Essential skills for teaching dance

Here's one for the dance teachers and aspiring dance teachers out there. What are the essential skills, aptitudes, personality characteristics and/or bits of education that you think are required for running a successful dance business, either as a manager or a teacher?

Where can you get those things? Experience? Internship? Courses/training? Does it have to be dance-specific training to work? Or could, say, a non-dancing MBA succesfully run a dance studio? Thoughts, anyone?

* Patience

* Ability to explain things in multiple ways -- i.e. make a variety of analogies, break down each piece of a movement for the students who need detail

* Ability to read people -- tell when they are struggling, tell when they are hitting a learning plateau, etc.

* Adaptability -- 'lesson plan' not working? Must be able to change it up at the last minute.

I taught 9th and 10th grade English for part of a school year and I found that these skills were characteristic of the best teachers. Subject matter really is irrelevant!

=)
Melissa

pygmalion said:

Here's one for the dance teachers and aspiring dance teachers out there. What are the essential skills, aptitudes, personality characteristics and/or bits of education that you think are required for running a successful dance business, either as a manager or a teacher?

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This is (at least) two separate questions. The first is "What does it take to manage a successful dance business?" and the second is "What does it take to be a successful dance teacher?"

To answer the first question, managing a successful dance business (or any other business) requires an understanding of business practices, and an MBA would be great, but not necessary. In my opinion anyone who manages a successful business has to understand people and offer them value for what they pay. They don't necessarily need to know how to dance, but I think that knowing how to dance would certainly help them to understand their customers!

To be a successful teacher the individual has to actually know their material, of course. Investing a lot of time and effort to becoming a championship competitive dancer is one way to go, as is being a competent social dancer and moving into the teaching realm. A third option, which many people take, is to begin training as a teacher and almost immediately begin teaching. I don't think this is the best choice because the student/teacher might not have the skills or knowledge to teach effectively. It can be done, though.

Once the individual has some dancing skill they also need to learn how to teach what they know. This can be an advantage of the student/teacher route, because the student learns everything at once, and would probably actually pay more attention to learning how to teach in addition to learning how to learn.

Then the teacher has to start actively learning how to teach. One way is to begin as a slient partner to an established teacher and learn from them directly, slowly gaining more responsibility. Another way is to just jump into it and start teaching. Hopefully the teacher will have enough dance experience and teaching knowledge to do well at it, but those skills and abilities will come with time.

pygmalion said:

Where can you get those things? Experience? Internship? Courses/training?

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There are lots of places to learn to dance.

In addition lots of schools/studios have teacher training programs. I would avoid a program that makes you sign a contract to work for them afterward in preference for a program that you pay for directly and work through at your own time. Only after you are done do you actually apply for/get offered a job teaching.

Teaching is something that you have to actually do in order to get good at it. It is helpful if you can read people and tell if they are understanding what you are teaching, and it is helpful if you can explain technical aspects in multiple ways, but practice teaching is the only way to perfect these skills. You can get this practice by internships with more experienced teachers, but being the silent partner is not the same as being the teacher in charge.

pygmalion said:

Does it have to be dance-specific training to work? Or could, say, a non-dancing MBA succesfully run a dance studio? Thoughts, anyone?

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Again, running a dance studio does not require dance experience, but I'm sure that any kind of teaching experience would be very helpful for a new dance teacher.

Kevin

Yes. I've observed the mistakes people make who assume that they're good dancers, therefore can teach dance or, worse, run a dance business. IMHO, all three are distinct skills that need to be developed.

I do want to teach dance, not necessarily as a source of income, but more to share my passion for it with others. Since I already know this I try to attentively follow both the leader and follow steps. And any opportunity I get I help out other people. I've jumped in and helped out with beginner classes, as as extra leader or offering advice if I notice someone struggling with something. And quite a few people come to me, or point me out to their friends, as they know I'm willing to help them out with any move/step. Tuesday night someone came to me and asked me to go over a simple salsa left turn with them as they were having difficulty doing it. I immediately noticed that she was stepping/falling back for the entire turn, forcing me to move forward to follow her. We fixed that!!

