Introduction
On 2nd May in 2013 I conducted a survey of dance teachers about what they
think students struggle with most when learning social dance and what students
should do to improve their dance skills the fastest.
Teachers were asked what they thought male students had the biggest
challenge with, what female students had the biggest challenge with and what
they thought would best help students improve. Each of these questions were multiple
choice - they were allowed to choose three options for each of the first two questions and
two options for the third question. The responses to these questions are summarised
graphically below.
Responses



What do these results tell us?
The most obvious result is that the two major issue teachers see with their
students is leading & following, and musicality.
This was true for both men and women; however, there was a difference between
men and women when it came to musicality. For men, the focus was very much on
timing. For women, there was a near equal split between timing and expression.
This could mean that most teachers think men just need to work on timing before
even thinking about expression while women have timing and are thus ready to move on to expression.
It could also mean that teachers think that the expression of the music is more
in the domain of women and that this is not fully understood by many women. In
either case, it is likely that as a student musicality is something you need to
work on. Along with leading/following.
If musicality and leading/following are the two biggest challenges for
students, then it would be expected that this would be at the forefront of
the teachers' minds when considering what students could do to improve. The top responses
are all related to practice outside of lessons. There was an even split between
practicing alone, practicing with another and dancing socially. While there were differences between the teachers regarding the
specific type of practice, there was definitely agreement that practice was the
one thing that students need to do more of. Practice is always a good thing,
but we can probably extract from this that leading/following and musicality
are things that can really only be learnt from practice.
Teachers were given other options that they could highlight when thinking
about the challenges faced by students new to social dance. These covered
things ranging from learning to memory to physicality. While there seemed to be
a slightly higher response to the option of physicality for women, there seemed
to be relative equality between the response rates to these other options. This would
suggest that while musicality and leading/following are challenges faced by
most students, once these challenges are overcome each student will have their
own unique combination of challenges that they need to deal with.
A variety of
issues would probably mean that there would be a variety of solutions as well.And this is what was seen in response to the third question. After a strong emphasis
on practice (regardless of its nature) there was an even spread between things
such as using different methods of learning, trying harder, improving fitness
and paying attention. Therefore, it does appear that once you have improved your leading and
following, you will need to determine your own strengths and weaknesses to work
out what you needs to be improved.
The first three questions were multiple choice. This means that key issues
could be missed. To account for this, teachers were asked if they had any other
comments on what they thought students could do to improve their dance ability.
Comments in response to this question did reiterated the issues highlighted in
the earlier questions. It is thought that after being limited in the multiple
choice questions, they wanted to highlight the importance of the other options.
Therefore, the conclusion that there are a variety of issues you might face
remains true.
However, there were other themes that presented themselves.
Attitude
A number of teachers made reference to things such as confidence, ego and
reactions to things going wrong. In summary, teachers want you to realise that
dance will not come to you instantly, but you can get it with practice. This
will be especially so if you have not done much dancing before or if the physical
demands of dance are new to your body. You will likely make mistakes, you will
need to work to get better (including practice outside of lessons) and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's expected. As one teacher
pointed out "this is not Dancing with the Stars - you are not practicing
6-10 hours per day. Be brave. We were all beginners once."
Perspective
"Understand the difference between social dancing and
competitive." this was a comment from a teacher that seemed to summarise
what a number of other teachers said. As a student it might worth thinking
about what kind of dance you're actually interested in. And it need not be only
one type. Once you know what sort of dance you're after, you can then make sure
that you are taking the right perspective for what you want to do. This then carries over to the next theme.
Reflective learning
"NO SUCH THING AS BAD STUDENTS, ONLY BAD TEACHERS!!" This was from
a teacher who also said that everyone learns differently. I have said in the
past that there is really only such thing as a bad student teacher
relationship. However, this quote does summarise what a number of other
teachers talked about. Your teacher will likely do their best to help you
become the best dancer that you can. nevertheless, they can't read your mind, and do
not always know what you need to be able to progress further. For this reason teachers
want to know "what works" for you and to "Ask better
questions". Basically, they want you to think about your learning and work
with them so that you can progress faster. Try thinking of your teacher more as a partner working toward the goal of helping you get everything from dance that you want from it. I am sure that you have noticed how this theme aligns with the diversity of issues and solutions apart from musicality and lead/following.
