RAE IS EVERYTHING YOU WANT IN A DANCE INSTRUCTOR. She is kind, patient, skillful, and encouraging and went the extra mile for us, tailoring a perfect first dance that our guests said was the best and most flawless first dance they’d ever seen! ...Who knew we had it in us!? (Rae did). Let me break down our experience:
Coming in we were as green as you can get with partner dancing. We wanted an up-tempo, fun, non-traditional song in order to start the reception off with strong energy. Obviously, this kind of song requires more and faster choreography because it's a faster song. Our song also didn't pick up until the second minute so we ended up with like a 3 minute song (daunting) but even with the extra length and required choreography to fill 3 minutes, Rae got us there in FOUR LESSONS. She started us off by teaching form and the basic steps and so we could always come back "home" if we got caught up (such a relief to have this and it came into play during the real thing). Then Rae opened things up teaching us spins, turns, steps, and moves that gradually increased in difficulty as we caught on, matching our comfort level/progress and she always met our requests in swapping in/out moves. There’s no question Rae is GREAT at diagnosing a couple’s strengths and pace of progression, and she adapts her teaching and choreography to this. The end of every session where she taught us choreography she videotaped so we could play back and practice at home based off what we learned while it was still fresh our head (this was key). Upon request, Rae choregraphed the entire song for us, broken up into lessons so we could put the parts together by the end in cumulative fashion. This was such a perfect strategy to nailing our dance, which was an unusually long 3 minutes (we had a pretty simple first minute then when the first chorus hit it was go-time). By the end of our lessons, we could do basic steps and easy turns but could also do complicated steps, leans, slides, simultaneous turns, and even a lift that the crowd went nuts for. Rae brought out the inner-dancer in both of us, and my wife and I have different personalities, strength, and weaknesses in physical activities, but Rae knew how to work with us both in a group setting. Practice is definitely required if you want to get your dance down right, no question. But Rae gives you everything you need for the perfect dance – you just have to practice to get it to where it’s simply routine by your big date!
Rae has SO much energy and she’s so enthusiastic and committed to making your dance special and getting you ready to go. She’s fun and funny, clear and concise, and fully committed, and dance lessons have the potential to be SO awkward but they just weren’t with Rae. She cut right through that concern fast and made it such a comfortable setting for partnered-activity that you and your significant other are very unlikely to have engaged in before. She was always on time and stayed with us extra time when we needed it. With all the possible dance instructors out there, we feel so lucky to have come across Rae because she was everything we had hoped for in professionalism, kindness, and skill in an instructor and got us results that we will be proud of and watch back for the rest of our lives. THANK YOU RAE.