A beginner’s dance class can have a funny feel to it. There are the dancers who’ve been there for months and seem like pros. And then there are always the first-timers and you can feel their nervousness in the air.

When walking into a beginners dance class for the first time it can take the warm-up to really settle and start to feel more comfortable inside the class. Sometimes you won’t even be able to do the warm-up and wonder how you’re gonna cope once the dancing actually starts!

The good thing is that most dance teachers are quite sympathetic especially in their beginners dance classes. They’ll spend a lot of time breaking down the moves and going through things with enough time and repetition to make sure you get it.

Many times there’ll be parts of the dance routine that you won’t be able to do perfectly. At these points a beginner can become a bit discouraged and think they’re useless when they’re really not.

If a beginner takes a class and struggles to get most of the moves they’ll walk away either thinking they’re completely useless or that the class wasn’t for beginners. This is a misconception. Very few dancers can just go into a dance class and get it perfectly if they’ve danced for months let alone in their first class.

Also a beginner’s class is not meant for dancers in the class to be able to get it perfectly at first attempt. It is meant to cover quite a lot of material so that a beginner can become a better dancer. Also if you ever watch an elementary or intermediate dance class you’ll notice that it can be quite complicated and fast.

The beginners class needs to provide some sort of preparation for that next level so that a dancer who wants to progress to higher levels will have the opportunity. A beginners class should cover the basics, the foundations upon which everything else can be built.

It can help to think of piano grades or belts in martial arts. You can’t expect to be able to play a grade 1 exam piece on a musical instrument at your first practise session. Grade 1 may be the lowest grade but once you’ve achieved that grade you can already play a bit.

With dance classes, once you can successfully pull off the moves and routines in a beginners dance class you can dance a bit. So go start your dance classes and when you come to bits you can’t do, realise what a good dancer you will be when you can and practise till perfect!

Kevin Shwe runs the Hip Dance Moves street locking dance classes in London. Teaching students funky moves that are ideal for all settings, in just weeks he can transform a complete non-dancer into a confident dancer with the funkiest demeanour. Check his website Hip Dance Moves for more details.

Related Articles