03/17/2024
Pierre Henry March 2023
Becoming a Social Dance Teacher
The goal for a lot of social dancers these days seems to be to become a teacher. Why?
The most common reason is because they really enjoy the dance and they want to share that passion with other people. That's great, but is it enough?
A lot of new teachers seem to be more interested in demonstrating their abilities rather than creating dancers. They wear the badge of "Teacher" as a sign of recognition and adoration. Being a teacher allows them to go out dancing, without spending any money, getting paid, traveling all around the country and perhaps internationally. And, as long as the students are having fun and enjoying themselves, that's all that matters, right?
If you're going to call yourself a Salsa teacher, or a Bachata teacher, or a Kizomba teacher, or a teacher of any other genre of dance, you have a responsibility to teach that dance - not "your version" of that dance. That means that you need to be educated yourself - not just in the moves, but in the history, the culture, and most importantly, the music! If you don't understand the music, how can you teach the dance that comes from that music?
If you cannot answer even simple questions like "what is Bachata?", or "what are the main rhythms of Bachata?, or if you cannot tell the difference between a Bachata, a Bolero, a Balada and a Bongochata then you're not ready to teach Bachata!
As a teacher, it's not even enough to be able to give simple answers - you need to actually understand the entire subject matter so that you can break it down, reframe it, come at it from different angles, etc, depending on the level and abilities of the students.
You need the ability to spot bad habits and correct them before they become permanent. Practice makes permanent, not perfect - the longer you allow students to progress with their bad habits, the longer it will take for them (or someone else) to fix them later.
You need the strength of personality to be firm and critical with your students - you can't just be nice all the time. You need to be able to tell them when their doing something wrong - especially if it is dangerous to themselves, their partners, or other dancers. In the classroom you are their teacher, not their best friend.
You need to be teaching them not just "how" to move, but "when" and "why" they should or should not do certain moves/movements, depending on the music, their partner, the available space etc.
As a social dance teacher, you need to actually understand the skills that are needed to be a good social dancer. Skills that transcend movement. Things like etiquette, consideration, adaptability, versatility, musicality etc - and you need to include these in every single lesson, even if you do it by stealth! For example, by creating your 'routines' in a way that phrases with the music rather than just doing one random move after the other.
You also need to be able to tell the difference between social moves/technique and performance moves/technique.
Regardless of whether you are a leader or a follower, you need to understand BOTH parts! In order to teach the lead for any given movement, you also need to understand the follower's response to that lead. As a teacher, you need to ensure that all of the students are being taught, not just the leaders.
Hopefully, it should go without saying that, as a dance teacher, you should be able to keep time! However, based on the social media evidence, it would seem that it does need saying! If you, the teacher, can't dance in time with the music, what message does that send to the students?
If you're going to call your dance style a "fusion" - you need to understand exactly what it is that you're fusing together. If it's a "Bachata Fusion" it still needs to be recognizable, primarily, as Bachata. You need to be able to accurately describe what puts the "Bachata" into your "Bachata Fusion" and what elements you are adding on top and where they come from. Just using the "fusion" label to hide a lack of understanding is lazy and disingenuous.
The best teachers manage to do all of the above whilst still making the classes enjoyable and fun - they entertain as well as teach. But, first and foremost, they are teachers, not entertainers.
Being a teacher is a huge responsibility - not something to be taken lightly - especially if people are paying you their hard-earned money to learn from you.
P.S. I'm not even gonna go in to the subject of qualifications, or insurance, or music licensing, or paying taxes, or safeguarding etc because that's a whole 'nother level of conversation!
