There seems to be the impression, that a ballroom dance teacher who teaches several different dances, spreads his abilities too thin and is inferior to the specialist who concentrates on learning of one single dance form, let's say Swing for an example.
Although this may apply to the field of medicine, when referring to a much more simple art form like dancing, the comparason is ridiculous for the following reasons:
1) All Ballroom Dances have many disciplines, techniques and body movements in common;
2) All B.D. use the same 2/4 Quarter beat merasures (bars) as a rhythmic quide;
3) Teaching any body movement whether it be Tai Chee or Dancing requires the same Instructional Methods.
4) Most IMPORTANT; what a teacher learns by teachiung only one dance limits his ability to develop as a well rounded dancer, e.g. developing grace, smoothness are techniques necessary in Ballet, Waltze, Tango:
Learning complex Rhythm are best learned in the Latin dances like Mambo, Salsa, Flamenco:
Learning body control, agility and stimulating the creative urge is best developed in Jazz dancing, and Mambo.
Bottom Line: Teachers who are too 'Limited' in teaching only Swing Variations, be it WCS, ECS, HIP HOP, the Lindy, the Bal or the Shag, are
the first ones to go out of business when the dancing craze slows down as it definitely is now doing with all the Swing venues closing down, with the exception of those venues operating in my town, Pasadena which is today the major city in this country for Swing Dancing. Check the Intertnet if you doubt this fact.
The Ballroom Dance teacher goes through much more extensive training to master several dances, and ends up surviving the depressions in dance crazes.
In the late 1950's in Hollywood, where I had established the most successfull dance club, the first teachers that went out of business were the Swing Specialits. Even master Swing teachers like Dean Collins had to take a full time job installing security alarms in home garages in the late 1950's, while my Ballroom dance teachers not only survived that 1960 dance slow down, but up until a few years ago, teachers like Laure' Haile, Skippy Blaire and Rikki, kept on teachiung Ballroom dances all through those dance depressions. Sandra Giles, one of my own protegees is still operating the most successful Ballroom Dance Venue in Los Angeles. And not to mention the most successful Ballroom Dance School in the Country for over the past decades, the PBDA run by two veteran dance teachers, the Steven Gals who just happen to be among the best Swing dancers in the country.
Anyone who demeans the Ballroom Dance teacher as 'Spreading himself too thin' is obviously a teacher who is 'limited' in his knowledge of the Art of Dancing.
Black Sheep

As a teacher, I haven't heard this accusation in my experiences, although I have had the occasional social dance student resist my recommendation to learn more than one dance, because he (or she) doesn't want to spread himself too thin.

It's not absolutely unfounded, though. Any two dances or dance styles will have both similarities and differences. On the whole, dancing is dancing and the similarities far outweight the differences. But in certain situations, especially with respect to newer student dancers who may have limited time, attention, and/or ability, sometimes less can be more.

Regards,
Jonathan

Jonathan,
Recall that I was referring to 'Teacher Types', Not students.
Naturally a Student with 20 hours traning in Swing will be more proficient (all factors being equal) than if the took only 10 hours in Swing and 10 hours in Tango.
A well known moderator on another forum, stated that a 'TEACHER' specializing in one dance is more capable of teaching Swing than a 'BALLROM TEACHER' who is trained in several dances.
If a teacher confines himself to studying Swing only for, say two years, while another teacher spends two years studying Swing and two additional years studying Tango, (all factors being equal) who do you think will be the better Qualified to teach Swing? (All factors being equal mind you)
It is axiomatic that not all Ballroom Dance teachers necessarily Specialize in Swing, but the additional training they have in those other dances gives them techniques that they otherwise would never be aware of. In the past two years, I improved the spinning on one foot with balance, style and rhythm for two of our National Champions by showing them techniques I learned studying ballet in the 1950's from a ballet book by Nico Charisse. Both National Champions have been teaching and Specializing in Swing dancing for over six years or more, yet they never learned the technique of spinning on one toe on balance effectively. Swing alone does not give you a well rounded background for teaching any dance.
Joe Lanza aka Black Sheep

"If a teacher confines himself to studying Swing only for, say two years, while another teacher spends two years studying Swing and two additional years studying Tango, (all factors being equal) who do you think will be the better Qualified to teach Swing? (All factors being equal mind you)"

To answer your very leading question, the teacher who has spent 4 years (2 years learning swing, and 2 years learning tango) would be a better teacher than somone who only had two years learning swing.

However, if that same teacher hadn't done swing at all during the 2 years they did tango, I would still go with the swing teacher, if all I wanted to learn was swing dancing, because that would be fresher in their minds.

And if that swing teacher had fours years of teaching experience, like the other teacher? I would defintely go with the 4 year swing teacher.

In my opinion, if you are interested in learning a specific dance (especially a club dance like swing, salsa, or argentine tango) you should always go with a specialist because that person will likely be submerged in the culture of that dance, and will therefore be better able to teach it. If you want a better rounded teacher who can teach lots of different dances and styles, I would go with a generalist.

A 'teacher' who only knows one social style is not much different than one who knows two. Length of time is never a criteria - it's how much time was spent on technique and how much time was in reality 'dancing around'.

Many folks will tell you that they've been dancing for (say) ten years - but that might include 20 group lessons and years of social dancing with the wrong technique. Most folks don't want to hear this (they think that the learning process is very fast in dance and that they also think they can see who is 'good' or 'bad' simply by observation in a social situation) and therefore see a 'teacher' who's been doing social teaching (for instance) for ten years as having more dance training than, say, a teacher that has extensive dance training but only a year or two of ballroom.

Than, there's 'ballroom' and there's BALLROOM, but that's a topic for another thread....

I can only speak from my own experience over a number of years. After dancing for many years with a teacher who taught
three different styles of dancing, I went to a Latin specialist who was a former top Professional in Europe, seventh in the world actually. What she was able to teach was unbelievable. For instance , did you know that very few people are capable of dancing the Samba to the correct timing because of its changing rhythms. Only a highly trained specialist can do this. Believe me.