What is Choreographed Ballroom Dancing?
Commonly known as 'Round Dancing'
Round Dancing is Ballroom Dancing to a sequence of dance steps
that has been pre-choreographed to 'match and flow' with the music.
All the couples in the room are dancing the same figures
around the floor (in a circle) at the same time. There is a
Round Dance Cuer in the front of the room calling out the dance
figures in time to the music.
Over the last 50+ years thousands of
routines have been published providing pleasure to almost every
dance style imaginable, including Waltz, Foxtrot, Cha-Cha, Rumba,
Tango, Swing, Merengue, and many others. After learning to Round
Dance, you will be prepared to go Ballroom Dancing also.
See below for the many advantages Round Dancing.
Previous sample Round Dance sample videos have been temporarily removed
due to the inclusion of copyrighted music, which is illegal.
When this problem has been resolved, the sample videos will become
viewable again.
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Advantages of Round Dancing
1) Because the dances are danced in a circle, and the flow moves in the circle, there
is no problem of people running into one another.
2) We teach (and encourage) the men to lead, but they don't have to lead because the lady also
hears the cue and knows how to do her part.
3) Some people have trouble hearing the beat in the music. If the man will execute
the cued figure right after the cue is given, he won't be very far off from the beat.
4) There are no amalgamations (sequences of figures) to memorize in Round Dancing.
5) Round Dance Instruction and Dancing is considerably less expensive than most other forms
of dance instruction. Throughout most of the country, the cost varies between $5 to $15
per couple per night for an evening of dancing.
6) If you know how to Round Dance, you will automatically know how to Ballroom, and can
therefore go to any Ballroom dance activity, as well as any Round Dance activity.
7) Competition is not a part of Round Dancing, We dance to have fun and enjoy our friends.
8) At the upper levels, many of the Round Dance instructors are trained by some of the best
International & American ballroom teachers/competitors in the nation.
9) You can Round Dance in every major city and in many small citiies in the United States,
and in many foreign countries, ALWAYS in English. For example, Round Dancing is very
popular in Japan.
10) There are many Round Dance clubs that dance at various levels (beginners through
advanced) , and various special dance events throughout the year that
are most enjoyable.
11) Round Dancing in taught by two instructors - a male instructor for the men and a
female instructor for the women. The result = faster learning.
12) Round Dance instructors use advanced Teaching Methods , that normally
are not used by most other instructors (see right-side panel for more information
on this).
Class Specifics on Schedule and Fees
Classes are usually held once a week and usually last for about one to two hours.
A typical fee is $10 per couple per night (which varies across the country)
A typical schedule might be as follows (which varies between leaders):
6:45pm - 7:00pm -- Come early at this time for special questions or help
7:00pm - 8:00pm -- CLASS TIME. Only figures are taught, not dances.
8:00pm - 9:00pm -- CLUB TIME. Only pre-choreographed dances are cued. Sometimes a
specific dance will be taught during part of the club time. This is also a good time
for practicing what you have learned in your classes.
A set of classes will last from about 6 weeks to 20 weeks, depending on the rhythm.
For example, it takes about 6 weeks (or less) to learn Merengue, but it takes about
20 weeks (or less) to learn Waltz (there are lots of figures in Waltz).
Your instructor usually will teach one rhythm for the course duration. Once completed
he/she may start another course of classes with a different rhythm.
After you have mastered two or three rhythms, you will probably be invited to
attend a dance club. Clubs will put on dances of various rhythms. You should be able to
dance to those of your learned rhythms. You should continue to attend other classes to
learn more rhythms.
Note: Most pre-choreographed dances have one or more 'gotchas'. This means that the
dance includes one or more figures that are not standard (possibly unique to that dance
only). In time you will catch on to those gotchas.
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Levels of Dance
There are 6 levels of Round Dancing called 'Phases'.
Phases 1 & 2 are called 'Easy Levels', and include:
Waltz and Twostep
Phases 3 & 4 are called 'Intermediate Levels', and include:
a) intermediate level figures of Waltz and Twostep, and
b) more rhythms such as: Cha-Cha, Rumba, Quickstep, Mambo, and others.
Phases 5 & 6 are called 'Advanced Levels'. This level includes:
advanced level figures of Waltz, Cha-Cha, Rumba, Quickstep, Paso Doble, West Coast
Swing, and etc., up through and including International Tango.
Some dancers prefer to learn to dance at the Phase 2 level,
and remain there the rest of their lives. Others like more challenges,
and some progress up to the advanced level where new challenging figures
are always being presented. There are clubs across the nation, and the
world, that satisfy all these differences in people's enjoyment levels.
Teaching Methods
Many of your more experienced Round Dance instructors use an advanced
teaching method called 'Progressive Teaching'. This includes the following
concepts:
1) Almost every figure that you learn will be based off another figure that
you already know. So, in essence, you only have to learn a very small
item to accomplish an entirely new figure.
Sometimes, this means that you will be taken through a series of changes
that will ultimately lead you to the accomplishment of a very difficult
figure. And you will end up saying: 'That wasn't so hard.'
The old style of teaching is to show you the difficult figure,
and then say: 'Now do what I just did.' That is a very difficult
way to learn, and that is the way too many teachers teach.
2) Body Mechanics are taught, which is very important to comfort and appearance,
by using multi-level instruction. This means that your are shown how
to do a figure, then you are shown how how to do it better, then how to do it best.
You have the choice to choose the degree of quality that you want to put
into the figure. We find that everyone chooses different levels
of quality. In other words, there is no more pressure to dance with
perfection than the desire of the student to dance with perfection.
3) Your instructors entertain while they teach. This has been a very
difficult thing for most instructors to implement. The normal thought
process says that one must concentrate more to learn, and therefore the
instructor becomes quite serious about accomplishing the task. But, it
is a well known fact that when people are having fun, they will learn faster.
It breaks through the mental blocks that always occur.
Additionally, it is often observed that when people are having difficulty with
a particular action, movement, or figure, that is a good time to take a break,
or put-off until the next session. You should never try to drive through
mental-exhaustion.
4) Once a figure is learned, most instructors will 'Hash Cue' that figure into
a practice session. Hash cueing means that the instructor will call out figures
randomly that you already know mixing in the new figure with them. This
will give you practice not only for the figure, but for getting into and out
of the new figure, relative to the other figures. This will give you a
lot of practice time.
5) People usually have one of 3 types of learning styles: Auditory, Visual,
or Kinesthetic. Most Round Dance teachers have been professionally
trained to recognize these characteristics in you as learners, and therefore
their approach will be varied and specifically targeted to each student's
learning style.
Round Dance instruction is
Progressive and FUN
How can you beat that??
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