Lots of people will tell you about Urban Beat's excellent teachers, their generous refund policies, and their flexible class schedules. Those are all well and good, but I'd like to get into a bit more detail about their specific approach to teaching. It's more fun, it makes you feel more competent and less awkward, and it keeps you moving and practicing continually in class.
Most instructors try hard to "break down" the dance movements into elements simple enough for the student to grasp, and then try to assemble the components into a whole dance pattern. This approach works, but you have to teach a whole bunch of elements, and get students to remember them all at the same time, and try to combine them. It's unavoidably hard for students to think about six things at the same time.
Urban Beat works differently. They start with a broad, simple version of the pattern, that's easy to remember and carry out. Once you've done that a few times, they adjust it a bit, and get you to repeat the improved version a few times more. Little by little, one small change at a time, they sculpt your movements into something more and more graceful, rhythmic, sexy, and powerful.
They're still "breaking down" the pattern, but in a particular way that lets you succeed right from the start. The initial version is simple, so you get it down quickly. Once you have that, the next little adjustment is easy to concentrate on, and so is the one after that. You don't have to remember six things at once--you just concentrate on the next small improvement, and the one after that. Before you know it, you're awesome.
Urban Beat's instructors are all nice, friendly people, but so are lots of instructors. The difference is, Urban Beat actually understands how people learn, and uses a teaching approach that works the way people think.
I think part of it is that not all of them have been dancing since infancy in ballet classes and such--some of them learned as adults, and still remember what it was like not to know how to dance. They're more empathetic than the lifelong dancers--they give you more time to practice, more repetition, more time to think. The thing is, taking a gentler, less demanding approach, they actually get students to learn faster. You don't feel confused or pressured in their classes, and you'll never feel embarrassed. They're always moving you along a step at a time, better and better, and not expecting you to master anything instantly.
Oh, and I should point out that most teachers of "social dancing" focus exclusively on the "dancing" part, and almost completely ignore the "social" part. Not Urban Beat. They talk a lot about the right way to ask someone to dance, how to deal with crowding, how to dance with someone much more or much less experienced, and many other subtleties. They want you to go out dancing socially and have a great time--maybe meet that special someone, or at least make some good friends. They don't just want your class fees--they genuinely want to see happy, fully engaged, enthusiastic dancers.
When I started at Urban Beat, I was a modestly competent, but rather stiff and mechanical dancer of jive and Lindy Hop. After a couple of their west-coast swing courses, I was a smooth, slinky, impressive dancer with a distinctive style of my own. To this day, every time my friends and I go out dancing at the Fan Club or the Fairview, people come over to offer compliments and ask whether I teach. That outcome had nothing to do with natural athletic talent--I was always a klutz. It had everything to do with Urban Beat's insightful, encouraging, and joyful teaching style.
I owe them gratitude for thousands of hours of joy in my life, and I think they're the class of the field in Vancouver. If you want to dance, go to Urban Beat. read more
