Anatomy of a dance class
Repeat, repeat, repeat!
A year ago, I started dancing and my dance class is really really well-run. Here is a step by step description of a typical evening, followed by some takeaways.
The structure of the evening
The class is for Ceroc, a partner dance inspired by French Rock and Roll dancing1.
The class is held in a big hall, with a pair of instructors on stage and couples holding hands in rows.
The dance class has a three-part structure:
There is a beginner's class with a little bit of free dance after it
an intermediate class (with the beginners taken to another room)
a free dance period
The numbered text is my observations, the block text is my thoughts on these2.
Every week is a beginners’ week. I can invite a friend to any week and know there will be a class for absolute beginners. Churches often have this too, where many Sunday services are expected to be accessible to a complete novice.
Actually there is a 15 minute, pre-beginners’ class before the beginners’ class dealing with the absolute basics - how to feel the flow of the music. How to perform a “basic” which is a step back and forward in time with the music.
The class correctly judges that to be open for all people (and hence make good sales in terms of classes) the bar for entry must be very low. Again, this allows any particular week to be the first week for a complete novice.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to this, but I think this most basic class is just to feel the music and rock back and forward while holding hands, standing a meter apart.
The pre-beginners’ and beginners’ classes teach the basics every week. Steve, the coach, never skips a set of basic tips. He talks about not holding people’s hands too tightly, asking names, considering the dance as a walk along a tightrope.
What % of people should know the absolute basics? At Ceroc they clearly think it must be pretty high. Often in communities it can be easy for the central information to get lost to more advanced material leaving newcomers floundering. Not so here.
The class involves Steve (the coach) and an instructor (often Amy) who serves as his “follow”. The dance has a lead and a follow. I usually lead, but have been learning to follow recently
Steve will teach part of a move, then another part of the move, then with those two together, then another part, then all three together and so on.
A bad part of learning for me is getting left behind. I am not a very intuitive physical learner - it took me a long time to learn to drive - and so if I don’t get part of a move, then probably I’m not going to learn that move. And in being behind, I may not manage the next move or the combination of moves either.
For me, this style of learning is pretty good. It slowly builds on previous material and involves a lot of repetition, to get the moves from my head into my body, such that I can do them by thinking “ceroc spin” and not some complex verbal description of the move - eg “that spin where I draw them across using my right hand and then put my left hand on their wrist and wait no I’m lost”3.
Moves are then connected into sets of moves, a bit like notes into phrases when playing music. So there is a set of moves in the beginners’ class and another set in the intermediate4.
After each part of a move, or repetition, the leads rotate around5, moving on to a new follow. The beginners’ classes are smaller, so I might dance with most people more than once, the intermediate classes are larger, so I usually don’t get to dance with everyone. We are encouraged to ask each other’s names every time.
This is excellent. Firstly, if someone is boorish, cold or uncoordinated6, one only has to dance with them for a short time. Secondly, a lot of dancing for me is transferring knowledge from audible words in my head to movements of my body - “I move my hip towards their left hand, wait which is left, and then release my left hand’s grip…” etc to just doing it. Having many different partners creates a lot of varied training data7 -What movement do I have to do to get the follow to realise what I am trying to lead?
There are something like 12 beginners’ moves. After the “basic”, the next most simple move is the “travelling return”. It is taught in every beginners’ class followed by 2-3 more of the 12 beginners’ moves. This compares to the intermediate moves which have a rotating set of 1 of 24 simpler moves and a very large number of more complex ones.
Note again the focus on simplicity at the start - the beginners’ class will begin consolidating known information after 5 weeks. The simpler intermediate moves after 6 months and the more complex intermediate moves may never be seen again.
The beginners’ class goes from about 7:30 to 8:00
Ceroc national rules state the coach is not allowed to correct individual dancers specifically. Steve will often say “I can’t say who, but someone isn’t paying attention”.
This is a really interesting feature. I guess in some class somewhere, people complained about being singled out and I agree it would be mortifying. Then there was a national change. Individual instructors might like to correct individual dances (especially cantankerous ones) but feedback has led to this not being the case. There is a real focus on being welcoming.
After the beginners’ class there is a short period of free dancing. There are 4-ish songs at the right pace for Ceroc. The norm is to dance with a person for one song before moving on.
First, this gives an immediate taste of dancing, which is the good bit. If this waited until the long free dance session then some beginners might be very tired before their first experience of the thing the whole class is about.
As before, only dancing with someone for a single song reduces the downside of a bad partner.
