Ah, see what you mean about "nit".

Everyone, as we used to say in my day, "Keep on trucking". Let's now move on.

BTW, I am a Libra. I like everyone to be happy. LOL

Peter,
I have been a member on this board for many years. I have seen probably half a dozen posts in that time about your workshop. I would say 70 percent of it was positive. Enough so that I would have considered having one at my school, if at some time I felt I had a group of dancers who really wanted to pursue a career that you train them for.

At this point I feel you have done more damage to your reputation then any other posters that said anything negative. Calling peoples opinions "nonsense" or speaking to us like "once more with feeling" and "it's called a telephone" is surely not helping. It's condecending, and a major turn off. We are not idiots!

We are part of this community to help each other and give our opinions. Nobody expects that everyone has the same experience. Those few bad opinions of you were not going to sway everyone. Actually, dreamchaser has a very respected opinion on this site, so her positive review probably equaled two or three bad ones.

You don't post here enough to understand how we work or who we are. Most of us have a much bigger reach than this "tight nit community". We are professionals, we aren't stupid and we surely can decifer what is true and what is not. Although your website contains plenty of glowing responses, surely you didn't also add the unfavorable reviews? We wouldn't expect you too! Why would we want a one sidded opinion, when we can ask our colleges and FRIENDS on dance.net?

I believe the problem some of the people here are having with me is that they apparently don't realize something. This is NOT a "tight nit community". This is a PUBLIC forum. That means LOTS of people are reading these posts.

Nobody insinuated we don't know this is a public forum or that we aren't aware that millions of people can read the posts. The fact remains there are some of us have known one another on the boards for YEARS. Some of us have met up with one another at competitions, have judged students of one another's at competition, have been hired as master teachers for each others studios, and have just met up in real life if we came into a city of another ddn'er. It isn't like other public forums.

That being said, I see how this could be a good thing for some studios especially studios that aren't in a big city. My studio has the benefit of having 17 teachers on staff and I think 14 of us have danced/choreographed professionally in the industry, danced in Vegas shows, been on professional sports team dance lines, choreographed for corporate gigs/movies/videos/, or toured with some dance company or recording artist. We have a wealth of contacts, knowledge, and I think we're pretty honest when it comes to our students especially our studio owner. Sometimes that is painful, but better than having a kid try to go out there and fail over and over and over and over.

In defense of Peter, as he does not come across well on here, he is a good man, honest, and I would have him come again and send my students, again.

Some people are just not diplomatic, some are.

^ That may be so, but having heard nothing of him beyond this one thread, I must say he's done a much better job of demonizing himself than any negative review might. Perhaps he either needs to hire someone who specializes in PR and can spin a negative to a positive or he needs to take some classes in PR and presenting oneself online. Had he come on here and said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry some of you had a less than positive experience, you have my sincerest apologies. I hope you will continue to research and look into my program, as though it may not be a perfect fit for all studios, many have benefited from my presentation. Please check out my website or email me and I will be more than happy to provide multiple recent references who can all tell you their personal experiences. Thanks for your interest and consideration." I'd have much more respect and interest in seeing what other people may say. As it stands, just based on his heavy handed responses, if my SO mentioned him, I'd steer her away. I have no doubt his presentation has merit otherwise he wouldn't be able to continue his free tours; however, I personally, am put off by his online decorum.

I agree. Damage control, after the fact, is tough, Maybe, Peter will have learned a lesson from this.

He has. And I thank you.

But I say this with entire sincerity. Before God. "Negative reviews" about my workshops or lectures are, and have always been, rare. At our workshops, we do have the occasional very young child who is too homesick and must leave, (about 1 out of 300 students yearly), we have the occasional teen who deeply misses her boyfriend, her caffeine, or her cell phone, and resultantly isn't able to enjoy her experience, and of course the occasional mom or dad who is disappointed afterwards that their child wasn't "discovered". Apart from these exceptions, when I offer people any of thousands of enthusiastically happy kids and parents to speak with, I am not “hand-picking” a few glowing alumni, or “hiding” hundreds, or even dozens, of others. But again, it is not my workshops that I speak about at my lectures.

When I claim that the percentage of studio owners who would report that their students and parents enjoyed my talks is far higher than "seventy per cent", I can offer some evidence. I ask only that you assume I don’t do or say vastly different things from lecture to lecture. Given that, if any studio director reading this would like the phone numbers of the owners of, say, 20-30 of my most recent lectures, (this year so far), please call me: (914) 923-4239. You can contact and ask these people anything you’d like. Anything! And then please feel free to get on here and report exactly what you heard.

What’s frustrating for me- and which explains why I frankly don't have the highest regard for most of these boards- is that they are all too often frequented by a disproportionate amount of negative commentary.

Negative feedback about my talks, (if admittedly not my p.r. skills), is not only atypical, it is statistically miniscule.

But not here!

So. Anyone interested in exploring my work, or getting “the real scoop”, please pick up the phone and speak with people who have recent experience. Lots of people. Utilize whatever other means of research you’re comfortable with, including these boards, but try to realize that the Internet age notwithstanding, speaking with people directly has always been, and will always be, an essential step in becoming truly informed, about anyone or anything.

I am hopeful the majority of people here would agree.

And, yes, I think I may be learning how to communicate more effectively here. We'll see.

Thank you.

Peter Sklar

Glad to hear it, Peter. We are really a great bunch here and there is a lot of intelligent gray matter in this group.

I will continue to recommend you, as I always have. If I was not retired, I would surely hope for you to return.