18 Jun
2015
18 Jun
'15
1:43 p.m.
And since I'm on the subject. I spending a lot of time thinking about how
to teach dance moves during a workshop and during a walk-thru (they are
different.)
A couple guidelines:
1: Make it concrete. "Gents look at each other." That's concrete. Look
at the place your neighbor is standing -- that's concrete (ish) Imagine a
slice of pizza. Nope.
2) Avoid analogies like the plague (you are thinking of a swarm of locusts,
but I meant a rat-borne bacterial infection) Ricochet hey is just like a
slice of pizza as long as the pizza is six feet in diameter and sliced in
fourths rather than sixths or eights.
3) Try to serve up the teaching in bite-sized chunks (ooh--an analogy).
Teach half a hey, not a full hey, first, then put two of them together once
they've made it through the simpler version.
4) If you've got an unusual mental model of a particular move that really
helps you get the feel for it --- FORGET IT! I once watched a caller try
to teach a swing by explaining that it's playing air-guitar while riding a
skateboard [I am not making this up!] Needless to say the new dancers were
confused.
5) Don't teach advanced techniques to new dancers. Forget the buzz step.
Forget the twirls. Teach the simplest moves that get the dancer from point
A to point B facing the correct direction. Other dancers will take care
of adding the refinements (give's them a chance to show off (er... I mean
be helpful))
Dale