Previous participants in the course have said:

Eilis Jordan : "I attended Dessy's training course in October 08 and found it tremendously useful. I was not quite sure what to expect having found the course through a search on the internet but I took a chance, booked on the course and was not at all disappointed. The course was very well organised and structured. It was packed full of useful information and there was a good balance between theory and practice. Dessy was extremely open and helpful - not at all precious about sharing information. And she was also very honest with us, which you really need as a student. No soft-soaping from Dessy.All in all, I can thoroughly recommend this course for anyone who is considering teaching, or for those teaching already who want to prepare for the UKA exam or simply to benefit from the experience of a very professional, knowledgable, enthusiastic and capable teacher. Thanks Dessy!"

Gemma Harries: "Just a quick thank you the course was brilliant and I feel more confident than ever with my teaching.  The course has given me a clear indication of what areas I need to work on and hope that I can make salsa as popular and successful here in Wales as it is with Expressions.   I learnt so much on the course so Thank you again."

Anna-Marie Savio : "A most thorough and informative salsa dance teacher preparation course! It made me realise how much further I had to go to achieve my goal of obtaining a UKA qualification. The course also gave a good overview of the salsa dance trade in general. It felt overwhelming at times – there was a mountain of information to take in over three days; it could perhaps benefit from being over four days, as there is just so much ground to cover. There was a nice balance each day between the theory and the practical and, being a small group, it made getting to know my fellow trainees on a personal level much easier. Everyone was friendly, relaxed and encouraging.

Dessy is awe-inspiring! A powerhouse of ambition, drive, aspiration and professionalism – no-one else in London has her dedication and determination to drag the London salsa scene kicking and screaming into the 21st century!

I would recommend this course to anyone wishing to take their salsa teaching experience to the next level. This course makes one aware of salsa as a whole – music, technique, business, history, legalities, and much more – it’s not just about the “1,2, 3 / 5,6,7”

Meena Arora: "The course really gave me a boost and made me feel that i can do this and hopefully do it well.All of you are such lovely peolple that it made learning and understanding so easy. I used to have a problem with feeling the music but now when i am listening the cds i got from you i can actually feel the beat.
 
I had a lovely time and learnt so much and with all the notes that you have given us i know that it all will help me through. So once again i say thank you.
 After i have given my first class i will write and let you know how it went."

Christine Newell: "I had a great time on the course. I enjoyed everything that we did. Some of it I found quite challenging but you and the rest of the group, were very encouraging and that helped me tremendously. I'm thinking in particular of teaching the class a short routine. I had had very little experience of leading before I came and that together with my lack of confidence - which I need to overcome - made it more difficult for me than it would otherwise have been. Actually just doing the course was a confidence boost.

I have to say I met such a great bunch of people and that in itself helped to make the weekend what it was.

For me the weekend was an experiment to find out if I felt that I could teach, what becoming a teacher actually involved and if I thought that I would like to teach. I think that these questions have been answered. The course has done that much for me. I have also learned how much more I need to know before I could feel happy to present myself for an examination. We certainly covered a lot of ground. Your course was a step in the right direction and I am very pleased that I have done it."

Ben Chai: "There has been so much that I am now doing differently in my classes and I have really appreciated everyone's feedback. It was quite a traumatic experience but I think I personally needed to rethink many of our discussions in spite of the fact that I'm a qualified management and IT trainer in one of the other fields I work in. Dessy was an absolute star and did her best to accommodate us and I was particularly grateful to her for letting us teach her class."

Ivan Bikellay: "I would like to say that this training was a very good opportunity to learn not only about the dance but also the business side of thing. This experience gave me the opportunity to spot my weaknesses and encourage me to work on them."

Carole Gnema: "I must say that the course was even above my expectations !! I am truly impressed at how well-structured it was, and at how much content you managed to cover in such a little time. Yes, it was a lot to take in in one week-end (especially after a working week !), nevertheless you managed to have our full attention and concentration thanks to the wonderful way you designed it (creating a nice atmosphere so that we would feel at ease with the other members of the group, good balance of theory and practice, encouraging interactivity, etc).

As far as the practical tasks in the training are concerned, there is one task for which I felt I could have benefited from more guidance, that is the task we had to perform on the second day (explain basic dances to one member of the group). Probably due to my lack of knowledge in technique, I felt that there was quite a gap (in difficulty) compared to the practical tasks we did on the first day. I would have prefered to have to perform a task which would have been "between" the ones from the first day and the one from the second day. However, I realise that since we were a group, you probably wanted to cater for the ones who had more knowledge in technique, since on the first day you catered for people who had very little or close to no knowledge in technique. "