When Manolete is faced with a new group of pupils ready to follow his principles, the first step is to assess their level... the key to what is to follow. "I always try to step up the level of difficulty from what's already been learned." And within that framework, look for a routine "that's got a good sound, a harmony, but where the objective is that they keep learning - it's no good them getting lost in a difficult choreography and ending up forgetting it." The clear sign that their studies achieve the desired continuity is that "I see them etching it onto their memory so as not to forget the sound of those steps."

	"Stage productions are getting better all the time. People have more idea about what a set should be like, what good choreography involves... in the old days flamenco was much more down to the individual"

Manolete's courses have a well-defined structure: "First I take them through a few technical steps, and later I introduce the choreography little by little." The layout "is more or less divided into three parts: dance technique, which is what sustains the choreography, a middle section with a foot-stomping zapateado (which shouldn't always be the same), the lyrics of the song and the finale or close." With flamenco as the basic premise, "you can mix a little Spanish classical, I teach a little aesthetics and try to transmit to them that they might be in a studio now by they'll be on a stage later... you have to mark out the boundaries of the stage: left, right, front, back. They have to fill a theater, it doesn't matter if it's just one person or four or six or seventy." And to complement this, some notions of production: "Stage productions are getting better all the time. People have more idea about what a set should be like, what good choreography involves... in the old days flamenco was much more down to the individual".

His concern about "what good choreography involves, if they really want to do it themselves", is fundamental... as is his recognition of the fact that he isn't ready to undertake the task of teaching it. "I mean it's really difficult, that's why when someone wants to do everything, the best thing they can do is ask a choreographer for help. If you want to do it all, you run the risk of getting it wrong... that's why you have specialists, not just in choreography, but in aspects like lighting or sound."

Manolete is in no doubt that technique has its limitations: "I'll grant that sometimes a person has a great technique, but lacks feeling, and there should be a clearer distinction made between one style of dance and another... in flamenco I mean". But this isn't to say he preaches exclusivity: "These days the more strings a bailaor has to his bow, the greater his career will be." Meaning that schooling in other disciplines is something which never goes amiss: "I think what's missing is a bit more bar work, a bit more floor work. It depends on the individual and the state of their body - some take a year, some two, others six months." One of the keys is "to get your body accustomed to what you want to do, because you might have an idea in your head and later not be able or not know how to put it into practice."

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When Manolete speaks of his students, he's almost always speaking in the feminine, and of foreigners. Since "everyone has a heart and blood in their veins", he sees through linguistic and cultural differences when he's teaching, whether its in France at the Mont de Marsan Festival, of at the Festival de Jerez. "The student who likes flamenco has sensitivity. And sensitivity can't be bought or sold."

	"Youngsters do almost everything por bulerķas... and they hardly know how to dance other styles"

The instructor speaks of his students in the feminine because, for reasons which are beyond him (could it be embarrassment he asks himself?) "these days men in general study less." Since the classes are made up principally of women, "even if the teachers are male, we're getting used to teaching like the female teachers do... and we end up with a hybrid of man and woman." Manolete thinks, in fact, that the boundaries between the genders will fade away: "There shouldn't be such a strict division between male dance and female dance, because a man is already a man by definition. Men might seem stronger dancers, but it's all in their posture and their aesthetics, you can tell the difference between a man and a woman. But there shouldn't be such a marked division."

And to complement his didactic method, he gives advice on analyzing the current state of flamenco dance. A firm believer that to attack evolution is to go against nature itself - "first came Los Pelaos, but then Mario, Güito and Antonio Gades appeared on the scene and turned it on its head" - his only criticism is that "youngsters do almost everything por bulerías... and they hardly know how to dance other styles. The same is true of guitarists, they should know how to play the palos even if they do have two or three that are their cornerstones."

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