Questions
& Answers
My wife and I love ballroom dancing and I would like my seventeen years old daughter to learn ballroom dancing, too. The problem is that we cannot find a partner for her. Do you have openings for private classes?
If the only reason for your daughter to take private lessons is her lack of a partner, please consider the option of being her partner yourself and joining a group class. From my experience, it is beneficial for both the parent and the child to dance as a couple, and I believe that teenagers do best in group classes. I have also had excellent results in situations in which both parents danced as a couple and the child danced in the same class with a partner of the same age or a little older.
Can
I buy a gift certificate for your school? Soon we will
have our wedding anniversary, and I want to prepare a
surprise for my wife.
You are welcome to pay
for the dance course and have a nice card with the
words "Gift Certificate" on it and a generous space
inside for writing your own text. However, you will not be able to come to my school
any time you want and start taking classes. You have
to reserve a space for a particular course and will be
able to use the card only for that course.
Do
you have groups for children?
I do not have special
groups for children. Teenagers are welcome to be in my
regular classes. Younger children can join classes
with my permission if their parents are my students
and are willing to help the children in their
learning.
We
are looking for a couple or several couples that could
come and perform various Latin American dances
and give a simple lesson.
I cannot help you. We
are a school of dance, not a dance performing company.
Please contact a dance company that is offering this
type of services.
I
called you and left a message with my phone number. I
never heard back from you. Do you not return phone
calls?
Please be aware that I do not return long distance calls. Otherwise, my rule is to call the
number people leave for me two times and if possible
to leave a message. After that I expect you to call
again if you are still interested to talk to me. The
best way is to tell me when to call you, or just call
me when I am most probably available - between 7 and 9
pm on weekdays or before 1 pm on weekends.
My
partner cannot come to the next class, so we will skip
it. OK?
I strongly recommend
you to come to the class alone and learn your and your
partner's parts. It will be much easier for your
couple to continue if you coach your partner before
the next class.
My
17 year old daughter and her friend want to go dancing
and she has asked me to help her find an appropriate
dress. I was wondering if you could give me some
pointers on what is appropriate for a ballroom dancing
event these days?
It depends on where
your daughter goes to dance. Different places have
different styles from jeans to tuxedos. A moderately
fancy dress would be appropriate for almost any
situation. Later on your daughter will figure out how
to dress accordingly. The dress has to be convenient
for her to move freely and not make her to sweat. She
should not forget to wear appropriate underwear and
shoes to feel comfortable. The shoes especially can
make a significant difference. The best advice is
however to enjoy dancing and feel relaxed and happy.
Then almost any dress will make her look
great.
Just in case, I give
you a few links to ballroom dance places selling
dresses, etc. I would not hurry to purchase anything
from them before you certainly know that you need
their products.
www.dance4less.com
www.dancevision.com
www.ballroomdresses.com
www.ballroomdresses-shop.com/HOME.html
www.ballroomdancers.com/Directory/Other/view_list.asp?SubCat=101
www.ballroomdesigns.com/
www.apparelsearch.com/retail_ballroom_dance_clothes.htm
You can find much more
on the internet if you do a search for ballroom
dress.
I hope that your daughter will enjoy ballroom dancing.
There
is no time for me to purchase ballroom shoes before
the start of the beginner's course. Can I come in the
regular shoes?
Yes, you can. Please
make sure that you feel convenient in your shoes. In
fact, you can use them throughout the whole course and
be okay. However, good ballroom shoes will make a
difference for you in the way how you move and how you
feel generally as a dancer. For the intermediate
course, I strongly recommend purchasing appropriate
ballroom shoes. You will not regret it.
Can
you recommend a good movie about ballroom
dancing?
I would recommend the
original version of "Shall We Dance?" made in 1996. It is in
Japanese with English subtitles. There is a lot of
Japanese cultural coloration there. However, no matter
if you like or dislike that part, the people who made
this movie knew very well the world of ballroom dance
and showed it sincerely and truthfully.
I
have a wedding in one week. I never danced before but
I want to have a great dance performance with my
fiancé. What do you suggest?
You would not come to
a piano teacher and request that he teaches you to
play the Moonlight Sonata in one week if you never
played piano before, would you? The same applies to
dancing. You have to spend some time to learn how to
dance before you can expect any degree of reasonable
performance. My suggestion is to forget about a great
dance performance and replace it with a great smile.
One week is quite enough to master it. After the
wedding, please come to my school with your husband
and learn to dance. You will be ready for your first
anniversary.
I
have bought a book on how to dance. Is it a good idea
to learn the basics of dancing from the book first and
later to come to the school and be better
prepared?
