“the best coach I have worked with for any skill I have ever tried to build in my lifetime”
Aris is probably the best coach I have worked with for any skill I have ever tried to build in my lifetime. There are many dancers out there who teach private lessons and I have taken lessons from other Champion level dancers, both on an individual and ongoing basis. Aris' instruction has been far more effective for me.
What separates Aris from other coaches I've worked with is his depth of understanding of how everything in the dance fits together and even more importantly, his ability to communicate it in bite sized chunks that don't overwhelm my attention during the dance. In addition to his ability to boil his lessons down to micro-cues, his understanding of all of the biomechanics involved allows him to see with incredible clarity how different "problems" in your dance affect each other. This gives him a unique ability to fix those problems at their root. This systematic approach to private instruction makes every lesson extremely high leverage.
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“helped me to feel empowered to be in control of my dance”
Aris is a phenomenal instructor. Aris has a level of attention to detail that is remarkable. He has helped me fine tune my anchor, connection and step mechanics. He breaks a complicated concept into easily digestible steps and then moves at your pace. He will quickly pivot his approach to best help the learner. Aris encouraged me to set what I wanted for level, amount and type of feedback, which helped me to feel empowered to be in control of my dance and get the most out of the lesson. I can't say enough how beneficial his video critiques were while I was at TAP. I went from not making it out of prelims in intermediate to taking 5th place in Strictlys, competing against the finalists of intermediate JnJ.
I'm beyond thrilled and honored to have Aris in our local community, as a friend and instructor. If you've considered taking a lesson stop considering and make the commitment because he is more than worth it!
“the video critiques with Aris DeMarco are absolute fire”
In terms of video critique, the video critiques with Aris DeMarco are absolute fire. No seriously, you can send him one of your worst comp videos that you strongly disliked and he will break down everything you did right, and everything you can improve on..but he will do it in a kind way that makes you dislike your dancing less and appreciate the dance you gave him to critique more. He also gives feedback insanely fast. I was not expecting a response in weeks. He gave me feedback in less than a day (technically in my case – instant feedback like less than an hour) and that’s insane.
As a dancer, I think it’s very easy to be self-deprecating and dislike your dancing. Aris is very invested in you both as a dancer and person. Aris’s advice is very technical but it’s also again…. very kind, because he does remind you that yeah your dancing isn’t all that bad. You don’t walk away from your critique self loathing all your flaws. If anything, working with him makes you want to incrementally work on your own dance at any given time.
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