Topic: Anyone for beginners ballroom?

[andrew_w]

A friend gave Julia a leaflet advertising beginner ballroom classes in Bristol with Eric (dance experience)

Julia is currently trying persuade me to have a go ..... 

details

http://www.dancematrix.com/bristol/

[Andy]

A friend gave Julia a leaflet advertising beginner ballroom classes in Bristol with Eric (dance experience)

Julia is currently trying persuade me to have a go ..... 

details

http://www.dancematrix.com/bristol/

Eric was my first dance teacher <cough> years ago.

Good points:

Extremely patient teacher, never gets fazed no matter how little people have remembered from last week
His method of tuition means that you do remember all of what you get taught.
Classes are well organised and he issues a timetable so you know what is being taught when. (you might not get that initially as a beginner - his dropout rate is very high in the first few weeks)
Some of the ballroom dances are superb to do.

Bad points:

Teaching is as a course, can be problemmatic if you miss a week or two
Although ballroom is meant to be danced improvisationally (as Le Roc etc.) he teaches a set routine for each dance. You don't have to dance the routine outside of the class, but he doesn't spend enough time teaching people how to improvise so most of his pupils never do.
You'll learn seven or eight different dances from the outset (nine eventually) so progress in each one is a little slow. However (if you go to a ballroom dance) all of them will be played and everyone will dance all of them so there isn't much choice in that!


Personal opinion:

Go for it. Everyone who does any form of partner dance should do at least a little ballroom. It teaches skills that you can apply elsewhere even if you end up not being a ballroom dancer.

But I'm also reasonably sure that you two will enjoy it anyway
 

Andy

[marty_baby]

Hiya Guys,

Are there any Ballroom and latin dances in bristol???

We went on a Beginners Ballroom and latin a few months ago, and have simply not danced what we learn't since!
If you don't use it you lose it... and also its a shame not dance such graceful dances


Cheers
Martin

[Frodo]

Are there any Ballroom and latin dances in bristol???

We went on a Beginners Ballroom and latin a few months ago, and have simply not danced what we learn't since!
If you don't use it you lose it... and also its a shame not dance such graceful dances

I'm not entirely sure what is around, but the following link may give an idea ( http://www.strictlyballroomandlatin.co.uk/practice.htm#Bri ), though it isn't up to date.

I've heard vaguely about a practice night in Long Ashton, not listed there - no idea if that is still going on though.


The Packard Dance Centre (http://www.packarddance.co.uk/) appear to have frequent Saturday night dances, and monthly dances at Chipping Sodbury Town Hall.  I'm not sure how size suitable these venues are for Ballroom, but I'm sure someone can say given they're also LeRoc venues ? ? ?


Further out, The Bath Dancentre hold social dances monthly at the Sulis club ( http://www.bathdancentre.co.uk/ )

The Avon Amateurs web site is here (www.avondanceclub.org.uk ). They have monthly Sunday tea dances, and other events from time to time, in addition to Tuesday practices.

The last time I was at the Winter Gardens in Weston Super Mare I noted there were some dances there, and I think there is more on in the Gloucester / Cheltenham area.

[andrew_w]

Hiya Guys,

Are there any Ballroom and latin dances in bristol???

We went on a Beginners Ballroom and latin a few months ago, and have simply not danced what we learn't since!
If you don't use it you lose it... and also its a shame not dance such graceful dances


Cheers
Martin

Eric seems to run regular dances

http://www.dancematrix.com/bristol/#BALLROOM AND LATIN DANCES

pesky link doesn't work properly - on the page is a link to dances

[John Gimber: Webmaster]

When adding odd links in it often works best to use the [ url=xxx ]your link name[ /url ] style of link.

So you could link to the ballroom and latin page like this...

  You'll need to remove the spaces from the code tags though to make your own version work...

John.

[marty_baby]

Cheers for the info guys!

The next few months are pretty crammed - so this ballroom malarky looks like it may be a summer project thing!   

Martin
 

[andrew_w]

Went last night.

Bloomin' staggered by the number of people there rough guess 70 absolute beginners to ballroom - SCD certainly has raised the profile of dance.

Lesson was pretty good - clear humourous teaching helped.

So now i can stagger a bit of Cha Cha Cha but let's not discuss the waltz ....

several familiar faces there from Leroc / Lindy

[Andy]

Went last night.

Bloomin' staggered by the number of people there rough guess 70 absolute beginners to ballroom - SCD certainly has raised the profile of dance.

Actually Ballroom has always been a lot bigger than you'd think. When I started (which would be 13 or 14 years ago) Eric's beginners classes were that sort of number at least. And the biggest society in Bristol Students Union (by a big margin) has been the Ballroom Dance Society for donkey's years. Before I started, certainly.

but let's not discuss the waltz ....

1,2,3 1,2,3 ...... 


Andy

[Andy]

Hiya Guys,

Are there any Ballroom and latin dances in bristol???

There certainly used to be several dances a week in various community centres/church halls around the area and I'm sure there still are. Trouble is none of them bother to advertise so you have to hunt them out.

Packard Dance Centre in Yate (Sherif's Yate classes are held there nowadays), Dancelines in Fishponds and Dancing for Pleasure in Bedminster (more details on the links Frodo gave) are probably good places to start looking (or used to be!) as well as Eric's dances. Ask others at the dances where else they go to find the other times/venues.

Avon Amateurs is a bit competition orientated (and Ballroom competitors take themeselves a whole bunch more seriously than Le Roc one's do) so you might not want to go to their practices. At first, at least.

One other minor word of warning, a lot of  ballroom dances are attended by -erm- senior citizens (especially if they use the term "sequence" in describing themslves). They won't normally mind you going but it's not really all that practical to go without a partner.

Unless you want to spend the evening dancing very sedately with old ladies that is ... 

Andy