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+ View Older Messages

Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Mondo
4/18/2017  5:26:00 PM
It is expensive. $140 per 40 minute lesson they charge the credit card on the 1st of the month for one lesson per week which is $560. Ouch. Or it can be $700 if there happen to be 5 lessons in the long month. Plus every once in a while I'll take an extra lesson per week because I really like the lessons and oh yeah I fell in love with my instructor LOL. The instructors are good at making you fall in love with them.

I know they do a lot of sales and a lot of feeding the ego. But I don't mind so much. I've always been socially awkward - a loner - and am newly separated from my wife. So rather than be a lonely old man, I get to go do this fun thing, and try to learn how to socialize. It's difficult for someone like me, I'm really out of my comfort zone but I'm forcing myself to try.

I don't feel like they're "scamming" me; I feel like I pay for the service they provide which yes, does include being extra nice to me and being flirty. Every job involves "acting" in some way if you think about it. I have tried seeing therapists for my socializing difficulties, and they never helped much. In many ways going to AM is like going to a therapist, only a lot more beautiful therapist where I get to have fun dancing and exercise. Dancing is both physical and mental exercise which creates endorphins. I always feel better when leaving the studio.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Swing2016
4/21/2017  10:57:00 AM
I understand your point but I personally would prefer people be honest with me and not pretend to like me. In the long run, it's more hurtful to find out that while they are praising me to my face, they are actually bad mouthing and gossiping about me behind my back. And that goes for anyone that I will ever have any kind of dealings with.

It's not that I have any kind of proof that this is happening to me personally at the studio I go to (I'm a FADS student) but I have my suspicions because I've witnessed it happen to a friend of mine who used to take lessons there but has since moved on.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by fadslaguna
5/1/2017  8:14:00 PM
As a top professional instructor within the FADS system, I must say, this onion has a LOT of layers.
Firstly, most students do not walk into a studio looking to be "the best dancers". There are many reasons students walk through the doors.
1)a fun way to exercise
2)social outlet
3)aren't feeling challenged in life and want a new hobby
4)Stress relief
5)lonely and want someone that will listen
6)trying to save their marriage
7) just want a date night away from the kids

And the list goes on... For many, many students, it's enough to have an instructor that is just a bit above them. In fact it often makes the relationship easier. A very experienced, champion level dancer can sometimes be intimidating. That said, a good instructor will be able to identify why the student is there pretty quickly and give them the service they want. Occasionally, however an instructor won't have the knowledge to give solid techniques or to figure out how to motivate the student. But this can happen anywhere. Not everyone is cut out to be a GREAT teacher, just as not everyone is cut out to be a champion. Many of the instructors you find at "independent" studios are GREAT dancers, but that doesn't always mean they know how to teach. It also doesn't necessarily mean they have the tools to identify when a student is getting frustrated, bored, needs someone to talk to for 5 minutes. A good instructor, manager, and/or owner should be able to find what a student wants, and how to motivate them in a very short amount of time. I always say it's my job to keep their interest, then grow their desire, and finally inspire passion. It is possible to take a non-serious student to a place where they want to be "the best dancer", but as an instructor it's much easier to know that most students do not have that kind of passion the first time they walk through the door.

As for "holding students back" or "making" them buy a program before finishing their last one...well those are old school sales techniques. at one point almost EVERY studio used those, but now VERY few studios use those methods. In fact they started dropping away around the time this post was first made. That said, if a student is motivated to be great, or they just aren't learning that fast, it may be in their best interest to stay at their level of "patterns" and work the techniques of those. And buying more lessons for a showcase is different than buying them for your syllabus work. It's much easier for an instructor to keep those separated by having 2 blocks of lessons to work from. For example, Tuesdays lesson is for Showcase and Thursday we work on Syllabus.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Susan
4/29/2017  2:10:00 PM
This is simply untrue. My son is being trained as an instructor at an Arthur Murray dance studio by other professional instructors not videos. He has had several years of Jazz, tap, and ballet training prior to joining Arthur Murray. He has been training with instructors for several months and must pass a test to become certified in six different styles of dance before he can teach a class. The instructors are very knowledgeable and do not use a book to teach a class. I don't know where you are getting this from, but it does not happen in northern Virginia.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by FormerProLatinDancer
5/25/2017  5:35:00 PM
"This is simply untrue. My son is being trained as an instructor at an Arthur Murray dance studio by other professional instructors not videos. He has had several years of Jazz, tap, and ballet training prior to joining Arthur Murray."

I had 15 years of Ballroom/Latin experience before I started instructing, and my prices were well below that of Arthur Murray.


"He has been training with instructors for several months and must pass a test to become certified in six different styles of dance before he can teach a class. The instructors are very knowledgeable and do not use a book to teach a class."

