Confessions of a Hater – What I learned about the Virtual Lessons that can help everyone

I am going to start my first BLOG contribution with a soul-baring confession.

Okay, I admit it.

I am a natural born resister, the person often referred to, using common slang, as a “hater”. Not so thrilled about change.  Things work pretty fantastically as they are, thank you very much.

Then, this whole virus situation unfolded and it became apparent that a social isolation period was going to be necessary.  Albeit temporarily, this was going to change everything.

 

Virtual dance lessons were being excitedly  proposed by those around me and I went along with them in action, but, deep down, only partly in spirit.

Of course, I did see value in them to some degree or we wouldn’t have pursued them at all.  They had potential to keep a student’s dance skills in a preserving, skill-maintaining kind of way but that was basically their limit – or so I thought.

 

And then they started happening.

 

Lesson after virtual lesson went by.  I was there to see them happen – every one of them – and was pretty surprised by what I saw.  People danced, demonstrated back what they knew and, most amazingly, they LEARNED.

Every.  Single.  Time.

 

So, now the hater in me has had to learn for yet another time (who knows how many of these instances there have been) that it’s ok to try new things.  Sometimes it can turn into something pretty great.

Virtual private lessons are here to stay.  While they won’t replace, completely or forever, what we do in the studio with the ‘hands on’ approach of the in-person private lessons, they are a great supplement to the lessons we’ve taken.  Not only do they maintain but also increase our learning and dance skills.

Who knew?

 

Brent Smith is co-franchisee of the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Coquitlam, British Columbia.  Brent is a teacher, coach and adjudicator who, when asked, will tell you he has been dancing for “a thousand years”.