What makes a good dance teacher?

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Sometimes it’s not just about dancing. When you are looking to join a dance studio, you need to find a safe space that you can let loose and really give yourself to dance. And for this to occur, it starts with the dance teacher. 

The dance teacher sets the tone for the dance class. 

Here are four things to look for in a dance teacher:

Dance teachers push you harder 

Did you notice I didn’t say they push you to the limit? Pushing you past your limit can be dangerous. You could get injured or so tired you can’t drive home. So know the difference. When I started aerials, I would try to do one more climb maybe two right near the end of class and I got told to not do it. Why? Because my body had already achieved the lessons and if I kept going, I could easily get injured. 

You need a dance teacher to push you harder because like a fitness instructor sometimes we just need that extra push because we are unlikely to do it ourselves. But as mentioned above, you want a dance teacher to also know when you are done, because sometimes we don’t realise when we are. 

Dance teachers know your limitations and suggest ways to do things a different way 

For me, dancing to be a ballerina in my younger years, I struggle with hyper extended arms. As my physio would say, I am flexible in all the wrong ways. My dance teacher would always remind me to soften my arms and not fully extend them so to the human eye, it looked like I had normal arms and not hyper extended. 

And every student is different. When I danced ballet and when in class we would all stop in a particular pose and the dance teacher would go to each student and tell them where they needed to improve. We all had different areas to improve, such as the face was too hard, so relax the face while posing, or maybe the shoulders were lifted when they needed to be pulled down. As students, everyone is different and a great dance teacher will help see these areas and suggest ways for each student to fix it on their own. 

Dance teachers want to see you excel

A great dance teacher loves to see you trying and not just doing what you excel at, but also work on and practice everything you struggle with. 

I used to not like doing everything on the left leg. I would excel on the right leg but then when we had to swap legs, my confidence dropped. But because we did this every week, I began to get good at doing spins on my left leg and when I changed dance studios every dancer was surprised at how good my left side spins were. 

A great dance teacher wants you to push past your mind barriers and excel. 

Dance teachers teach you technique 

I remember when I was at a dance Eisteddfod, I saw this group of dancers who were dancing pointe and were aged very young. It was definitely a talk of disgust with a lot of the dance schools, why? Because you should be of an age where your technique, strength and skills are able to handle the feats of dancing pointe.

For every year you dance, technique is what you should be focusing on. Thankfully, my dance school I was in focussed heavily on technique. Technique takes a dance move and makes it look amazing, no matter how simple it is. When I was doing aerials, once I learned the moves I really want to focus on my technique. Because technique sets you apart from someone who just does the movement, understanding how each little movement to get you to perform the one move is technique. 

If you are a dance teacher, please comment below if you agree with the above. 

#danceteacher #dancestudios #dance #meltoye 

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