How teaching can make you a better dancer

How teaching can make you a better dancer

By Angela Bok, 27/04/2010

Joining Actfa for less a year, I never thought I could have a chance to become a good dancer, much less an instructor. I started off being a regular student taking about 7-9hours of classes weekly. Prior to that, I was not involved in any dance performance or whatever gigs that Actfa had to offer. It was only till the Singapore Salsa Congress 2009 that I started finding myself being part of the school. I was asked to part of the “models” doing the fashion show and later carried on to my first performance (Jazz routine) in the Singapore salsa congress. Since then, I found myself actively involved in the school, especially during the esplanade dans festival 2009. The management recognized my dedication and passion to the arts and allowed me to play a more active role in the school. This passion then takes me into the area of instructing. They started by asking me to head an isolation class and today, I am actually teaching isolation, yoga, pilates, hiphop and a little bit of salsa.

Student Mindset vs Teacher Mindset:

The Teacher improves faster

What I have learnt and experienced so far cannot be properly spoken or described by words alone. A common mindset that people have is that the student can never be better than the teacher just because he/she is a student; this is what I experienced from being a student myself. However, when I started being an instructor, I began to feel the internal drive pushing me to be the best among everyone because I’m an instructor and I’m supposed to be better than everyone.

Instructors are just like every other person in the class, but we are better dancers because we do/teach the steps 10 times more than the students and we push ourselves harder than the students. I will feel improvements in my dancing as I try harder to show them how it is done: I push myself harder because I want them to push themselves harder; as I tell them to do a move bigger, I do it even bigger than them to encourage them to do so; I understand a step in great detail as I have to break it down to the finest detail for them.

As I teach a class, I also face the challenge of ‘troubleshooting’: why is the student not able to do this step correctly and with ease? I have to constantly try to figure out what is wrong, struggle to explain the concepts to them in such a way that they understand, and show them why it should not be done this way. As the errors made by students usually come from a certain mistake in their fundamental basic steps, I come to understand why the basics are important and how it works to help me in executing advanced moves. In doing so, it reinforces my techniques and refines my skills as a dancer. I discover better ways to execute a step, also why not to execute it in a particular way.

The Teacher has greater understanding and depth of knowledge

As a teacher, I feel I have to be the best and most informed. As such, I also need to research more and prepare more. This preparation process improves my understanding of the dance itself. For example, there are so many ways to breakdown or teach a particular step. There are so many ways to teach a student how to do a pliés. There is no correct or wrong way. But to teach and explain the step in a way that the student understands at once is not easy and it takes time and experience to build. Therefore, it helped me to think out of the box.

At the same time, it has also helped me to be more patient and I began to appreciate the fundamentals and the importance of basics. For example, in a salsa basic class, if I am playing the role of the student, I will probably be more conscious of the lady’s step and when the instructor is explaining about the guy’s step, I might not be as motivated to listen. But if I’m understudying or know I have to teach a salsa class I will probably pay more attention to additional details such as the timing of leading and following or weight transfer.

The teacher has the right mindset for learning

Students can afford to day dream in class but a teacher cannot. As such, I am ‘forced’ to pay attention in my class as I am teaching the steps. I am ‘forced’ to execute a step properly and hold my poise properly. Because I am under constant scrutiny in class as a teacher – which is nerve wrecking at the beginning – I am ‘forced’ to do all my steps to the best of my ability; I cannot relax and do a sloppy step which ‘forces’ me to adopt the right mindset and attitude to training. So, I learn faster, with cleaner steps and sharper moves.

The teacher learns how to be professional

Other than the above few, what I find particularly hard to do is to actually put myself into the public eye and opening myself up to the judgement of others. As a dance instructor, there are certain traits you need: you need to learn how to be professional and how to carry yourself well in front of your students; you need to figure out how to make them smile when they become nervous; you need to learn how to motivate and praise them; you need to learn how to become a role model; you basically learn how to be a leader to manage and inspire people.

As a teacher, I not only learn how to become a better dancer but also how to become a better leader that can inspire others to do things that they previously thought not possible.