Changing Lives through Dancing by David Woodbury
Arthur Murray Santa Monica
First Lessons for New Students
First, schedule and experience your introductory lesson. Enroll on your first package of lessons. Pull out your calendar and plan for 1 to 2 private lessons a week, and at least one group and party. If your schedule permits it, attend two groups and parties a week.
Introduce yourself to all the instructors and get to know the other students. The staff have amazing stories about how they began dancing. Make friends with the students. Get to know why and how they all started dancing. Meet the most advanced students and listen to their dancing journeys. Get to know the owners and the studio executives. Find about the history of the school and how it came to be in that location and how long it’s been there.
Buy your first pair of dancing shoes and be courageous and purchase both a pair of smooth and rhythm shoes. Brush off your best dresses and suits. Begin to look at all the clothes you can dance in. You’ll soon be needing them!
Intermediate Students
By now you love your dancing. You have become a part of your Arthur Murray School. The benefits of the groups and the parties are many for you and you love taking as many group classes as you can.
By now, you are on your personalized Bronze Social Dance Program. Perhaps you have danced a spotlight, a freestyle, a solo routine, or even graduated a level at Medal Ball. You are eyeing the advanced group classes and you are preparing for your first coaching session with an Arthur Murray Celebrity coach.
When walking through the ballroom, you look carefully at the Dance-O-Rama posters and you are finding out what are the International Dance Festival and the Tournament of Champions events.
You’re feeling the desire to do more with your dancing, and you are getting plugged in with your lessons and your goals and dreams.
Advanced Students
You have now graduated one, or several levels at Medal Ball. You know the studio owners, staff, and students well. The visiting coaches know you by name.
You have been a sponsor for both yearly festivals and you now work with two teachers weekly. You have several pairs of dance shoes and you also have dancewear you purchased at a Showcase or Dance-O-Rama.
First you had one favorite dance. Now you have several favorite styles of dancing. You are taking advanced group classes and you have even been to Dance Camp. You are having the time of your life and you plan to continue dancing into the future.
Hobby Students
You have celebrations of your 100th to 500th lesson, or more. You have taken several Arthur Murray dance trips and have traveled around the world dancing. You have friends from other countries that you see several times a year at dance competitions. You now know your favorite dance suit and dress makers and they know you well.
Your entire family thinks you are a dancing superstar and they have all had lessons. In your work and social circles, everyone know that you are an Arthur Murray Dancer. You have brought in many, many guests who started as new students and some have come along with you on your dancing journey.
You are a member of the Hobby Club and Century Club at your school. You are an unofficial greeter of the new students and the staff often introduce you to the new dancers in your school. You even perform dance demonstrations with instructors to show off the upper levels of dance. Some of you have even gone into amateur-amateur dancing and you have a student partner as well as your instructors at competitions.
Some of you along the way have turned professional and have become instructors. Some of you have met the love of your life on the dance floor and you both compete together and individually with your instructors. Your idea of a holiday is a Dance Vacation!
Some of you have been taking lessons longer than the age of the newest staff, or of even your current champion teachers! You have known your dance family now for many years. You room with your best friends at competitions.
You have danced with instructors whom you have seen graduate all their professional levels, then their judge’s tests, then becoming studio executives. You have encouraged them all the way on their magical dance journey. Some of your teachers have even become the franchise in your school and they are now the proud owners of your school.
You are a sponsor for the professionals at major competitions and you are known nationally. You have spoken as a student representative at all pro dance training meetings. Your life has become that of an accomplished dancer.
When you enter a ballroom, all the judges know your name and the event owners, and the home office president and executives all know you personally. The professional couples know you from sponsoring the top pro events.
So, what happens now? We’ll, after your graduate from the top levels, you go return to the beginning and relearn all the levels that have changed over the years. You might take a course learning the opposite part. You may take a teacher training program just for the fun of it with no plans to ever become an instructor.
You find that you love the new, young staff and you have a new teacher working with you on a regular basis. You both love dancing together because they are so much fun, and they are also wonderful dancers.
Dancing is so exciting. Start the journey. Keep on dancing and growing and learning. Dance for a lifetime. Throw yourself into this wonderful lifetime hobby and do as much as you can with your dancing. You will look back on years of self-growth, fun, happiness, friendship, traveling, and memories that will last a lifetime.
Let dancing be a part of your life. You will be glad that you did!
Thanks for reading,
David Woodbury