SALSA DANCE - Dance Instructors and Their Students

[noel conrad]

Most of the dance instructors who have helped me when I was just a
beginner were great dancers but weak teachers. Don't get me wrong, I
am very grateful for their time and instructions. But as I gained more
experience in the dance and have witnessed numerous teachers in the
scene, I have found that 90% of dance teachers that teach salsa,
bachata, chachacha, have one style of teaching - "Ok, watch what I
do...ok, do exactly what I did."
One of the prerequisites course when I pursued my Masters Degree in
Psychology was to study how humans learn in an educational setting. In
fact, at this moment in school I am learning Experimental Analysis in
Learning Behaviour. I can't begin to tell you how it has tremendously
helped me in teaching so far. You see, every professional teacher in
any field is required to go to school to learn the concept of
teaching. Even Personal Fitness Trainers have to go to an extensive
program, get tested and get certified after. I believe that dance
instructors should go to such training as well.
Learning a dance is not any different than learning a subject at
school or any skill in life. It requires effort, determination,
persistence and discipline. Learning dance movements are based on the
human brain functions of receiving through our senses, remembering,
analyzing, outputting and controlling.
Don't you remember how you learned to tie your shoelaces before? You
observed how your parents did it, didn't you? You formed a visual
memory of the process. This visual memory generated a sense of
comfort. As a result, it encouraged you to experiment on your own.
With help from your parents, and after several attempts, you succeeded
eventually in tying your shoelaces. From that moment on, the visual
memory became related to the particular hand skills necessary for the
desired result. This relation forms a thought pattern in the brain,
which allowed you to see "the mental pic" and to get a feeling of
rhythm for the sequence of the basic actions needed for the completion
of the process. After several successful results, the level of
familiarity with the process increased along with the level of
comfort, which in turn allowed you to analyze the basic actions and
learned new ones. This analysis led to performance improvements in all
basic actions. You became more efficient and needed less time to tie
your shoelaces. The process still required your full concentration of
the mental energy. But with practice, you learned to control the
process with less mental energy, which allowed you to redirect your
attention somewhere else. So after many repetitions, tying your
shoelaces became fully automatic and did not practically required any
attention at all. In other words, tying your shoelaces became a second
nature.
Advance dancers execute a move in the same way adults tie their
shoelaces - without thinking. Learning to dance is as difficult to a
beginner with two left feet as tying shoelaces is to a child.
But my concern lies with the dance instructor's knowledge of the
learning styles - learning abilities. You see, each student have
different types of learning ability. Not being familiar with these
learning principles deprived the students of learning quickly and
proficiently. It is my outmost conviction that dance teachers should
familiarize themselves with the concept of learning. I am a proponent
of dance teachers taking classes at school to learn the art of
teaching. Too many advance dancers today have this false notion that
just because they have been dancing for a long time, or they have
competed and won several contests that they are qualified to teach a
dance! I believe that teaching is a gift. But I also believe that in
order to use that gift effectively, one must learn how to properly use
it. There are dance schools in the world that extensively educate
their teachers on how to teach. There are three basic type of
students...
Students that are visual
They learn through watching. These students need to see the
instructor's body language and facial expression to fully understand
the content of a dance lesson. They may think in pictures and learn
best from visual displays including: videos, illustration, flipcharts
and even syllabus handouts. Visual learners love to take detailed
notes to absorb the information.
Auditory Students
They learn through listening. They learn best through verbal lectures,
discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have
to say. Auditory students interpret the underlying meanings of what
the instructor is saying through his tone of voice, pitch, speed and
other nuances. Written information may have little meaning until it is
heard. These students often benefit from reading text aloud and using
a tape recorder.
Kinesthetic Students
These are the students learn through moving, doing and touching. These
students learn best through a hands-on approach. They love workshops
and boot camp training. They find it hard to sit still for long
periods. They can't wait for the instructor to stop talking and start
doing.
These principles can effectively be applied and taught in a one-on-one
session. But every instructors teaching a group class can also
effectively apply the principles above and be able to connect with
every students. I do these with my students during a group class
whether I'm teaching salsa or bachata. If you haven't taken one of my
dance classes or workshops before, you should.
These are the basic of learning styles. There are many books and
resources in the Internet to determine one's learning style. Wouldn't
it be great if your dance instructor actually take the time and study
your learning ability? I think that your learning process triples and
will result in you becoming a decent dancer.
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