Finally after some time, I feel ready to write this review. I took Silvia's salsa teacher training course back in 2019 with an excitement to take my dancing to the next level. I have been dancing salsa since 2014 and I wasn't sure if I wanted to actually take the next leap and teach yet, but I was curious to start building a teacher foundation.
After the experience however, I realized it was a mistake. And now, I cannot recommend this studio. The course itself I think was the first time Silvia and David were hosting it, it was extremely disorganized and not thought out. Some of the material was okay, but they threw so much at us in a short amount of time (7 weeks) and expected us to be experts by the end without any support.
Silvia is also one of the coldest and most unsupportive people I have ever met. For the last class, she told us we were having a "test." I remember the week before I asked her who we would be teaching and how I should prepare, she did not give me very much information. When I walked in the week, I expected we would be teaching the other trainees like we were the 6 weeks prior. Nope. She threw actual student volunteers at us without informing us or letting us prepare. For me, it was very nerve-racking. She placed me to go last and by the time it was my turn, there were more students in my class than the trainees before me, which made the experience even worse. During our feedback session at the end, with both her and David, Silvia looked me cold in the face and told me I was too insecure to be a teacher. Mind you, I paid a lot of $$$ to take this "teacher training," just to be torn down as a dancer.
I suggest Silvia does NOT host a teacher training again. Also, there is a lot of great dancing in DC. While you can learn some great foundations here and some of the teachers are wonderful, I do suggest looking elsewhere to become an advanced dancer. read more