Students from New Mexico State University join the ranks of professionally certified balllroom dance instructors. Find out how they did it in this week's article.
In June, I had the great pleasure of examining five outstanding ballroom certification candidates at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Hannah Cole, Assistant Professor in the Human Performance, Dance & Recreation Department, runs a degree program specializing in DanceSport at the University.
Hannah had conducted a two-week certification intensive to prepare her students for their exams. They worked on every figure in the DVIDA Bronze American Smooth Syllabus (60 in all!), refining their knowledge of the theory and being coached on their dancing, posture, verbal presentation and teaching methodology.
The dancers arrived with palpable excitement and the kind of nervousness that comes from wanting to do well. I was impressed by their high-quality dancing, unhesitating answers to questions, and overall professionalism.
Afterward, I asked what the certification process had been like for them. Their answers were unanimous—the experience of preparing for professional certification had improved their dancing more significantly and dramatically than anything else had ever done. Hannah agreed that in just two weeks she'd seen two years' worth of transformation in their dancing!
Since the time I took my first professional dance exam in 1983, I've known that certification is a game changer. While there are no official requirements to become a ballroom dance teacher, the personal and professional benefits of getting certified are tremendous. The process immerses you in the fundamental elements of ballroom dance, exposes the things you didn't really know, and puts together pieces of the ballroom dance puzzle you weren't even aware were missing. And more and more, hiring studios want to know if you are a certified dance teacher.
So here's congratulating the newly certified ballroom dance instructors at NMSU—your excellence, enthusiasm and joy is truly inspiring. I also want to acknowledge Hannah Cole for her commitment to training top-notch ballroom dance teachers!
About the Author:
Diane Jarmolow is a pioneer in the field of ballroom dancing. She founded the first vocational training for ballroom dance teachers, the Ballroom Dance Teachers College (BDTC). Based in Oakland, California, BDTC has trained hundreds of people to become successful dance instructors, and Diane's BDTC-in-a-Box is being used to train teachers in studios throughout North America and abroad.
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