Gypsy Lilah
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First of all, welcome to the forum, Gypsy Lilah, we're very glad to have you here!
Thank you Farasha and hello! )
I think your approach is spot on. I use it myself. However, it doesn't pay much more than expenses (although that does include some nice workshops ) - in my city there is a teacher of a different dance style who pulls in 100-200 students a night, six nights a week. The "dance" they learn is minimal (timing, technique, musicality and correction are non-existent) - but enough drop in and out for "fun" that at $15 a head she makes a nice earner. Sometimes I wonder if I should offer to teach for her.
Just a side question as an student, isn`t their a lot of circulation in the students? For me it would have been so demotivating to be in a class where I cannot follow. So I think I would eventually give up. Perhaps if that is the case, you could use the financial argument, no teacher will want her students to leave..
Also, because the studio owner has decided to run 5 week only sessions, I have a higher amount of new students, which means the existing ones have no choice but to move into Fridays class or to repeat the basic material covered in 5 weeks over and over and over.....and that will get boring for them.
I think your approach is spot on. I use it myself. However, it doesn't pay much more than expenses (although that does include some nice workshops ) - in my city there is a teacher of a different dance style who pulls in 100-200 students a night, six nights a week. The "dance" they learn is minimal (timing, technique, musicality and correction are non-existent) - but enough drop in and out for "fun" that at $15 a head she makes a nice earner. Sometimes I wonder if I should offer to teach for her.
If you continue to teach the 5 weeks courses, perhaps this could be an idea for you? After 2 x 5 or 3 x 5 weeks, they have been through most of the basic curriculum and learnt enough combinations to combine into a simple and complete choreography. This way, they'll both learn the basics quite well and have a goal (the combinations/choreography) as drilling technique only could be quite boring.
No, it isn't a belly dance class - more's the pity.OMG how does she pull so many students???? There must be a mad love for belly dance in NZ. WOW!! You gotta get in on that....hahahaha. It sounds like she is teaching more of a belly exercise class than an actual dance class, which is fine as long as the class KNOWS this....
I think you are right to be teaching the way you are doing it. the first place I took belly dance had it set up so we got class from an advanced student of the owner. We performed set choreographies the owner had on video tape so you could buy the tape and practice. then once you performed the choreography you could move up a group. The advanced student taught us a variety of moves but we worked on teh choreography. Honestly I think at the time, I felt I was getting the moves instantly and felt I could move this fast but looking back at it from my perspective of time, it wasn't a good way to learn at the beginning because it took me such a long time to learn to dance to music freely and I had to work hard to become fluid with my moves. I kind of wish she had only given us a few moves and worked on teaching us combinations with these moves, just as you are doing.