Ballroom Practice


Room 1

West Coast
Swing Practice

Room 1

Salsa
Practice

Room 1

Western
Practice

Room 1

Salsa
Practice

Room 1

Western Practice

Room 1

Practice Night is free Sundays through Thursdays for students who are taking class that night or people who come to the studio late and have a current month SSQQ receipt.

If you are not taking a class in the current month, the cover charge is $3 Sunday through Thursday.

Friday Night is $3 for students who have a current month SSQQ receipt.
If you are not taking a class in the current month, the cost is $5. Note that beverages are provided free of charge on Fridays.

SSQQ reserves the right to end Practice Night early when the number of guests drops below 10.  We also reserve the right to extend Practice Night longer when the energy warrants it!

SSQQ Practice Night is the dance equivalent of doing your "homework". If you are new to SSQQ, you might be amazed to learn that 20% of all our students are "Repeating" a class each month.  It is a studio joke that we have a "brain neutralizer" that wipes everyone's mind blank as they leave class.  Indeed many new students are shocked at how little they remember from one week to the next. However the dance veterans aren't surprised. They have learned the hard way that dance patterns are stored in "Conscious Memory" and only stay there for a short term. The moment they learn another pattern, boom, the previous one is erased! A good example of this phenomenon comes after our 8 pm Break each night at class. After teaching a new move in the second hour, as the class draws to a close, the instructor will suggest reviewing the patterns from the first hour. Each of the students will begin to stare at each as if to ask, "Do you remember the pattern?" Then they all laugh sheepishly and ask the teacher to help them refresh their memory.

Dance classes are valuable for acquiring the patterns and the knowledge, but are simply not long enough to include enough music to master the material. As usual, I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Back in 1977 I took 3 ten-week classes to learn how to Whip.  Unfortunately not once did I practice after class. First I signed up for a 10 week Whip class. I was considered one of the best beginners, or so I was told. With that encouragement I signed up for the next two levels as well.  However, despite taking classes for nearly SEVEN MONTHS, in this time I never actually learned how to dance the Whip!  Do you sense how utterly sad this statement is?

During the final class, the instructor was talking about the possibility of another level. I had not done very well in the third level. As I thought about it,  I realized I knew a lot of patterns, but could not actually put two of them back-to-back since I had no "muscle memory". 

Muscle Memory is the process of transferring information from your brain to your body. Moves that feel awkward and mechanical in class have a way of becoming fluid with repetition.  Just as a golfer must practice his swing, a dancer must practice his leads and footwork for them to become second nature.

I knew I should have practiced, but I didn't. Why not? The reason was simple: I did not practice because I lacked the confidence to ask any of the ladies taking the class to go out dancing with me. I had begun taking dance classes because I heard that dancing was an excellent way to meet women. That sounded like a good idea to me. I kept taking these classes so I could get better, but without practice I never actually improved. To me it felt like I would have to ask a woman out for a date in order to practice. Since one of the main reasons I was taking lessons to improve my confidence around women, I was in a quandary.

In other words, I was suffering from a Dance "Catch-22: I needed to practice to gain confidence to meet women, but I didn’t practice because I had no confidence to get up the guts to ask someone to practice with me.

Boy, was I stuck!  I was insecure about women and I was insecure about dancing. I didn't want any woman to see how bad a dancer I was.  Nor did I think they wanted to go dancing with a klutz.  I was so insecure it never dawned on me that women like to dance so much that several of the women in my class would gladly have been patient with me.  Finally in disgust at the trap I was in, I quit taking the lessons.

The absurdity was not lost on me.  Drawing on my own failings, when I became a dance instructor, I vowed to make it less threatening for my own students to begin to "Practice".  In August 1977 I took my very first Disco Line Dance class to a long-gone Disco known as "The Rubiyat".  I was amazed at how much they loved this opportunity!  The entire class went and danced the night away. We all had a great time. The lesson was not lost on me. Having this built-in opportunity to get out and dance made all the difference in the world to my students. After that I always made a point to take my entire class out dancing after their final class as a kind of "graduation exercise".

During the evening one lady came up to me and thanked me for organizing the event.  She said she was too afraid to come to a club by herself, but coming here with the group was not intimidating at all. Then she winked and said a man from our class had asked for her phone number!   This lady had been keeping her eye on him for several weeks, but was shocked to find out he had been doing the same thing with her. Imagine that.

I smiled. I knew I had done the right thing and I was proud of myself. I made a vow that I would do this again.

I named these after-class adventures "Practice Night". It was the start of something big.  Definitely. Today SSQQ is responsible for an average of 25 marriages a year!  And it all started with Practice Night.

The Success of Practice Night Creates a Subtle Magic...

In the beginning I could have predicted the rapid improvement I saw in my students' dancing as the result of Practice Night. Obviously people who practice get better. You don't need Nostradamus for that.

What I did not anticipate was the unbelievable number of friendships that developed as a function of having these large groups of people dancing together.

Quickly Practice Night came to mean more than a simple chance to improve dance skills; it became an important opportunity to hang out with the gang.

Over the years SSQQ has been given quiet credit for countless romances and marriages too. We have been encouraged to enter the "dating business" many times, but I am convinced such an ill-conceived idea would jeopardize the "Magic".

Instead we remain a nice, safe place where people come to dance, see their friends, and have a good time.  Practice Night immediately follows every class here at studio starting at 9:15 pm. We turn down the lights, pump up the volume, and start the Dance.  With two large dance floors, great dancers and great music, the conditions are perfect for slow dance and romance.

Practice Night is free and so is the "Magic". Come and find out for yourself.

Here is another article written about Social Dancing that is a good read:  The Wonderful World of Social Dance