I'm always surprised to hear about un-qualified teachers paying to join an amateur class for the purpose of learning teaching material for their own classes.

A teacher of modern sequence dances told me that recently he had this couple approach him and ask what time in the night would he be teaching the new dance.

He told them it would be after the revision of another dance he had taught recently. The couple then asked would it be possible for him to teach it earlier because they had announced at their last class they would be teaching the new dance, and their class would be waiting for them.

Surely this sort of thing happens all the time. In the sequence world, it is simply easier to sort out the choreography of a new sequence from someone who has already done so, than it is to work it out for yourself from the script.

Any properly trained person should be able to read a dance script (although some of them are dire!), and leaders of sequence classes or clubs often don't hold formal teaching qualifications from a 'real' teaching society. Mind you, the actual standard of most social sequence dancing is absolutely dreadful, so perhaps the profession should regard itself as having failed, almost completely, in that area of dance.

There is an independant and "unqualified" ballroom instructor at the studio I attend who studys my lessons with my qualified and professionally trained instructor, and then tries to teach what he sees to a student of his. It's a real disaster from my point of view since the unqualified instructor is not even qualified to understand what he is hoping to learn. (I am going to ask my instructor to let us do something wrong one night just for some fun.) Cheat with dignity or not at all.

No one should be allowed to watch another person's lesson with out their permission. You are paying for the info not them. This was a problem at our studio and the owner had to have a talk with the offenders because people were complaining. It is even worse when someone is taking the information to make money.

Please don't think that I am supporting the idea that persons not properly trained should be teaching dancing. My remarks were in the particular context of sequence dancing, where generally (and there are notable exceptions) the standard of tuition, and of dancing is relentlessly awful, and to be 'qualified' is the exception, not the norm.

Of more general application is the circumstance where someone who has enjoyed relative success in competitive dancesport (and therefore considers themself representative of the 'cream' of the dance community) has the laughable notion that their competitive career has, in some way, equipped them to 'teach', when of course a moment's serious thought would reveal this fallacy for what it is.

Teaching is a vocation, and requires particular gifts. It is useful, but by no means necessary, to be able to dance quite well. I've yet to see a room full of sequence dancers and not wanted to laugh out loud.

Slightly off topic, but still related. I practice on my own at a studio several times a week, and there was one couple who started to watch/study me while I practiced. One time when I was working in front of the mirror, the woman ever-so-casually walked over to the bench where I had my notes, and tried to read them. I haven't seen the couple around for a week or so, but if they come back I think I might approach them with a big smile and offer to translate my notes for them, at a price. Anyone have a suggestion as to the market rate for dance notes?