I have a love of teaching dance, it's nothing new... This is a love I always have had, just have never felt very good at it. Recently I have been working on and honing my teaching skills. Hopefully they have improved a little bit at least.
There are many reasons I like teaching. The biggest one is that I get to see the smile on someone's face when they finally "get" what we are doing.
We teach weekly Friday night classes in East Mesa, the last few weeks there have been some less than coordinated people in the class. Nevertheless we all worked hard, we broke down movement, footwork, connection, everything! BUT some of the people in the class just couldn't get it. Dabney and I started to rotate in as leads (since classes always seem to be follow heavy), and I would work with each girl for a little bit before she moved on. There was one girl, about age 14, who for the whole hour could not get her feet to do the footwork for the life of her. We had one last practice song then class was over, and I was determined she would be triple stepping her heart out by the end of this class. As she rotated to me I knew I had one last chance to try to help her in any way I could think of. We were going along and everything was how it had been... until we were suddenly connected and triple stepping. As I was saying footwork and counting and giving slight hints she had an epiphany! I looked up at her face and it was glowing with excitement with a HUGE SMILE from cheek to cheek! When we stopped dancing she no longer was the shy girl looking down at the floor and didn't put her hands in her pockets or cross her arms! She was a confident new woman!
I don't know if that transformation will be just for that moment or whether it will affect the rest of her life, but the fact is I helped her realize she can do something she thought she couldn't and more than just making myself feel good about doing that she felt good about herself! Seeing someone happy with themselves. This is why I teach dance.
On the flip side we taught one of our students how to lead a girl to travel in at various counts of the swing out. We believe in being versatile dancers, yes there are dancing trends but that does not mean that you shouldn't be able to do everything else. The best leads and the best follows are well rounded.
Well our student was so excited that he learned that you can lead in on 1, 2, or 3! He just wanted to share his new found knowledge! He found some local instructors he thought would want to geek out on dancing and told them of his mind blowing experience. Instead of returned excitement, he got yelled at telling him to never lead in on 1 or 3 he is to always lead in on 2 and that we aren't teaching up to date material. This student was taken aback and in turn felt bad about himself and abilities. Instead of being encouraging and instead explain why they do it the way they do, they immediately went on the defensive and started making this student feel attacked.
Now I feel very strongly about what happened. Whoever calls themselves a teacher has automatically taken on a role of understanding and patience. A teacher is not a person who should break someone down (unless they ask you to, lol).
There's a saying every one knows, "The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't- the less you know, the more you think you know (David T. Freeman)." Even teachers don't know everything or our students are going to have different opinions than us, and as teachers we need to be ok with that.
Another reason I love teaching is that I learn so much more from teaching than I ever did taking a lesson. Everyday I'm learning something new, whether it is how to change the connection slightly to allow more body isolation, how to say the same thing 5 different ways, etc!
Teaching is also helping me open up my mind to new creative outlets. I'm choreographing in my sleep, down the isle of the grocery store, and while brushing my teeth! I'm able to hear different things in the music I wasn't able to before because I didn't have to pay attention where now I do and I have a better understanding of music transition as a DJ from teaching!
All around I think I like this teaching thing a lot and I think people think I'm kind of good at it too. Which makes it that much better!
2 comments:
Regarding the second student, you will run into dogma quite a lot. I'm reminded of the Hollywood vs Savoy wars.
I often prep my students with thoughts like these: if your teacher says to always or never do something it's worth considering. You should consider if the reasoning is for safety or aesthetic. You should question the bias of your teachers. They may know more than you, but they aren't the end of the conversation.
I'd suggest that a teacher who insists that leads must always pull in on 2 probably know very little about leading and following.
I also teach this: the 8-count basic is not dancing. It is a tool to give students ideas about dancing.
Nice work, Karen. Keep it up!
I totally agree with the challenge of learning to say things 5 different ways.
Had two of those moments where the student was successful and proud in just the last week. Dancing Bal to a slow song one on one with them, feeling their movements not quite right yet and talking to them as we danced, suggesting nuances of the movement, back leading to demonstrate all without stopping just progressing and building skills note by note. I love teaching too. First teaching tennis, then martial arts, then business and economic subjects to high school students and now Balboa to all ages. I think I would go nuts without dance.
Yep Karen keep up the good work you are skilled at it.
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