To learn the follow steps one can take classes as a follow. I can figure out what a follow must do, but to really understand the opposite role I must actually do it. I'm actually participating in a beginner latin class as a follow as I so rarely get the opportunity to learn and experience this role in a social setting. Actually even this is tricky as the guys aren't quite comfortable leading me. The instructor a couple times gave a guy a female to lead and took me as her follow.

I am a dance teacher... most say the best here (locally) . I don't think I am the best dancer here, in my country, but the 2 aren't related.
Somebody who has been dancing salsa for 40 years (Latino, of course), told me the other day I am a great teacher (one of the best he has seen) probably due to the way I try and explain everything: feet, hands, weight... techniques, you know. This is probably due to the fact that I am not a native dancer... I have to UNDERSTAND in order to do it!
Have me 'steal' moves and it's a waste of time... I cannot... especially shines... it never takes me more than 1/2 to master shines, but WITH PROPER EXPLANATION! Otherwise, it might take me 2-3 days until I get the mechanics behind it...
So, I think a great teacher should know HOW to explain, WHAT precisely to explain, what to FOCUS on, also s/he should be able to understand people's different needs and see their weak points and strong points... and be able to tell them WHAT to change and HOW to do it!
Good dance instructors are hard to find... if you find one, stick to him/her!

Sagitta said:

To learn the follow steps one can take classes as a follow. I can figure out what a follow must do, but to really understand the opposite role I must actually do it. I'm actually participating in a beginner latin class as a follow as I so rarely get the opportunity to learn and experience this role in a social setting. Actually even this is tricky as the guys aren't quite comfortable leading me. The instructor a couple times gave a guy a female to lead and took me as her follow.

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It is important for teachers to know how to do both sides of any dance they teach, how else can they teach both roles? It tends to be much easier for women to learn both roles because it is more culturally acceptable for women to dance together. It is also much more acceptabel for two women to dance together socially. It is more of a challange for male teachers to learn both roles, and to then practice both roles.

Good for you for putting in the effort to learn both sides early.

As far as wanting to teach in order to spread your love of dance, but not to earn money, I would still suggest that you charge for your services (once you feel that is appropriate) because all the money you earn can be poured back into advertising and promotion of dance and dance-related events.

Well, as someone who has been observing methods for teaching, I'll add...

Presentation style. We have introductory lessons that can have as few as 10 to as many as 70 college-age students and older showing up. Being able to teach for that many people is a must, including crowd control. My latest pet peeve is an inability to project one's voice as it seems many of our dancers on the team can show off physically but have to vocal projection (whereas I guess I'm more the opposite). We have a wireless microphone, and I expect people to use it. (We spent the money for it for a good reason, and it isn't because I want to sing during social dances.)

Have a lesson plan. It drives me nuts, just nuts, when a set of steps is not even conceived beforehand. Sure, you can change the plan depending on the situation, but have a plan. I have a definite plan to teaching Viennese waltz in 3 weeks, or 2 weeks if I really had to push it.

Both sides must be addressed. If you're inexperienced and don't know the partner's part for various figures, get an assistant. Separate the class and teach leaders only on one-half and followers-only on the other half of the room. Saves you time. In the same vein, your assistant should also be confident in teaching those steps. Ideally you both would have a plan to know which steps you're going to do.

Spend time tweaking individuals during "free practice." I don't always do a great job with this, but I try to leave about ten minutes at the end so I can go by each couple and identify their problems and resolve them as I can. If you have a large crowd, try to seed your group lesson with experienced people whom you can tap to cover your bases with tweaking.

My personal position is that I really don't want to teach a specific dance until I have had at least three instructors show me. The goal is not to teach the steps as if you were a clone of your instructor; you need to begin to have a philosophy of instructing various dance steps, and the more you are exposed to different teaching styles and methods, even when it comes to basic steps, the better.

Teaching will force you to do more basics than you ever wanted to do. And that's a good thing.
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That being said, if any of you are in the area where I am for an extended period of time and want to try your luck as a volunteer instructor, PM me. There is no pay (hence "volunteer"), but I can find a way to reward you for trying out. Of course, you have to also be willing to take friendly suggestions from me and others.