Social Dancing

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To be a competent and confident social dancer you need three things:

Firstly, you need a handful of dances to suit common types of music, and a handful of steps in each dance to give you variety and flexibility. We’ve found most people learn best if they work on a suite of four dances at a time. That gives you the versatility to dance to a range of musical styles, but it’s focussed enough that you can improve quickly.

The most useful social dances are foxtrot (for the sort of music you'd hear from a jazz band or in a piano bar), rumba (for slow songs and ballads), chacha (for most pop songs), swing (for big band or rock'n'roll), and merengue (very easy, very versatile, and great for tight spaces or crowded floors). Waltz and tango are also beautiful dances which are hugely popular with our students. And there are plenty more that you might like once you’re more advanced. Your choice of dances is entirely flexible, and we'll tailor a lesson program to suit you.

Secondly, you need good partnership skills. We'll teach you to lead or follow a partner, and we'll give you some technical basics to make sure you're comfortable to dance with. We'll teach you how to adapt your dancing for different partners, and how to be always courteous and considerate of your partner's strengths and weaknesses - no-one likes dancing with an inconsiderate or arrogant partner.

Thirdly, you need floorcraft. Just as partnership is built around courtesy and consideration for your partner, floorcraft is all about having the same courtesy and consideration for everybody else. We'll teach you how to navigate a floor so you don't collide with other dancers (or walls, or posts, or chairs, or musicians!) and so you allow other dancers the room they need to enjoy themselves too. We'll teach you how to get out of tight spots on the dance floor, and what to do when you don't seem to have room to do anything.

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