When you come to take dance lessons it is tempting to ask the million dollar question….”how long will this take?”. Well, that is a loaded question. Everyone has their own unique style of learning and retaining information, and this can make it very difficult to determine just how long it will take before you’re the dancer you want to be.
There are three main things we look at when we evaluate the time it will take to get you to your goals:
- What are your goals? Do you want to have all the moves and be the smoothest one out there or do you simply want to know a step or two to survive your cousin’s wedding? If you imagine how long it would take for you to learn a language, imagine this is language for your body. You can lean couple of simple “phrases” fairly quickly, but if you want to be more proficient with it then you’ll have to spend some time with it.
- How much time per week are you able to dedicate to it? One of the larger factors of determining progress is consistency. If we continue with the language analogy, you’ll probably get the language down faster if you lived in the country where it is predominantly spoken versus using what you know once a year at holiday parties. We know you won’t be sleeping in the studio every night, but we recommend finding a consistent time per week to dedicate to your lessons. Most people with lives and jobs and things will find once a week a comfortable and stable learning cadence that will produce good results in a reasonable amount of time. Also consider that you will fall in love with this and continue learning and evolving with new goals as you go along, so don’t discredit the life long learning process! This is a hobby, not a checklist.
- How will you practice what you know? We don’t judge your process at all, so if your weekly dance lesson is the only time you can dedicate to your dancing, we love it! However, for those of you who thrive on accomplishing tasks and checking off the boxes then we really encourage you to get out and use what you know! Find a local dance hall and try out your moves “for realzies”. Every city has a great dance hall or two, and if your city doesn’t, then nothing beats a boombox and a living room floor! Make your own dance party right at home. The goal is to get dancing whenever possible. We have found that most people hit their goals fastest when they learn on their lessons and craft the courage to take it out into the real world!