The first thing I would teach to complete beginners
- in a Latin Class is Cuban Hip Action;
- in a Ballroom Class is Basic Walk in Close Hold;
- in a Social Dance Class is to Have Fun;
- in a Line Dance Class is the Saturday Night Fever;
- in a Kpop Class is Gangnam Style;
- in a First Dance Class is to end in a Drop;
- in a Belly Dance Class is to Shimmy;
- in a Aerobic Dance Workout Class is Charleston Kick;
- in a Latin Jazz Class is to Spin;
- in a Street Jazz Class is to Feel the Beat...
For complete beginners, these all are reasonable moves that are learnable, usable and danceable, and that can guarantee them fun in classes, in parties, and in practices on their own.
However, no matter what dance styles is, the next thing I will do with them is Body Separation. There is none a dance that demands no body separation.
Body Separation itself is also quite a board concept, but once mastered, flexibility, strength, endurance, coordination... all sorts of dance benefits that you learn from textbook all come to you in real life.
Depends on the objectives of the learners, a dance teacher must carefully decide what kind of relevant exercises to do with the class, body separation is very hard to achieve for some people- 20+ years of social dancing experience does not promise a reasonable level of dance knowledge or flexibility.
As a teacher, we have two main goals:
- first, to keep the class coming;
- second, make sure you are teaching properly.
Teaching the class something they can't handle for a lesson is just fine, but doing this all the time you will lose your class gradually. On the other hand, making the class interesting so that they will keep coming is not really hard, but a good teacher should always motivate the students to improve. A teacher should balance between the two so as to build up his/her own dance team. We would really like First Time Beginners become Regular Comers.
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