What to wear:

wear loose comfortable clothing, preferably not things with a strong waistband, loose leggings are fine, nice skirts which sit on your hips are great, if you have belly dance clothing please feel free to wear it as it's designed for dancing, and exagerates the moves nicely. many folks wear super shiny every week, but lots of people also just wear casual fitness clothing for classes (it really is down to your mood on the day whether you want to dress up). DO bring a scarf to tie around your hips to give you a line to emphasise the movement and draw focus there. If you have a coin belt you are very welcome to wear it for class and it can really help with being able to see your shimmy so know you are doing well. I usually have a few for students to borrow but I can't guarantee that everyone will get a coin belt in normal classes.

What to expect:

in classes I aim for a combination of a friendly but hard working environment. I want anyone wanting to drill hard for exercise to be able to apply themselves, but for those who want to take a more relaxed approach to be comfortable - you work at your own pace and pause when you need to. I don't mind students talking so long as it's not instead of dancing or over my lessons. I feel much of the time we understand what we're doing better by talking with a friend and comparing our experience with theirs, just please don't make my life harder or diminish the benefit other students get by making it hard for them to attend to the class.

Most classes start with some talking from the tutor, then a warm up, we will them study and drill a couple of moves, sometimes playing a game or dance exercises, and in all but the first lessons of term (and tasters) we will be working on a choreography. We then build up the exertion and move onto shimmy practice and free dance and cool down at the end.

If a class is enjoying learning a choreography this can take over quite a bit of the class time especially when it is building up to a performance. There is no obligation to perform but many ladies find they enjoy showing off their dancing at a village fete or local music hall evening, or even at belly dance parties (haflah).

At the first class there will be a little more paperwork than at others as I will need to collect your fitness to dance statements (this is basically you promising me that you'll stop before you injure yourself/won't try to do anything if it hurts, and if you have any particular conditions you have taken your GPs advice before coming to class, along with basic registration information.) You can maximise dance time by having all paperwork and payments ready in advance.

... continued on the next column...

...continued....

Fitness to Dance/Registration form:

If you haven't been on one of our courses before please make sure you have filled in a fitness to dance/registration form.

You can download it from this page or I bring ready printed copies of them along to the taster class and to the first session of term in case anyone has lost theirs, if you have a problem downloading you can email me (on ashbeth at catspaw dot uk dot net) and I can send you the PDF by return email.

Everyone needs to fill in, sign and return to me before any course. (I will talk through the H&S aspect at a taster)

It covers both registration of your contact details and a very simple health check as well as basic guidance and responsibilities for health and safety.

Please download one from here, print it out and fill it in and either bring it along to class or post it to me with your payment to book your place on the course.

Fitness & Health Registration form

Payments:

Cash is welcome (preferred for the taster class) and cheques made payable to JO COFFEY are very welcome too. I have taken bank transfers before now, and i am looking into setting up standardised online payments which will pay into my paypal for those who want it. I will link to it from these pages once it is up and running. Let me know if you want to pay online.

It really helps A LOT when I have payments in advance of the class so I am not left in the position of trying to pay for a room which might end up with no students in it. Payment in advance of the first lesson is better than at the first lesson. The ideal time to pay though is sometime between the previous term (end of term maybe? ) and the end of your taster class, since that's the point at which I am meant to confirm the room booking, which I can't do without students registered and payed.

Although I do understand and sympathise with peoples financial issues I am not very well off myself and I'm very sorry but I can't afford to effectively lend people I've just met money by only taking part payment until a month later (don't forget I have to pay for the room and insurance etc up front from somewhere) so really hope I don't offend if I ask that if you want to borrow half the cost of the course from someone, why not borrow it from a friend who has known you longer and can maybe afford to lend it better than i can, and probably doesn't have a few other people asking her to lend them money at the same time. I wish I could help more, but I just can't afford to :(

If you want to find out more have a look around the website - the student pages are updated with information each week