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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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....

That is the same attitude our instructors in Jacksonville, FL have!

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.

This is exactly how our instructors treat us in West Jordan Utah!