Diary of a Dance Mistress: Where I Fail as a Teacher
This Friday evening's waltz class reinforced one of my failings as an instructor: dancing is easy for me. Some things I never had to learn, per se; I cannot remember not knowing how to do them. The possibly innate understanding of these things is part of what makes me a dancer.
I have, like most dancers, had to learn steps. I have had to learn different movements and different ways of putting movement together. These things I can explain to others. I can help my students learn how to stand up straight, how to hold their partners, how to hold their heads, where to put their feet and their hands, and how to move from their centres, rather than from their feet.
I began Friday's waltz class, as I usually do, with music. I asked everyone to circle up, and to simply take a step on each beat of the music. To walk in time to the music, so that each step hit the ground on the downbeat.
At this point, I can see who has some dance experience, who has some experience with waltzing, and who has no experience, but some sense of where their body is. I usually, at this point, have one or two students who can't manage to walk in time to the music. Sometimes it's because they want to dance before they can walk, and I have to explain to them that all they need to do is walk as they usually do, only in time to music. Once I get them to stop trying to do anything they don't know how to do, I can usually get these ones to at least step on the beat.
So, with most of the class able to walk on the beat, and some triying to sink on the down beat, or flitter on their toes like tipsy fairies, I stop the music, have them circle up again, and have them step in and out of the circle, in a sort of dignified, waltz-time hokey-pokey. No shaking all about. In order to allow the people who were confused about 3/4 time to catch up (and it's kind of confusing, marching in three, I admit. You can't go LEFT-Right; LEFT-Right. Instead, if you can hear the downbeat at all, you find yourself going LEFT-right-left RIGHT-left-right. You get to feeling that if nature had intended us to move in 3/4, we'd all have three feet.) So, I get everyone to find the downbeat, and we all step in on the downbeat of the first bar, and out on the downbeat of the second. IN-pause-pause; OUT-pause-pause.
This helps to untangle the three-foot crowd, and allows some of the people who just couldn't handle walking in three to catch up. So I get people to fill in the pauses with steps, stepping in place on 2 and 3. IN-step-step; OUT-step-step.
At this point I fail. Because at this point there's invariably one person who couldn't walk in a straight line in time with the music, couldn't step in on the downbeat, and now can't step out the second and third beat of each bar. And I don't know what to do. Either they can't hear the beats, in which case I don't know how to teach them to hear them, or they can't connect the beats to the action of their feet.
Surely, when they walk, they must walk at a constant pace, set by some internal rhythm. Most people do. But put music on, and ask them to just walk, and they can't do it. They move funny. They stagger, they limp, they stick their feet out, as if they walked by stickin their feet out and letting their bodies follow (you don't, you know? When you walk, you decide where you're going, and point your body in that direction-your feet just take you there. Try moving from your feet alone, sometime. You'll look like something from the Ministry of Silly Walks, I promise.)
So when I get these people who are somehow disconnected from their bodies and the music, I fail as a teacher. I move the rest of the class along, and leave them to stumble, because I don't know how to teach someone to hear the beat, and to let their body move with it. I don't know how to teach it, because for as long as I can remember, I've known where the beat was, and it's moved my body. And it saddens me, because these people come to my classes. They want to know how to waltz. They want to be able to do what I can do, and I would love for them to learn, but I don't know how to describe the process that goes on in my head. My imagination and understanding fail me, and I fail these students. How do you teach someone to sing, if they can't hear their voice? How do you teach someone to dance, if they can't hear the beat?
I have, like most dancers, had to learn steps. I have had to learn different movements and different ways of putting movement together. These things I can explain to others. I can help my students learn how to stand up straight, how to hold their partners, how to hold their heads, where to put their feet and their hands, and how to move from their centres, rather than from their feet.
I began Friday's waltz class, as I usually do, with music. I asked everyone to circle up, and to simply take a step on each beat of the music. To walk in time to the music, so that each step hit the ground on the downbeat.
At this point, I can see who has some dance experience, who has some experience with waltzing, and who has no experience, but some sense of where their body is. I usually, at this point, have one or two students who can't manage to walk in time to the music. Sometimes it's because they want to dance before they can walk, and I have to explain to them that all they need to do is walk as they usually do, only in time to music. Once I get them to stop trying to do anything they don't know how to do, I can usually get these ones to at least step on the beat.
So, with most of the class able to walk on the beat, and some triying to sink on the down beat, or flitter on their toes like tipsy fairies, I stop the music, have them circle up again, and have them step in and out of the circle, in a sort of dignified, waltz-time hokey-pokey. No shaking all about. In order to allow the people who were confused about 3/4 time to catch up (and it's kind of confusing, marching in three, I admit. You can't go LEFT-Right; LEFT-Right. Instead, if you can hear the downbeat at all, you find yourself going LEFT-right-left RIGHT-left-right. You get to feeling that if nature had intended us to move in 3/4, we'd all have three feet.) So, I get everyone to find the downbeat, and we all step in on the downbeat of the first bar, and out on the downbeat of the second. IN-pause-pause; OUT-pause-pause.
This helps to untangle the three-foot crowd, and allows some of the people who just couldn't handle walking in three to catch up. So I get people to fill in the pauses with steps, stepping in place on 2 and 3. IN-step-step; OUT-step-step.
At this point I fail. Because at this point there's invariably one person who couldn't walk in a straight line in time with the music, couldn't step in on the downbeat, and now can't step out the second and third beat of each bar. And I don't know what to do. Either they can't hear the beats, in which case I don't know how to teach them to hear them, or they can't connect the beats to the action of their feet.
Surely, when they walk, they must walk at a constant pace, set by some internal rhythm. Most people do. But put music on, and ask them to just walk, and they can't do it. They move funny. They stagger, they limp, they stick their feet out, as if they walked by stickin their feet out and letting their bodies follow (you don't, you know? When you walk, you decide where you're going, and point your body in that direction-your feet just take you there. Try moving from your feet alone, sometime. You'll look like something from the Ministry of Silly Walks, I promise.)
So when I get these people who are somehow disconnected from their bodies and the music, I fail as a teacher. I move the rest of the class along, and leave them to stumble, because I don't know how to teach someone to hear the beat, and to let their body move with it. I don't know how to teach it, because for as long as I can remember, I've known where the beat was, and it's moved my body. And it saddens me, because these people come to my classes. They want to know how to waltz. They want to be able to do what I can do, and I would love for them to learn, but I don't know how to describe the process that goes on in my head. My imagination and understanding fail me, and I fail these students. How do you teach someone to sing, if they can't hear their voice? How do you teach someone to dance, if they can't hear the beat?