Simply Dancing Partners

I really wish I could say I had as good an experience as the other reviewers, but, as you’ve guessed from the way I began this, I didn’t. I’ve been looking for a good dance school for a particular dance style for some time as I’ve found it to be one of the most difficult and intimidating dances I’ve ever tried… and I’ve tried many!
To be fair to the school, it wasn’t a typical class I went to. It was a training class where they were training up partners for a new dance style which they wanted to add to their syllabus/​repertoire/​whatever the proper word is, so the partners you got weren’t quite up there yet, although some of them had clearly been trained in other dance styles.
So… what didn’t I like about the class? It was just too large and the teacher either couldn’t or didn’t pay attention to the students. There were well over 20 or even 25 couples with more than a few spares during every song. The teacher taught steps, but didn’t go around the room to look at people and correct them where they were clearly going wrong unless the students themselves asked him or if the couple happened to be dancing right in front of him.
As for the people in the class… well, there were a few good partners, that’s for sure. Some of the others were very insistent that what they were doing was correct, and what I was doing was wrong, even though I was doing my best to follow and knew that something was off, though I wasn’t sure exactly where it was going wrong. As it turned out, I actually was correct, but the professionally trained in other styles partners probably didn’t think that the instincts of a beginner in that style could be trusted. Maybe that’s not how they meant their comments to be taken, but that’s how it came across.
When I was asked whether I would be coming back, I declined. I’d much rather continue my search for a class which makes me feel comfortable and where I feel the teacher’s paying attention to me and take my time in learning something as opposed to going through that sort of experience again. It’s hard enough learning dance as it is!
I would have liked to give this place three stars as I’ve heard good things about this place from another friend who learnt ballroom here, and I know the class I went to may not have been representative given that it was a training class after all. However, I realised that would have resulted in an overall rating of five stars still, which I don’t feel is representative, so I’m giving this two stars because I think the average rating should be lower.

The perfect way to learn to dance, part private lesson, part group lesson. Knowledgeable instructors and patient, helpful dance partners!