Tips for Seeking a Good Instructor

Questions and tips when looking for an Oriental Dance  instructor:

1) Integrity – does this teacher have her students’ best interests at heart?  Is she warm, open, loves her art and corrects with kindness? Is it a warm, inviting, sharing  atmosphere?  Is she more interested in your growth as a student than in financial gains?  Does she push performing/recitals on students too soon? Is she too eager to have students purchase expensive costuming and accessories they don’t need?

2)  Knowledge – Does this teacher still seek out and study with other teachers?   Does this teacher acknowledge that learning this is not an instantaneous process?  This dance takes as much time as any other to learn well. Does she go slowly enough so that the movements can be mastered properly, or is it an “assembly line” kind of thing?  Learning this dance is like learning a language. One must learn the words and pronunciation first, then go on to build sentences, paragraphs, and finally, a full page ( a choreographed dance).   Does she dress herself and her students appropriately for age and weight when they perform?  (you’ll know it when you see it)

3)  Technique – Above all, does she have good, solid technique? The posture for Oriental Dance must always have the knees flexed, pelvis slightly tucked, and rib cage  up with shoulders slightly back, and arms should be graceful and flowing.

If you are seeing locked knees, swayback, upper body leaning back from the pelvic girdle – for the sake of your skeletal health - flee!

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