so leading ballroom coaches of the sort who train current champions.

I DID NOT say that this is the only type of person you should study with. In fact I believe I suggested that you continue working with your current coach for the most part.

What I DID SAY was that you should start seeking OCCASIONAL CONSULTATION with one of these, the best teachers available in the world today. At least if you are serious about your dancing, you should not be willing to settle for only the word of students - you should be seeking out their teachers too. You will be hard pressed to find any serious couple who does not!

"Most of them teach in the UK Italy and Germany. So one of those very select people go all the way to where you live to teach you. Or do you regularly pop of to London or Munich or Rome."

They travel, or you can travel. Either way, your teachers are clearly (if they are who you say they are) getting lessons with them, and know how to arrange that, so why aren't you???

Anonymous. I could not afford the amount of money it would cost to do as you suggested.I doubt if you could or would. I would have to be a person who's living was ballroom dancing and was competing. By what you write I assume that some person of some note visits your city, holds a seminar and is available for lessons. Andrew was our last visitor who could only be here for four days in either October or March. If you think you can just pick up a phone and book a lesson. You can't.
A little true story. The last time I was at Blackpool I stayed at a place called the Windsor Hotel. The managers wife worked at a Health and Spar place as a receptionist. Incidently they are completely booked like 9 months ahead for massages and sun lamp and the usuall. She said to me. You ballroom people in the main are very wealthy. All I am seeing all day long are solid gold Rolex wrist watches, diamond rings and exquisite clothing.I assured her that many, or the majority of us are not.
Just be a little more carefull when you start running a persons ability to teach what they have been taught by one of these very important teachers.You really do come out with some rubbish just to support one of you comments. The door is always open for you to come into the real world.

"Anonymous. I could not afford the amount of money it would cost to do as you suggested."

If you'd researched it you would know such lessons usually cost less than twice a normal lesson... for many times the value. Hearing things second or third hand from your teacher is great, but it won't all make sense until you take it back to the source they got it from, and get the details that were confused in the passing along.

You haven't even considered it yet, have you?

"I doubt if you could or would."

On the contrary, I have been in the habit of taking such consultation lessons for several years now - as are all serious competition dancers.

"Andrew was our last visitor who could only be here for four days in either October or March. If you think you can just pick up a phone and book a lesson. You can't."

If you'd tried early enough and known the right people, you could. I've never found it very difficult. Certainly given who you say your teachers are they should have the requisite connections to set you up.

Anonymous. You don't understand at all'. You might be able to get a bus to where this super coach is teaching.Would you and your partner travel 12,000 miles . Or would the coach travel 12,000 miles to take you for a lesson. Could you afford the air fare accomodation food as well as the lessons.I have a friend who in one year spent over $12,000 all within his own country. On top of that they competed at Blackpool where the air fares accomodation food dresses and of course lessons had to be paid for. I was told the tale of a couple who spent 150,000 English pounds on lessons. I know this is a fact. The coach's sister told me this. A very wealthy man in S Africa hired her sister to teach exclusivly his three chidren for three months. She was given the top floor of this mansion to stay in and everything found. What a way to go.

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Nope, all that tells me is that they appear well on tv, and that they seem to have looked good to you. Not that they can teach a lesson (which is MUCH different than what a TV appearance is about, with their information geared to what they see with the student at hand) but maybe that they can give a lecture. Much different.

And length of time is important. Just dancing well does not mean communication well.

"In response to Don's irrational obsession to his beloved textbook, I'd like to point out what the real purpose of that book is.

It isn't to create outstanding dancing.

Instead, it is to create a common starting point for the study, teaching, and discussion of dancing....."

Well, well, well...if this is'nt a case of the pot calling the kettle black. What a U-turn from some of your dogmatic pro prescribed technique arguments in previous threads.

Do you still believe, for example, that someday the Natural Spin Turn will be danced by someone using the technique like it is described in the prescribed text and that this execution will be 'better' than the 'other' technique that all top dancers have used and are using to dance this figure?

Whatever Don's faults or misunderstandings about dance are, I still believe that he has more integrity than you. You are highly intelligent but dishonest, hypocritical and possibly a social deviant.

Rha

"Do you still believe, for example, that someday the Natural Spin Turn will be danced by someone using the technique like it is described in the prescribed text and that this execution will be 'better' than the 'other' technique that all top dancers have used and are using to dance this figure?"

I don't believe I've ever claimed that the spin turn should be danced exactly as it is in the book. I have called people's attention to a commonly overlooked difference in the book between the spin turn and the natural pivot turn, but I would recommend taking that difference much further in actual practice. For example, I would not hold the free foot in CBMP at all during step four or five, I would dance a pointing alignment.