It’s that time of year here in Savannah, when new and prospective students are looking for a dance program. Most of the time I post about what my students do, mainly because they are amazing to me and I love sharing that side of my job with all of you, but today I felt I needed to share the other side with you.

It is not easy to run a small studio in a small town. It is of course, like every aspect of the dance world, highly competitive, and I LOVE that part. We are all so competitive aren’t we? I have always loved being pushed to be the best I can be, to find out if I still have what it takes, so to speak! My first teacher however, brought me up to give respect to my peers, that unless you are the dance critic of a big newspaper, stick to the good old- “if you don’t have anything nice to say-don’t say anything at all”. So I learned those lessons very early, it wasn’t always easy though, I might have slipped up a couple of times-dancers are very passionate people!

Since it is registration time-I thought I would give you a short list of things I have heard said about me, always about this time of year (which are not true of course) :

Did you know she curses at her students?

She is a really a Jazz teacher (well, I am a great Jazz teacher-but this was meant to be an insult)

If you want your child to have good manners, don’t bring her there

Her students are only good because she is really mean and drives them into the ground

They don’t do REAL ballet there

I am sure there are dance teachers all over who have had similar and even worse said about them-I even heard that some rival studios will even call your students on the phone to say these things!

I find it incredibly funny when I hear this kind of talk, I guess because I am happy! I love what I do, and I love that I get to do it the way I want to. So I will head into this season, with my little group of dancers who all have such big hearts and I tip my hat to those studio owners who are really good at what they do!

We are all in this together, my students might meet your students at a summer program, or dance together in a company one day! And best of all they will all grow up and hopefully continue to love to dance, go to the ballet, see a Broadway show and have great memories of their first teachers, who taught them so many important things, just like mine did!