"Dancing Tid-bits" Issue #198, Thursday, September 30, 2004


Dancing Tid-bits
ISTD Certification-Final

Just back from a summer vacation and as I said earlier, it was always my desire to write on ISTD Certification which I did in my Tid-bits for past several weeks. The reason for this Dancing Tid-bit series was that when I took the test, not much information was available and there was a lot of confusion on the syllabus. However more recently this confusion has been eradicated specially in Latin Dancing and the Syllabus is standardized as prescribed in the new Manuals "Latin American" one for each dance.

A few thoughts came to my mind and I like to finish this series with following statements.

1. This series is a summary of my experience with ISTD testing examinations for certfication of teachers and is not official nor endorsement of ISTD.

2. All information was based for the Associate Level Certification

3. There are 3 Levels, (a). Associate, (b). Licentiate (previously known as Membership) and finally the (c). Fellow.

4. There are websites both from England ISTD, www.istd.org and United States ISTD www.usistd.org and much information is available from these websites.

5. Their scoring system was based on 100 points. I think 50 is passing grade and 80 gets "High Commendation"

6. Each session ie Ballroom and Latin is conducted separately and each discipline takes about 4 hours.

7. Each dance is graded separately and accordingly.

8. First you demonstrate all dances for that level with your partner and then starts the oral part of the examination for each dance separately.

9. Suggested dress code is a tie and a jacket, you cant go wrong.

10. Try to discuss with your prospective examiner and discuss various points with her or him personally well in advance.

11. During your practice runs, first dance right and then analyze various aspects. Don't try to remember things by rote memory.

Anything else? This is the final article of this series and your comments are most welcome, Max


This article is part of and should be seen in the frame context of Dancesport UK, Tid-bits