As a lead, the first couple of weeks of free dance are pretty terrifying. Follows (mainly women) can make very clear with their faces when they are bored and at this point I only had like 3 - 6 moves. I remember taking a break for a song because I couldn’t handle the embarrassment. So the classes aren’t perfect.
That said, as a follow, I think the experience is very different. Even with a single class one is capable of being led, so one can have a nice time almost immediately.
Next, the intermediate class, starting at 8:00. This has one “step up” move, a simpler move from a rotation of 24 and 2 more difficult moves. There is a lower intermediate class that just does the first 2 of these.
Again, we see mirrored choices from the beginners’ class. Some of the moves follow a rotation, such that over time previous learnings will be retested. There is a simpler class for those of lower ability.
Personally I attend the lower intermediate class despite having gone for 15 months. 3 complex moves is just too much for my brain to pick up and if I can’t remember them by the end of the class there is very little chance I’ll remember them the following week. I much prefer 2 moves that I can retain over 3 that I quickly forget. Likewise, when I tried to learn 3 I would often lose track halfway through and then the rest of the lesson was a waste.
Steve and Amy perform the intermediate set of moves (example video here). Often looking fantastic. I often feel shocked at the amount of content that is about to be taught.
People get out their phones and record these dances, to remind themselves later.
Steve makes very clear that the intermediate class is only for people who have done 6 - 12 weeks of beginners’ class. The beginners leave. As before, the norm nationally (as I understand it) is that the coach cannot tell people what class to be in, so Steve may repeat this several times if there is someone he thinks is in the wrong class.
Again, this is a pretty interesting compromise between protecting people’s feeling and the smooth running of the class. It is frustrating to try and learn part of a move with someone who doesn’t have a clue.
This (second) beginners' class repeats the first, but because it is only those in the first 6 - 12 weeks is much smaller and so there are two instructors (“taxi dancers”8) who help the dancers make small individual improvements.
Again we see repetition, this time with expert correction. As a lead the first two classes can be a bit tricky because one doesn’t have enough moves. But after 3 weeks of classes a solid set of basic moves has been really drilled into you.
Back to the intermediate class. As before, there are three moves. For the third move, the lower intermediate class leaves with instructors and again, repeats the first two intermediate moves only.
Notice the sheer amount of repetition here:
Steve repeats some basics every session
The beginners’ class repeats moves as people are learning them
The beginners’ moves repeat every 5 weeks
The beginners’ class is repeated every session during the intermediate class
The intermediate “step-up” moves repeat every 6 months
(As we’ll see) Steve repeats some things every intermediate session
The lower intermediate class repeats during the last third of that class.
There are beginners’ days which cover all the beginners’ moves
A key takeaway from this class seems to be, if you want a functional dance class, repeat, repeat, repeat! Repeat the basics very often (because any week might be a person’s first week), repeat more advanced knowledge steadily less often.
The lower intermediate class have their own row, with instructors who support them as Steve gives the main class.
Steve has a new set of things he says to every intermediate class, some of which build on the things from the beginners’ class (an hour ago). Where the beginners’ class envisaged dancing as being on a tightrope, moving forward and backward, now there are three lanes, with the follows generally staying in the middle lane.
Again, Steve never forgets to say this. I think I might get tempted to only do it in some classes, but it makes sense that this might be many people’s first intermediate class or they might not have internalised this information.
To compare to churches again, some churches preach the death and resurrection of Jesus every week. I think more communities might want to consider what their central message is and how often they could actually try and repeat this message. I guess that many do not repeat their central tenets often enough9.
The intermediate class (and concurrent classes) goes from 8:30 to 9:00.
At the end of the intermediate class, the beginners and lower intermediates come back in and then there is a period of free dance from 9:00 till 10:30.
Again, the norm is for people to only dance together for one song. Leads often ask for the dances, though not exclusively.
Key takeaways
I think it’s a great structure:
Anyone can have their first week any time
Teaching in small blocks, going over material frequently
Almost everyone is learning something each week
Free dances let people quickly get to the fun bit and test their knowledge in a real environment
Switching between partners often means tacit knowledge is shared as well as explicit knowledge from the instructor
Switching between partners means that no one gets stuck with someone they don’t want to be with
If I were to run a weekly class on something, I would try and think how I could make it like this. How could new members be welcome? How could I teach tacit knowledge as well as explicit? How could I repeat, repeat, repeat?
Come some time!
And if you are in the UK, there is probably a class near you, feel free to message me about it!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Robert Wiblin and Richard Ngo for their respective documents encouraging dancing as a thing to do. To the Ceroc website (made by Vince?) for being well laid out and easy to understand. To Ceroc Pimlico and Steve for doing such a good job of the classes. To Fiona and Jennifer for dancing with me when I was a lot less good than I am. And to Josh for reading an early draft of this.
