The Real Value of Private Forró Lessons - And Why They Are Often Underestimated
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- May 8
- 6 min read
A reflection emerging from practice and observation
“What kinds of students benefit the most from private forró lessons?”
“When does a private lesson truly make a difference in someone’s learning process and development as a dancer?”
I have been thinking a lot about this format of learning recently while reorganizing the educational content here on the website and updating the page about private lessons.
After writing the article:
another layer of reflection started appearing for me.
Not exactly about the different types of students anymore, but about what actually happens inside this format when it is experienced more deeply, and about what can easily go unnoticed in the process.
Technique and movements are only one layer of the dance
There is a common perception that private lessons exist mainly to help people learn faster, gain more repertoire, or access new movements more efficiently. All of this is true, and all of it already has value on its own.
But in many cases, what really transforms the experience is not necessarily the new movement itself. It is the way the body is being observed while it learns, and the kind of perception that starts emerging during this process.
Little by little, the learning stops being only about acquiring information and starts becoming something more sensory and embodied. The dance begins reorganizing itself from inside the experience.
A perspective I once had myself
Looking back at my own dance journey, I also used to see private lessons in a much more limited way.
Partly because I believed most of the evolution would naturally come from group classes, workshops, and social dancing over time. And partly for practical reasons, since private lessons require a bigger financial investment.
In a way, I used to think:
“Why spend more money on something I could eventually learn through other experiences anyway?”
Today, that perspective feels incomplete. Not because it was entirely wrong, but because it left out an important dimension of what can happen inside this kind of learning experience.
What I did not see before
What took me years to understand more clearly is that the value of a private lesson often lies not only in the content being taught, but in the teacher’s ability to observe the student while they dance and intervene precisely in what is happening in that specific moment.
That changes the nature of the learning completely.
The understanding no longer happens only intellectually, through explanations, but directly through the body while the movement is happening and being adjusted in real time.
This relationship between perception, adaptability, and interaction inside the dance is also something I explored more deeply here:
Experiences that changed this perception
Some of the most important experiences in my dance journey did not come from learning new movements, but from very specific moments of exchange, observation, and practice with dancers and teachers I deeply admire.
During a tour in the United States, I spent a long period teaching, traveling, dancing, and preparing workshops alongside Camila Alves and Milena Morais. We shared classes, parties, rehearsals, conversations, and many hours observing each other dance.
In many ways, those experiences carried something very close to the logic of a private lesson. Not because of a formal structure, but because of the quality of attention and observation happening inside the dance itself.
One moment with Milena stayed with me very strongly.
I remember a night when we were practicing after teaching, and I asked directly if there was something in my dancing she thought I should observe more carefully or work on further.
What impressed me was that the answer did not come as a formal explanation.
It appeared gradually inside the dance itself, through small adjustments, different responses, and subtle reorganizations of timing and movement.
The conversation was happening through the dance.
And what fascinated me most was that the impact was not immediate in an exaggerated way. It unfolded slowly over time. Months later, I was still noticing things that had started during that exchange.
These experiences are described in more detail in another article here on the website:
What really happens inside a good private lesson
When a private lesson works well, something very specific starts happening.
The student does not simply learn something new. They begin perceiving their own body differently.
Sometimes this appears through very small internal shifts. A movement that stops feeling forced. A clearer sensation of timing and weight. A different relationship with the embrace. A moment where the body becomes less fixed and more responsive.
From there, other perceptions gradually begin opening.
Not as a sudden transformation, but as a process that continues unfolding through practice and time.
And because the attention is focused on a single person, there is space to stay longer with the same question, repeat, adjust, test possibilities, and refine details that would often pass unnoticed in larger class environments.
This can also happen outside private lessons
One important thing I realized over time is that these moments do not belong exclusively to private lessons.
They can also happen in workshops, rehearsals, parties, conversations, or unexpected encounters during a night of dancing.
There are dancers who completely change the way we perceive movement through a single dance or a single comment.
The difference is not exclusivity.
It is continuity and depth of attention.
In group classes, the teacher’s attention naturally needs to be divided among many people. In private lessons, there is more space for sustained observation, repetition, and guided exploration around the same question.
The decisive factor is not the format itself
At the same time, none of this happens automatically simply because the lesson is private.
A private lesson can also become simply an efficient transmission of movements, corrections, and repertoire. And there is nothing wrong with that. This can still be extremely useful.
But the deeper experiences usually appear when there is a teacher capable of observing how another person learns, organizes tension, listens, adapts, reacts, and experiences the dance itself.
There is also an important difference between being a great dancer and being a great teacher.
One does not automatically create the other.
A personal desire that emerged from this reflection
Today, looking back at all these experiences, I realize I would probably seek out more moments like this myself, even from the perspective of someone who already teaches professionally.
Not only to learn specific movements, but to experience this kind of shared investigation of dance, perception, musicality, and interaction.
A recent example of this happened during a trip I made to Belo Horizonte in 2025, a city known for its strong forró scene and influential dance schools.
While I was there, I scheduled private lessons with three teachers whose work I deeply admire - Luiz Henrique, Katlyn Matos, and Hugo Silva - each with very different approaches and aesthetics. One of these meetings eventually became part of a small video series for the channel with Katlyn.
During one of our dances, she proposed an exercise that pushed me slightly outside my habitual movement language: including five-step movement patterns that I do not normally use very often, but that are strongly present in the aesthetic of the school where she teaches.
And what interested me most there was not simply the movement itself, but the experience of temporarily reorganizing the dance through another logic, another body, and another perspective.
The value that is not immediately obvious
Perhaps one of the biggest misunderstandings about private lessons is imagining that their main purpose is simply accelerating the learning of movements.
In practice, they often offer something more subtle than that. A space for deeper observation, where perception, movement, and attention begin reorganizing the dance through a more direct and guided experience.
And perhaps that is precisely the part that is easiest to underestimate at first, because many of these transformations are neither immediate nor visually dramatic.
They accumulate slowly over time, inside the way the dance itself begins to be felt.
For those curious to explore this kind of process more deeply, I left a page here on the website explaining how my private lessons work, both in person in New York City and during travels, festivals, and tours:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rafael Piccolotto de Lima is the Founder and Educational Director of Forró New York, as well as a Latin Grammy-nominated composer, arranger, and music director.
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