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Another reason some of my students fit my target market is an unusual learning style. One of my specialties is finding out how people learn so that I can teach to their particular learning style. Most people are some combination of visual, audial, or kinesthetic learners, but some people just don’t learn in any kind of normal way, so they know they need a teacher who can figure them out.
Often they already know how they learn and they tell me exactly what does and does not work for them. It still takes a fair amount of creativity, even so, to figure out how to make dance fit the parameters of their learning style even when I know what it is. For me,that’s the fun part.
But also there are people who don’t have a clue as to why it’s so hard for them to learn. The last student who fit this description was a hundred percent kinesthetic learner. He got nothing from watching while doing and no kind of explanation, counting, or verbal reminders of any kind had any effect whatsoever. I had to back lead the moves so that he could feel what his body should do and then repeat over and over until his muscle memory took over. Even then, he never had any conscious understanding of what he was doing, or why. He just knew what it felt like. Fascinating!
A lot of my students self identify as hopeless dancers because at some point in their youth they attempted to dance with someone who said something devastating to them when they were feeling particularly vulnerable. My friend and mentor Frankie Manning said that when he tried to copy his mother as a young child, she said “You’ll never be a dancer, because you’re too stiff!” Frankie’s response was “I’ll show her!” and used that memory as fuel to become one of Harlem’s greatest dancers. (Frankie’s mother, by the way, didn’t remember that she ever said that.) None of my students had the “I’ll show her!” response. Mine had the “I’ll NEVER give anyone a reason to say anything like that to me ever again because this is the LAST time I’m ever setting foot on a dance floor.”
We’ve all experienced responding to a trauma by creating a belief that in some way kept us smaller for the rest of our lives. Until maybe at some point we decided to challenge it. Usually because something we want overshadows our fear of taking on that old ingrained belief. Like a fiance who really wants a first dance at her wedding. Or a guy who really really likes a girl who really really likes to dance. Or a shy guy who’s figured out that being a great lead is the world’s best babe magnet. By the way, a friend of mine who admittedly learned to dance to get girls and then found he really liked it told me it’s a great way to get your foot in the door but you still have to work really hard to get them into bed. So it does have it’s limitations.
I work primarily with beginners, so I teach a lot of the same material over and over again. I never get bored because I teach it differently to each student. I do tend to tell the same jokes over and over but I never get bored with that either because I’m always just as funny.
I have so much respect for these people who are willing to be so vulnerable, to place so much trust in me to see them week after week doing the one thing that makes them feel the most inept. What a gift they give me with that trust. And what a reward for us both when they find out they CAN learn to dance and not only that, but have fun.
I believe that anyone really can learn to dance and find the joy that is our birthright. Who do you know that is convinced they can’t learn to dance but might have a compelling reason to question that conviction? Wherever they are, somewhere out there, there is a dance teacher for them!
by LaurieAnn Lepoff
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