Recommendations
It is pretty clear that you need to work on your musicality and lead/follow
ability.
If you do want to work on your musicality, then I can recommend Don Baarns.
He came to dance later in life, but is a musician so he has some excellent advice.
Leading and following seem to simply require practice there is no secret that
will make leading and following instantly easy - you just have to work at it.
However, you might find this website dedicated to leading
and following helpful.
Once you have improved musicality and your lead/follow ability you will need
to take stock of where you want to go with your dance and what you will need to
do to get there - this will be unique to you. Ideally, you will talk regularly with your teacher about this
so that you can keep track of what works best for you. To do this you need to
be confident enough to dance and practice no matter your level and really think
about what it is that you need to know/understand so that you can improve your dance
ability in the direction you want and communciate this with your techer.
Dustin Saiidi has a social
dance hypnosis CD to help you stay motivated for practice and dance
confidently no matter the level your at or the situation your in.
If you want improve your ability to understand your learning style and how to
better understand what you need to do to master dance, then take a look at Part
2.2 of Dance Better Now - you can get this specific chapter at this webpage.
You can still have other issues so it's always good to keep reading on the
topic. If you haven't, then read as much as you can, be it books, e-books,
email newsletters, blogs etc. You can get a free e-book here if you do not
already have it.
Limitations on this research
I have never asked teachers to do a survey. Normally I don't ask for any
specific group. Usually it is possible to get 1000s or responses, but because
it was only teachers, the response was around 70. This just means that we do
not have as large a sample as we might like and some key issues might be
missed.
Another limitation is that there was no strict screening. It is possible
that people other than teachers filled the survey out, and corrupted the results.
It's just good to keep these things in mind when reading the results of such
surveys before you take action based on those results.
Acknowledgments
I really do need to thank the teachers who took the time to fill out this
survey. There's is a very unique perspective that we often ignore. It's
especially good to get the combined wisdom of a large group of them. It was
really fascinating to read the results and get this insight that I had never
really come across before. So thanks again - we really should look at organising
some kind of world dance teacher day I reckon.
On 2nd May in 2013 I conducted a survey of dance teachers about what they
think students struggle with most when learning social dance and what students
should do to improve their dance skills fastest.
Teachers were asked what they thought male students had the biggest
challenge with, what female students had the biggest challenge with and what
they thought would best help students improve. Each of these questions were multiple
choice - they were allowed to choose three options for the first two questions and
two for the third question. The responses to these questions are summarised
graphically below.
Responses



What do these results tell us?
The most obvious result is that the two major issue teachers see with their
students is leading & following and musicality.
This was true of both men and women; however, there was a difference between
men and woman when considering musicality. For men, the focus was very much on
timing. For women, there was a more equal split between timing and expression.
This could mean that most teachers think men just need to work on timing before
thinking about expression while women have timing and thus ready to move on to expression.
It could also mean that teachers think that the expression of the music is more
in the domain of women and that this is not fully understood by many women. In
either case, it is likely that as a student musicality is something you need to
work on.
If musicality and leading/following are the two biggest challenges for
students, then it would be expected that this would be at the forefront of
their minds when considering what students could do to improve. The top responses
are all related to practice outside of lessons. There was an even split between
practicing alone, practicing with another and dancing socially. While there was
a difference between the teachers who filled out the survey regarding the
specific type of practice, there was definitely agreement that practice was the
one thing that students need to do more of. Practice is always a good thing,
but we can probably extract from this is that leading/following and musicality
are things that can really only be learnt from practice.
