Certification for Salsa Insrtuctors....

[jamidj]

I thought this might be a good question... I would love everyone who see's this to give me there option on Salsa Certification for Instructors... do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing... and... what should be in a certification if there was one?
From Jami (SalsaWeb's Instructors Forum's Host)

[borikenSalsero]

In the world of social salsa I am against any kind of certification for instructors. Certifications would mean that there has to be a set standard of rules/way to do just about everything. That uniform way of achieving mastery of salsa would result in a water-down version of what salsa is about. Technique nor size of repertoire are very much what makes salsa what it is in the realms of social dancing. Instead it very much measures how far away salsa has gotten with the vision that better technique leads to better dancers, when all technique yields to is better technique not the union of music/dancer/partner.

Certifications to me would give way to more tropical salsa and less classic salsa, at the end stating that this is salsa. Forgetting that it is only salsa because it looks like salsa not because it has the soul of salsa. For to most people looking-alike is the same as being.

I like to equal the vision of better technique to equal better dancers to the belief that there is no more beyond the sum of the parts to equal the whole. When in reality the sum of physically putting together the parts is never the whole in dancing. Who can tell someone else that something is done properly because their 20 years of dancing and 5 world championships says so? I could careless when I’m dancing with you how awarded your technique is. If I dance with you and you have no emotional/soul connection to the music, you are still a beginner despite how well your technique says you dance. Each certificate assuring you that more technique can get you there, yet to me each certificate only tells me that you have read the book but never understood the message.

Salsa shouldn’t be about technique but reaching something higher, however, today we egotistically feel that to achieve someone has to award us with the recognition of doing something physically better than others. We must compete and be labeled under bronze, silver, and gold, to feel like we belong. I need no recognition, nor certification from a governing body who says that toe in doesn’t yield to the final out come as toe out, you are looking to snorkel, I’m looking for deep water diving. Worry about your toe, I’ll worry about how far my lady, the music, and I are going to get.

Now, I am not against it for a given group who wants its members to all teach from the same bible, all the members to achieve a uniform repertoire/ability. Fine go ahead, be the best you can given that predetermination. Nor am I against the world of competition looking for given characteristics in a dancer to deem him “superior” to another. To offer people a driving goal to suit their needs. But when you step on the social floor, neither technique nor repertoire will make you sneak by if you have no connection to that beyond technique. Till then I will always see you as a pattern dancer, see your trophies, and certifications as proof that even he who is deemed the best because of technique can never unite with the music because his reach for unity is seen as mastery of that which he can see.

[peachexploration]

I agree with Boriken. It's okay if your curriculum idea is particular to your school but anything other than that is not a good idea. I think maybe the idea is to make it palatible for all but salsa is free spirit and that's what makes it special.

[squirrel]

hmmm... I heard they wanna make Salsa (and hip hop...) ballroom dances... aghhhh! Since I agree with boriken, I don't want this thing to happen... regulations in Salsa... Gosh!