Other weaker takeaways
The follows often are expected to learn mostly by osmosis. There are far too many moves to remember them all and any lead might lead you in any move. So follows have to develop a sense of the right footwork or where their weight should be. I’ve done a little following and it’s a very different skill to leading. I think some of this could be more explicit. When I bring friends who want to follow, I often tell them to focus on one aspect of the move - where is your weight? Are you expecting to spin on the spot or change places? If I had any criticism of the class, it is that the follows get very little instruction. I wish that sometimes one of the instructors said stuff like “follows, while this move is happening you want to be paying attention to your weight, as it shifts from foot to foot” or “you can see this move is coming by watching the lead’s chest, see if you can spot it”.
Being a lead can be tough. The first few classes were pretty tiring, being expected to lead women (almost all follows are women) who were sometimes clearly finding my dancing boring. I guess I should have danced with the instructors (“taxi dancers”) but I felt embarrassed to ask that and when I did, they often weren’t free. My first couple of weeks were brutal in this regard.
I find learning new physical skills tricky, I guess many do. I learn by repeating actions, many times. At times in my life, people have acted as if I’m stupid10, because I need time to stop and process quite simple commands and then start again. When someone says “lift your left hand past their right ear and then spin them clockwise”, I have to close my eyes to think about that movement. Often in class it takes me a few seconds. I love how much repetition there is and how gradually we build up moves.
To frame it differently, most of the knowledge in this class is tacit and maybe half of the teaching is done by the members themselves. If the entire class were new starters I guess the class would proceed at half speed or less and much of the moves might be learned wrong. Most of the dancers have a good sense of what a move ought to feel like even if they don’t know the move. The better follows are intuiting which move I am going to lead even before I start it. Follows are picking things up that I didn’t know I was saying and somehow I have been taught this. That’s very impressive! And it’s an impressive thing for the class to teach.
The classes can be surprisingly intimate. There is something wonderful and vulnerable and flirtatious about meeting and dancing with someone. Ceroc isn’t a particularly close dance, but I understand why dance has been such a big part of human life. I sometimes find myself pretty flustered at times and I am not particularly easy to fluster.
Dance has a slight feeling of status. A friend who does long distance running notes that that is a competitive sport with an uncompetitive community. Other than the very best runners people don’t care much who is doing better. Ceroc is different - an uncompetitive activity with a community where the ranking is quite obvious. Some people are more attractive or better dancers. Some follows are often without a partner, others there is practically a queue. The best dancers dance in a specific part of the room. I doubt these people focus on this, but it is interesting to watch. I don’t particularly blame the class for this - it’s a dance class, not some kind of ethics lesson but if it were, one might wonder what pressures cause this11.
Dance is exercise and huge amounts of fun. I recommend it! I really cannot say strongly enough that if this has sounded fun to you there are classes all over the UK. And in the US, West Coast Swing seems similar from talking to friends.
And spread with franchising. I have no idea how other dance classes work, but this model seems to have been really successful lots of information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceroc
Recently I have been trying to notice what is observation and what is conjecture.
My mental world is very verbal, so for a long time it is like this. I imagine others can immediately transfer the instructions into some more compressed form than a verbal description of it.
I probably know about 20 moves in about 10 different sets. I regularly use 7 sets, and focus on learning 5 really good ones. So that when I dance with someone, I can take them on a number of different clever and interesting sets of moves.
Why focus on sets, not moves? Because it’s hard to plan to connect moves on the fly, but if I learn a whole phrase, then I have free working memory for a longer time while it happens.
Or the follows.Lots of attempts at doing the same thing with slight variations such that my body can learn what all follows share and which parts are unique to the specific follow I'm currently dancing with.
Initially this isn't some personal flaw, but it is less fun. Ceroc deals with the reality of this situation.
Lots of attempts at doing the same thing with slight variations such that my body can learn what all follows share and which parts are unique to the specific follow I'm currently dancing with.
Because they line up along the side in free dance for beginners to dance with like a taxi rank
For rationalists, "read the sequences" is far far too complex a central message. "the map is not the territory" is better but it's an analogy not a specific practice.
Both learning to drive and learning French, people acted as if my freezing was evidence that I didn't understand basic instructions.
If I had to guess it's that the best follows get lots of requests to dance and so that can be trying. I imagine the best leads really are more fun to dance with. And because leads tend to ask for dances, the best leads disproportionately dance with better follows, because why wouldn't they?