No, it is not a good
idea. I have not seen a single person who could learn
dancing from a book. Books on dancing are mostly used
as sources of reference, not as text books for self
education. If a book promises to teach you without a
dance instructor it is as valuable as a book promising
to make you a millionaire over night. A somewhat
better idea may be to buy an instructional video.
However, nothing will replace a qualified dance
instructor.
Do
you have people switch partners throughout the class
so that everyone dances with everyone else or do
couples stay together throughout the whole
class?
Couples stay together
throughout the whole course. Switching partners does
not help your learning. It is an additional
distraction that I am trying to avoid.
If
I have provided my email address when I registered for
a class will I be on your mailing list?
No. Some people are
very sensitive to privacy intrusion. You have to ask
separately for being on my mailing list. The easiest
way to do so is to go to
http://www.andresballroom.com/dance/contact.html.
Just check the
appropriate box. If you are my student I strongly
recommend being on my mailing list because it is my
main tool of communication with you outside of the
ballroom.
I
am on your mailing list / I sent you a message from
your web page. Why do I not receive messages/responses
from you?
I am very careful in
responding to all messages I receive. If you did not
receive a response from me or you did not receive a
regular message while you are on my mailing list, it
means that something went wrong. Please call me if in
doubt.
The common problems
with email messages are
- Your mail box is
full (you have reached your quota with your
internet service provider).
- Your internet
service provider has labeled my message as a junk
message and sent it to nowhere (school districts
and universities do it to me regularly).
mailarmory.com is especially hard on me; if you are
with FRII and use mailarmory, chances are you will
never see my messages unless you explicitly allow
for them.
If your domain is unco.edu, colostate.edu, kci.net, rous.net, softhome.net, hotmail.com, iamafreemason.org or af.mil most likely you will never receive an email from me because of the server's "smart" behavior. For example, the basic philosophy of softhome.com is to not allow a message through unless it is sent twice. This is done to "foil spammers". As is explained by softhome.com, "real mail servers simply try again later". Unfortunately, they usually do not. Why should they?
- You misspelled
your email address while typing/writing it for me,
or you just wrote it illegibly and I misinterpreted
it (it happens quite often).
- You did not
provide me with your email address but expect me to
email you (it happens sometimes).
- I was so sloppy
that I mistyped your email address in my data bank
(it happens, too, unfortunately).
No matter whose
mistake it is, please let me know, and we will fix the
problem. Please do not assume that I did not respond.
It never happens.
Where
can I buy music for ballroom dancing?
It isn't easy today.
During the 1990's the interest in ballroom dancing
declined so much that no new good dance orchestras
emerged, and the old ones have retired. The popularity
of ballroom dancing is rising now. However, it hasn't
risen enough to produce new good orchestras on the
market yet. Your best shot is to look for old CDs on
the internet. Another option is to buy new CDs with
the old recordings reprinted. There are a few
companies, such as Casa Musica in Germany, that do it.
Generally speaking, as I said, contemporary orchestras
with some exceptions for ones lead by old-timers (Ross
Mitchell in Great Britain, for example) do not have
understanding of how to play ballroom music. For this
reason, do not buy music without listening to it
first, no matter what the web sites tell you. Some
good sites where you can listen to the music
are:
Dance
Plus
Amazon
CD
Universe
Another way to buy
music is to look for recordings of the old orchestras
with good reputations. If you buy music played by Hugo
Strasser, Günter Noris, Max Greger, Sidney
Thompson, or Victor Silvester you will have a good
chance of success. Try eBay
for those orchestras.
Where
can I buy dance shoes?
You will not find the
shoes you need in warehouse stores. Go to specialized
dance stores if you can find ones selling ballroom
shoes. You can try A Total Image in Arvada, CO
(5610 Lamar St., 303-424-5333). They offer a 10%
discount if you tell them that you are from my school
(I guess, from any dance school), but your success
will depend on the current stock and who you are
talking to. The best bet is to talk to the owner.
Recently, my students were happy with the internet
sites Dance
For Less (phone 702-262-7946)
and Second
Skin Shop (phone 800-906-7546). It
may seem crazy to buy shoes on the internet without
trying them on, but several people bought shoes there
and are satisfied. Just follow advice on the site.
Besides, the sites have very moderate prices
comparable to other stores.
For warm-up use simple
tennis shoes. I recommend female shoes for both
genders. They are light and may be less expensive.
Also, nobody will tell the difference.
Where
can I find information about ballroom dance life in
Colorado?
I recommend you to go
to a good search engine on the internet and type in
"ballroom dance colorado" or "ballroom dance fort
collins". You may find some information
there.
I
am new to Fort Collins. Could you please advise me on
...?
Please go to
this
link.
Everything is changing fast
in this country. If you find out that information on
this page is outdated, simply is not correct anymore,
or you believe that I am missing important
information, please let me know. Thank you.
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of Ballroom Dance