How not to teach dance...

...or not?

Ausdance, an Australia-wide governing body for popular dance styles has an excellent page on how to teach dance in terms of methodology.

screenshot from video link. credit: ballroomdancetube on Instagram

Reading that, then watching this video of a little girl crying while training, it's hard to reconcile the two methodologies demonstrated.

However, Egor Shalvarov's experienced and educated response to the training video of the little girl in tears had me cheering for all the frustrated Western-based dance teachers out there.
Especially when Egor discusses cultural differences in training and the openness that the internet now provides us in terms of exchanging training methods.

Like Egor, I agree that this video was posted for reasons we can't be sure of, but we can take from it that there are some tough training methods out there.

Jumping to the present, as I'm writing this I'm half watching/listening to a rehearsal of the local primary schools' Massed Choir Festival and the conductors tirelessly reminding the kids of what to do. 

There are no platitudes and no acceptance of half-arsed performances. 

Unfortunately, this type of training is not common enough at entry levels of sports like ballroom dance. What is common in the West is the 'let's have fun', 'keep them interested' kinds of classes; these teachers give perfect examples of the clash between the so-called East and West, just as Egor discusses too. Balance is key. But I think it needs to be leaning more towards the 'stern discipline' side. Like allowing the kids some 'fun' time at the end of class, but during class teachers need to be vigilant in regards to behaviour and not allowing sloppy technique to be performed. Ever. 

Check out this video of a presumably Russian juvenile couple dancing. 

And now this video of our best Australian juvenile couples dancing. 

To the non-dancer, they are all fantastic dancers. 

But I can assure you the Russian children are on a whole new level of amazing compared to the Australian kids. The movements are sharper, as are their performance-awareness skills. Their training regimes would be similar, although I suspect the Russians train and practice a little more than the Australians. 

The key factor would lie in the training methods.  

From personal experience, I can agree with the above. I constantly get told I have neat footwork. But perhaps I could have been better, under a stricter training method from an earlier age? 

Who knows? Now, it's up to me to choose the training methods though. 

I've chosen balance. Some fun, but strict adherence to technique. 

updated 22/10/19 - minor changes to sentences, paragraph editing, fixed broken link.