Learn Belly Dancing From Home, Choices and Options. My name is Dan along with my wife Leyla Najma am the husband half of our family Belly Dance team. I can’t help you with your Shimmies, but I can offer some insight and information for the stay at home student endeavoring to learn Belly Dancing From home. Before I do that let me qualify myself a bit so you’ll have an idea about where I’m coming from.

Leyla and I became a full time team in 2010. Before that I spent 30 years in corporate America helping semiconductor companies use a very high level, complicated and very expensive software system as a trainer, consultant and integrator.

I wrote the training material, trained customers, managed the systems and was fortunate to travel the globe to places such as Korea, Taiwan, Japan, France, Germany and all over the United States. From a training point of view Id often have a classroom of students whose primary language was not English. In Europe this is not so much of a problem but in Korea for example, it was quite a challenge.

One time in Korea after 3 days of lecture my entire class fessed up at once and told me they hadn’t understood a thing I had been teaching. The Korean people are proud and will not volunteer this kind of information and for them to stop me in the middle of a demonstration was an eye opener; I had to to re-think our training material as well as our systems of delivery and support.

The emphasis here is on systems of delivery and support. Systems of learning are usually more effective. Meaning they’re “better, faster, and cheaper” which customers love and is the organizing principle for the rest of this article.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home, Choices For Stay at Home Students

Stay at home students are a very different breed from students who regularly go to class and though you can’t lump them as a group into a one size fits all bucket there are are some common tendencies after talking to and surveying hundreds of students.

• They may have a wacky unpredictable schedules
• They may have children at home.
• They are not enamored with traveling of spending a lot of money on gas.
• They’re budget conscious
• They’re not comfortable with being in a room with others who may be watching and silently critiquing their technique.
• Many of them home school their children
• They likely live in a remote location where there are no teachers.

The one thing we took from all the data we collected and conversations is that (given a qualified teacher) at the top of the list was convenience, followed by cost. This goes a long way to explaining why YouTube is such a popular option. Especially when it comes to beginners. However, I’m not a big fan of free YouTube videos but because they’re free and immediate they do garnish a lot of favor.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home, the YouTube Option

YouTube has some practical value when assessing a DVD purchase but for learning how to Belly Dance from home, short free clips do little to serve the long term needs (and I stress long term needs) of students. The primary reason YouTube is a non starter is that there’s no continuity of instruction and it’s not comprehensive.

• Continuity of Instruction: A short clip is a short clip and there needs to be continuity and follow through.
• Not Comprehensive: Short clips means the instruction isn’t comprehensive. It’s like a movie trailer which sometimes is the best part of a movie. A short clip will not render the instructors curriculum in any complete manner leaving the student open to incorrectly interpreting the teaching.
• Support: If you’re going to be learning from YouTube recognize that there’s not going to be much in the way of support. No one t o ask a question of.
• Conflicting Techniques: No two teachers teach alike and what happens if instruction from one clip is in conflict  with instruction from another teachers short clip?

YouTube obviously has merits. It’s a great  marketing tool for many and it has also given Belly Dancing a tremendous amount of global exposure. But if you’re learning Belly Dancing from home there are better options to serve you.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home From, the DVD Option

Belly Dance DVDs (and before that VHS tapes) have been a popular form of media for many, many many years. But being the practical technologists I am believe they are less then the ideal way to learn Belly Dancing from home. I don’t say this to disrespect any dancers DVD,  I’d never do that but DVDs no longer pass the “Better, Faster, Cheaper” smell test.

I do believe DVDs have a place for stay at home students wanting to learn Belly Dancing from home, but not as a primary learn Belly Dancing from home media. Here’s what I mean.

• Assumed Risk: Few people have money to burn in this economy and unless you’ve seen the DVD from front  to back before you buy it you’ll be risking your money on a product that may not be the best for you. I discount trailers also because (as someone with experience in the movie business) trailers are often the best part of a movie and hence unreliable as a gauge.
• Cost: There’s only one way to measure cost in my opinion when it comes to instructional material and that is on a “cost per minute of instruction”. If the average price of a Belly Dance DVD is say $30.00 and has an average run time is 60 minutes, then the cost per minute of instruction is 50 cents. This is not competitive compared to some on line options.
• Damage: When it’s scratched it’s scratched and likely won’t play correctly. The bottom line with DVDs is that they do wear out. No DVD will last forever. They’re just plastic and too much heat, too much wear and tear and they’re toast.

If you have a liberal budget and you can afford to tolerate the occasional lemon then DVDs are perfect for you. Otherwise if you’re on a limited budget and  your conscious about value then now is the time (given t he technology environment) for you to start looking for alternatives. DVDs do provide of a security and this is legitimate because not everyone has internet enabled television.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home, the On Line Video Option

On line video for the learn Belly Dancing from  home student is the wild wild west right now. There are more then a few entrants in the market but all are not created equally, so be careful when pulling out your credit card.

The great thing about on line video in any format is that it’s immediate and it’s convenient and in some cases (not all) more economical. However, there are more important considerations then economy and convenience and if you’re a serious student with an eye to the long term you’re best advised to make both of these a secondary criteria. But more on this in a second and I do plan on doing a full review of the on line options for stay at home students who learn Belly Dancing from home in the future. For now I’ll keep it delivery systems.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home – Pay Per View Streaming Video: Pay Per View streaming is a where y9u rent the video for a specified number of  viewings for a given price. You’re typically restricted to watching the content only on line and for a certain amount of time. Given a good price, this is a great way to perform a review of content before you buy the DVD. However, in my cursory review I found a big disparity in pricing; some on line rentals are affordable and some are not.

The problem with Pay Per View is that it’s not a long term thing. You will pick up a technique, or a combination and that’s great but given the limited number of viewings you’re learning will be hampered. So use Pay Per View as a DVD screening tool as it is not the best option for stay at home student who want to learn Belly Dancing from home. There’s no continuity and the economics are dicey depending on whom you rent from.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home – Video Download: The video download option gives is where you can download the video file to your computer. In some cases you can watch as often as you want, which is a good thing and in come cases you there is an expiration. For the stay at home student trying to learn Belly Dancing from home, this option is a good one if (and I stress if) you can watch without restriction and burn a DVD and if the price is substantially discounted over that of a DVD.

Learn Belly Dancing From Home Options, The Missing Ingredient(s)

From what I can tell at this point the Belly Dance market place has yet to really embrace the special needs of the serious stay at home student endeavoring to learn Belly Dancing from home. None of them have a system of learning, or embrace the better, faster cheaper mantra.

More importantly none have yet to understand the one critical element that trumps price,  and convenience by a country mile. Price and convenience are important in the learn Belly Dancing equation but not THE most important and without this one element all other considerations are meaningless. To get a hint about what the missing element in the learn Belly Dancing from home equation is, stay tuned for the next article.