How Many Instructors? (Part 1)

When social dancing, you may have as many partners as you can handle. That is really none of my business. I believe in almost all cases, more is better than less, because dancing with a wider range of people improves your game over time. Since you are doing it out in the open, nobody should care.

I can’t say the same for private instructors/mentors. After teaching privates for over 25 years, and taking from at least 20 instructors across music and dance, I have established a few guidelines that I recommend to others. I will stick to the ones related to dancing for this article.

Here's how I see it:

• You are looking for approximately three primary instructors to mentor your growth
• At least one of your primary instructors should be the opposite sex

Your Three Mentors/Coaches

In an ideal world, over time you'll find three people who will assist you in being the best you can be. You may go through six or eight instructors (more or less) to find the right three that will be your primary mentors, but overall you are looking for around three during the first few years you dance. You can think of these mentors as your dance instructors/coaches.

They should be experienced enough to teach you the steps and techniques for you to move to your next level, but also provide concepts and ideas that may take years to develop. They should be opening your eyes to a much bigger world than just the next sexy cross-body lead variation or a hot shine routine.

These people should inspire you and be the type you trust to be brutally honest with you. Few people realize how difficult it is to find objective opinions!

Your mentor has to be secure enough to tell you the truth, knowing you could stop paying them for privates. If your current instructor is always singing your praises, be careful. That is NOT helpful if you want to be your best. They don't need to be rude, they shouldn't make you feel like a loser, but you should be hearing balanced feedback, including them pushing you when you really deserve a kick in the pants.

If you want unconditional compliments, get a dog, not a mentor. Or call your Mom; mine is always available for telling me how great I am for the cost of a simple phone call (and my Mom is totally objective, we all know that.)

I can also find a few of my dance partners to say, "I love you, man," when they are thinking, "Gee, when he moves his hips like that, he looks a little too feminine." If I do something like that around Edie, she’ll tell me, “That is really not a good look on you! Girls do that… Don’t you ever let me see that move again…” But she delivers it with her trademark grin and fun-loving tone, so I know I need to change something without being offended.

That is a great mentor. Not only can she help me improve my dance, she will point out the issues that everybody else sees but simply ignores because they are too nice or won't say it. She wants me to be exceptional and I respect her experienced opinion. It also helps if they have a sense of humor, but that may just be me. Overall, you want to find someone that is straight with you in an encouraging way.

How Many At a Time?

Maybe you can juggle multiple relationships at once, but when it comes to instructors and privates, you want to go steady for a while with one, generally following the serial monogamy concept. There are exceptions to that, but if you are seeing two at once, you have to juggle things and it can get interesting at points. If you can handle it that is fine, but most people are better off with one at a time.

On the other hand, I don't recommend you take privates or classes exclusively with one instructor for more than a year or two, but the timing depends on the actual instructor. After a period of time, it makes sense to get fresh input from another source. Each instructor has a fresh set of eyes and they will all help you in different areas (and occasionally conflict, but that goes with the territory).

While you are working with your one primary mentor, be on the lookout for the next one, until you have your three over a few years. Once you get to three or so, the next ones you find will simply be icing on the cake.

You may flirt with another instructor for specific techniques or variations and have some flings along the way, but when you find the right three, they will provide 95% of the input you need to become excellent. The rest you'll pick up from direct experience and the temporary flings, but overall once you find your three, you'll go back to those occasionally for fine-tuning as you continue to mature.

In part two of this article, I’ll outline how sex fits into the instructor picture. You won’t want to miss that discussion.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
-Mark Twain