Teachers were given other options that they could highlight when thinking
about the challenges faced by students new to social dance. These covered
things ranging from learning to memory to physicality. While there seemed to be
a slightly higher response to the option of physicality for women, there seemed
to be relative equality in the response rates to these options. This would
suggest that while musicality and leading/following are challenges faced by
most students, one these challenges are overcome each student will have their
own unique combination of challenges that they need to deal with. A variety of
issues would probably mean that there would be a variety of solutions as well.
And this is what was seen in response to the third question. After a strong emphasis
on practice (regardless of its nature) there was an even spread between things
such as using different methods of learning, trying harder, improving fitness
and paying attention. Therefore, once you have improved your leading and
following, you will need to determine your own strengths and weaknesses to work
out what you needs to be improve.
The first three questions were multiple choice. This means that key issues
could be missed. To account for this, teachers were asked if they had any other
comments on what they think students can do to improve their dance ability.
Comments in response to this question reiterated the issues highlighted in
the earlier questions. It is thought that after being limited in the multiple
choice questions, they wanted to highlight the importance of the other options.
Therefore, the conclusion that there are a variety of issues you might face
remains true. However, there were other themes that presented themselves.
Attitude
A number of teachers made reference to things such as confidence, ego and
reaction to things going wrong. In summary, teachers want you to realise that
dance will not come to you instantly, but you can get it with practice. This
will be especially so if you have not done much dancing before or if the physical
demands of dance are new to your body. You will likely make mistakes, you will
need to work to get better and there's nothing wrong with that. As one teacher
pointed out "this is not Dancing with the Stars - you are not practicing
6-10 hours per day. Be brave. We were all beginners once."
Perspective
"Understand the difference between social dancing and
competitive." this was a comment from a teacher that seemed to summarise
what a number of other teachers said. As a student it might worth thinking
about what kind of dance you're actually interested in. And it need not be only
one type. Once you know what sort of dance you're after, you can then make sure
that you are taking the right perspective for what you want to do.
Reflective learning
"NO SUCH THING AS BAD STUDENTS, ONLY BAD TEACHERS!!" This was from
a teacher who also said that everyone learns differently. I have said in the
past that there is really only such thing as a bad student teacher
relationship. However, this quote does summarise what a number of other
teachers talked about. Your teacher will likely do their best to help you
become the best dancer that you can. However, they can't read your mind, and do
not always know what you need to progress further. For this reason teachers
want to know "what works" for you and to "Ask better
questions". Basically, they want you to think about your learning and work
with them so that you can progress faster.
Recommendations
It is pretty clear that you need to work on your musicality and lead/follow
ability. If you do want to work on your musicality, then I can recommend Don Baarns.
He came to dance later in life, but is a musician so he has some excellent advice.
Leading and following seem to simply require practice there is no secret that
will make leading and following instantly easy - you just have to work at it.
However, you might find this website dedicated to leading
and following helpful.
Once you have improved musicality and your lead/follow ability you will need
to take stock of where you want to go with your dance and what you will need to
do to get there. Ideally, you will talk regularly with your teacher about this
so that you can keep track of what works best for you. To do this you need to
be confident enough to dance and practice no matter your level and really think
hard about what it is that you need to know so that you can improve your dance
ability.
Dustin Saiidi has a social
dance hypnosis CD to help you stay motivated for practice and dance
confidently no matter the level your at or the situation your in.
If you want improve your ability to workout your learning style and how to
better understand what you need to do master, then take a look at Part
2.2 of Dance Better Now - you can download this part alone at this webpage.
You can still have other issues so it's always good to keep reading on the
topic. If you haven't, then read as much as you can, be it books, e-books,
email newsletters, blogs etc. You can get a free e-book here if you do not
already have it.
Limitations on this research
I have never asked teachers to do a survey. Normally I don't ask for any
specific group. Usually it is possible to get 1000s or responses, but because
it was only teachers, the response was around 70. This just means that we do
not have as large a sample as we might like and some key issues might be
missed.
Another limitation is that there was no strict screening. It is possible
that people other than teachers filled the survey out, and corrupted the results.
It's just good to keep these things in mind when reading the results of such
surveys before you take action based on those results.