5 Things You Don’t Need for Your First Dance Lesson

You don’t need karate experience for karate lessons, you don’t need Spanish speaking experience for a Duolingo account, and you certainly don’t need dance experience to take dance lessons.  

The Reason we want this: 

No one wants to feel like they are the newest learner in the room.  

The Reality: 

The Arthur Murray system is actually constructed for the newest learners in the room.

Have you ever put something off for a long time simply because you couldn’t get someone to do it with you?  Like anything great in life, as great as it may be to try with someone you care about, you don’t want to postpone your joy and fulfillment because it didn’t fit for someone else.

In fact, you learn faster and achieve better physical benefits by learning one on one in your dance lessons. 

The Reason we want this: 

It always seems much more practical to learn to dance with someone you’d like to dance with outside of your dance lessons.  It also seems a little less daunting when you try something new with a friend or loved one. 

The Reality: 

Your motivation to learn could fade while waiting for a potential partner to agree to this.  Not to mention, they may have hobbies that you don’t participate in.  So why should this be any different?

You don’t need dance shoes for your first dance lesson.  We have students who come straight from work, from the gym, or from parenting mode – so wear something that is comfortable. 

The Reason we want this:

You don’t want to be singled out in a negative way.  “I don’t want to be the only one not wearing the right shoes.” 

The Reality: 

Most new students show up without dance shoes.  If all goes well with your first few lessons, plan on picking up a pair to celebrate your first month of taking lessons.  

If this were a first time vacation to a tropical getaway, you wouldn’t know the spots to visit, the best places to eat, or the best time of day to visit the market.  So you’d ask a concierge, you’d be a blank slate, motivated and excited to learn more.

The Reason we want this:  

Your comfort zone is sending you an alert that you don’t want to seem uninformed in comparison to the other people at Arthur Murray.  (Similar to #1 on our list). 

The Reality: 

The new students that arrive with enthusiasm and an open mind tend to get the best results from their dance lesson experience.   

That thing that you think you need to be born with is a myth.  It’s pure fiction that you need to be born with rhythm, a feel for the music, great timing, or whatever.

Why? 

Because we teach all of it.  

Timing?  Yep. 

Rhythm?  You bet. 

A feel for the music?  Sure thing. 

The Reason we want this: 

As weird as it might sound, we don’t want to look like someone who is learning while we are learning.  

The Reality: 

Our comfort zone has a lot of filters, rules, and expectations.  It’s rooted in the best intentions, “once you learn how to master the timing, then you’re going to take lessons.”  Unfortunately, that would be like saying, “once you are 100% in shape, then you can sign up for the gym.”