Any good instructor will reference a book from time to time. I refer to the DVIDA syllabus with one of my better students all the time so I don't waste time teaching him things that he should know. Arthur Murray doesn't let their syllabus leave the studio... and it's more or less the same!


"I don't know where you are getting this from, but it does not happen in northern Virginia."

Your own response confirmed that they do. Arthur Murray may bring in someone with a dance background, but they'll "train" them in a few short months to teach Ballroom dance at a price world champions charge. I don't doubt your son's ability to dance, but to say that he could teach at that level of price? You've got to be smoking something.


Arthur Murray is a place were people go to feel good about themselves first and foremost. A distant second reason is to actually learn how to dance.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by ladydance
5/26/2017  2:00:00 PM
You can't learn 6 different dances in "several months" and be competent in technique, steps and both the leaders' and followers' parts as well as leading and following.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by mayagsd
5/28/2017  1:00:00 PM
i began my dancing lessons, decades agao, at arthur murray. the teachers were good, but they definitely were pressured by management to "go slow" and sell lots of lesson packages.... I was lucky, i only signed up for a basic package that cost something like $600.00 in 1977. i learned the basics, especially in swing, cha cha, and hustle and met a bunch of friends that went dancing together every weekend. at one point my instructor took me aside and said, "you have a certain knack for this..don't buy any more lesson packages here...go someplace else, like a private studio, and take lessons there." I'm sure she would have been fired if management knew she told me that...but i took her advice and left, went to an excellent private studio, where the teachers were even better and no more contracts...just pay by the hour....that's the only way to go....
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Jan Crisostomo
1/9/2018  8:52:00 AM
That is the same attitude our instructors in Jacksonville, FL have!
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Jan Crisostomo
1/9/2018  8:51:00 AM
too bad you haven't got to experience my AM studio..it is in Jacksonville, Florida. They never held me back from moving on. I picked up moves, technique, and patterns quickly. We have many Silver and Gold as well as open students who compete on a regular basis and are very involved in the ballroom world. Our owners and instructors are not afraid of us moving up..they know we love staying challenged.
Re: Arthur Murray Stinks
Posted by Jeffery Tracy
12/22/2020  9:14:00 PM
I used to work for Arthur Murray and I would recommend them to anyone wanting to learn to dance and to dance well. Yes, its expensive, but you get what you pay for. Our studio was like one big happy family and no one ever said they regretted any money spent there to learn.
Our instructors, including myself were professionally trained by other highly qualified instructors and dance competitors.
Anyone can go to a group class and pay $10 to learn a step or two in any given dance. But can the follower follow a partner on the dance floor? Can the leader get the follower to do what he wants them to do on the dance floor? At Arthur Murray, the student is actually taught how to dance! You learn to either follow your partner or lead your partner, and sometimes both if you are interested in that.
You are taught posture so that you will look great with your partner, you are taught how to look and act either feminine or masculine on the dance floor. You are taught balance, muscle memory, stretching techniques, choreography, the art of being social including proper etiquette for use on and off of the dance floor. You are also taught the history of the dances you are learning so that you have an understanding of the cultures that developed the different dances.
You as a student learn so much more than just steps and when you have finally reached the level of dancing that you are comfortable with, others will see you as a highly trained ambassador of dance. But most of all, you will have the time of your life learning, laughing, socializing, traveling, and so much more!!
What it comes down to is this. No one pushes you to buy anything. You are simply offered more lessons so that you can take your dancing to the level that you want to learn. Not everyone wants to be a standout on the dance floor, but some do, and they are the ones that will spend thousands of dollars to master the craft of dancing.
I had a lady tell me onetime that she and her husband had been taking dance classes for quite a while but they were not very good. She could not tell what he wanted her to do next, and he could not get her to follow him. I told her to come by the studio with her husband for a free dance lesson with me, and I would guarantee that after that one lesson their dancing would be better, and I would not even offer to sell her more lessons. She agreed and we set a date and time for the lesson. Now remember these guys had been taking group classes and they knew some steps already. They came in for the lesson, we chatted briefly, I told them what we were going to do for the lesson and we spent the next 45 minutes doing nothing more than working on their ability to lead and follow. At the end of the lesson I asked them to show me 3 steps that they had learned in group class. I then put on the music and asked them to dance with the music. After about a minute I stopped the music and asked them how they felt. Grinning from ear to ear, both of them proceeded to tell me how much better their dancing felt. He said, she actually did what I wanted her too without me telling her with my mouth. She was so overjoyed that she hugged me and asked if they could buy some lessons with me.
So there you have it.!!
Oh, and by the way, I was a student myself for about 10 years before I became an instructor! I never regretted a single dime spent!!
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