Despite being rooted in movement, energy, and structure, ballroom dance 'education' remains dominated by unprovable traditions, opaque language, and outdated authority. While physics has marched on to quantum computing and biomechanics has mapped the gait of insects, ballroom still teaches “body rise” and “engage your core” like gospel — with no evidence, and no accountability.
We are not just behind. We are paralyzed.
Improving the system would require major figures and institutions to admit they were wrong — not just once, but for decades. It would mean rewriting syllabi, reevaluating instructor certifications, and worst of all: facing the question “Why didn’t you know this before?”
Better yet, “I'm not getting anywhere, I Want a Refund?”
Sloppy Teaching and Low (if any) Standards
Ballroom Dance classes are seldom taught as a product and as a result there are few if any quality controls or metrics. The more recent Syllabus guides and manuals available are based on "newer figures as taught by the latest competition winners" rather than addressing the need for better explanations of how it's accomplished (outside of videos).
🔒 Not Invented Here: Institutional Inertia
Most of the dance world exists in an echo chamber. Innovation is dismissed unless it comes from a “recognized authority.” And even when the major institutions release new manuals, they often serve as figure catalogs with no explanation of the physics involved. No force diagrams. No equations. Just aesthetics.
💸 No Financial Incentive
Until students treat dance classes like any other product — with expectations, quality control, and return policies — there’s no commercial reason for instructors or studios to modernize.
If you bought a blender that didn’t blend, you’d return it.
Why accept a dance class that doesn’t deliver?
The sad reality is that it's cheaper for them to continue retreading the same material because the customers keep paying for it.
Until the dance student start treating a dance class like any other product that they purchase there will be zero reason for instructors and studios to change their revenue models.
If you purchase a product that doesn't work you return it for a refund, right? A dance class should be no different. If the studio and, or instructor can't guarantee their product, find one that can
A Way Forward
This is not a call to tear down tradition — it’s a call to debug it. To upgrade from metaphor to mechanics. To replace "feel the movement" with "understand the force."
Students must:
“If it can’t be tested, measured, or reasoned through, it’s not teaching — it’s theatre.”
Let’s stop dancing around the truth and step directly into it.
💬 Disagree? Agree? Have ideas?
Let us know — we can’t change this industry alone.