From a teacher’s perspective, the best student to have is one who has a clear goal. A student with a goal will usually be more prone to take lessons consistently, practice and therefore improve. It is no surprise that teachers everywhere, myself included, love those kinds of students. I get inspired and energized when I work with them. It is important to note that it does not have to be a competitive goal, any person can have a goal that suits their needs.
Here are 5 examples of goals one might have:
1. A social dancer who wants to be able to dance an entire song without stopping at the next studio party.
2. A Pro/Am competitor who has a goal to compete on date X.
3. A wedding couple who wants to prepare for their first dance.
4. A student wanting to lose an X amount of pounds.
5. A couple who wants to perform a choreographed show piece at the next showcase.
As you can see, these 5 examples are extremely varied. What the goal is isn’t as important as just having one!
So do you have a goal?
Confidence in myself. I want to be able to come out of my shell and be a bit more sociable without worrying what others think. I believe that by dancing it’ll help me out a lot because it requires dancing with other people and dancing in front of people.
That is a great goal! Thanks for sharing. Yes, dancing will definitely help you build confidence as you will get used to meeting new people and dancing in front of people.
To prepare to dance open choreography in all 5 international latin dances by Commonwealth Comp date!
Thanks for sharing! That is a great goal because of how specific it is.
Hi Leon
Next year I will be dancing with partners in Intermediate, Advanced and over 45 categories as well as the dancing with a stranger competiton. I will also compete in the Double Trouble category(dancing with two ladies at the same time), I know i must be mad.This will involve training4/5 different partners. Without goals I could not achieve this amount of dancing. Although ceroc is not as precise as your dancing I augment latin moves and techniques into my style. I practise every week and attend at least one freestyle each weekend to practise the moves learned. I make all my partners have goals also because without them the end product is never as good.
I began taking ballroom dance lessons because I’m a high school choir teacher who had to put on a musical production and I knew I wanted that kind of dancing in the show. So my first goal was to learn to dance well enough to teach high school kids. The show is over now, and I’ve become hooked myself. However, I’m debating about my next goal. I want to be the best dancer I can be, but not sure which direction to concentrate on.
Hi Marla,
Keep taking classes and your confidence as a dancer will increase with your skill level.
The best way to improve believe or not is actually to compete. You can do pro/am with your teacher. That way you’ll improve very fast.