How ironic! I was thinking of quitting dancing last week because I realized that I was addicted to it. I made the decision to continue my private lessons but to strive to practice moderation with my relationship with dancing. There's been a slight,slow withdrawal which seems to be working. Your responses have helped me . Then yesterday my husband and I realized that our income just can't permit me to take private lessons anymore.(It's been 10 glorious months with my amazing teacher. I've definitely been spoiled!) I'll have to take group which I've never done and am a little fearful cause I'm a slow learner and I feel that I won't be able to keep up.There wasn't that problem when I had private. I have 5 more lessons left and then that's it. I'm heartbroken but that's life. At least I have the group available to me.It's a lot more affordable. Any insight on group? I know that I will learn slower and that will frustrate me cause I'm in my 50's and don't have a whole life time ahead of me. Oh,well.

Group lessons will be great to keep you from forgetting what you learned. They will help you learn to dance with different partners. It will be harder and much slower to learn new steps since the instructor cant concentrate on you exclusivly.
From my experience group lessons move at the pace of the slowest learner - and this isnt the same person every session.
I think the most important bit when going to a group lesson is keeping an open mind.

You can learn a little bit from everyone, even less experienced dancers (even if what you learn is what it feels like when someone leads you the wrong way). Everyone brings their own style and personality to dance and everyone is good at different things. Its a great opportunity to mingle and share.

Group classes can be a lot of fun. There can be a nice comraderie among the class. Don't worry about learning slowly. The fact that you've had private lessons will give you a good foundation. Go into it with an open mind and realize that you'll get other things from group classes and the opportunity to dance with lots of different leaders. Your following skills will get a lot better!

You might want to consider saving your remaining private lessons and taking them once a month or so in conjunction with the group classes. A monthly "check-in" with your instructor can help you keep your technique sharp.

Ballet dancers have never heard of a private lesson, unless you are extremely advanced and have an important upcoming event. In Russia, most ballroom dancers don't have private lessons. They have very high quality classes and dedicated students that are willing to practice.

Expensive private lessons and the lack of high quality ballroom technical classes is what keeps lots of talented young dancers away from ballroom. Too bad this private lesson system is so ingrained in the USA. It even overlaps into personal training and other coaching. If Brigham Young University is near to you--this is the only place in the USA that I have seen with high quality camps and group lessons.

Hope you can find a good class and teacher for your group lessons and not some joke teller or entertainer. Or try to organize 4 people to share your privates with your existing teacher.

To all who have responded,thanks.I just love this website cause everyone wants to help everyone else and I have gotten so much good advice from it. I don't know many other dancers and none of my friends dance. This is my support system. yes, I will try to start group classes with an "open mind" and yes,Ellen, I will use my remaining 5 privates to use once a month instead of using them up in 5 weeks. Great advice!

Glad I could help! I second the suggestion about "group privates." Once you meet some people, you can see about getting a few together to share a private. I do that for a latin technique group private. It's the best of both worlds!

Anonymous. You are dead right about the system used in Russia. Not only Russia. The last time I read there are a 100,000
dancers registered in Moscow as reported on dancesport uk.
That's what we have done sharing a lesson between four of us.We are more into dancing correctly than learning groups. After the lesson we spend, some of us two, the others three hours pracising what we have been taught.