ISTD vs WDSF Curricula

05/03/2024

Received a notice that to maintain one of the dance officials' licenses, I will need to attend a congress in August. Ok. The cost of the congress is stated. The date is stated. The reason for the requirement is stated. The date for my license to expire w/o attendance is stated. But the place is not described. Maybe if it is on the East Coast, I would attend. Maybe if it is in Japan, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, I will not even consider it. Maybe you have to pay first to find out the location???

03/22/2022

09/13/2021

We are starting WDSF curriculum tango & samba, Monday, Sept. 13. What's the big deal? Well for one thing, some of the movement details that used to be considered 'style' are now 'technique.' Gives more impact to that part of the lesson.

09/01/2021

Started this page a long time ago when my enthusiasm for the WDSF curriculum really caught me. Plenty of dance teachers are aware that some of the most obvious differences between ISTD (currently used for NDCA events) & WDSF (approved for USA Dance but not well used) are: additional figures, shifting levels, more complete charts. I like exploring these differences. So here is today's subject: The WDSF medal levels shift figures up and down and have them land in a more sensible order.

We will be doing our next review of the material at 7:30am, EDT, Monday, Sept. 6. You can request to join us on zoom. [email protected]

06/28/2021

Still heavily aware that there is absolutely no effort to promote this fabulous curriculum or to support the teachers who acquired their WDSF certifications. There are no workshops, no discussions, no lists of certified teachers, no benefits except that the material is useful and sound. We are doing WDSF ballroom class on Mondays at Universal. The dancers are 'hobby dancers,' but they are dedicated. We are adding 'Dance World,' a weekly short discussion on dance material, terminology, competition, organizations, comparisons, starting up again on July 12, 6:45-7:00PM.

02/19/2021

It's been years now that the WDSF curriculum hit the American dance market. The difference in quality, completeness, relationship to current development of ballroom dancing is beyond comparable to the teachers' manuals and we have previously used for certification, medal tests, medal level competition.
So now what? No one has any idea that anyone in the USA has acquired a WDSF certification. I hear one of the dance governing bodies is now going to list their professionals along with those professionals' qualifications. I was one of the early ones to acquire the certification and don't even have the diploma on the Wall of Fame at our studio. Why not? Not enough fuss about it being worth anything. Who recognizes the value of it? Does it deserve that last piece of space on the main wall? Does anyone need to have knowledge of WDSF curriculum material?

02/09/2021

There has absolutely no promotion of this WONDERFUL and relatively new WDSF curriculum. Too bad few know the new syllabus, there is no where to use it (that I know of for the past 11 months), no one teaching it (maybe they are but it's a bit of a secret). Our school has faced the fact that one-day events run by NDCA organizers are our best route to continue setting competition goals, so we are dropping the WDSF curriculum in favor of fitting in with the NDCA events. What a shame. The WDSF graded curriculum is way more interesting, satisfying, complete, and it's more up to date.