Often when I am teaching  swing dance classes I want to assess how my students are doing or give them tools to assess each other/ themselves. One thing I learned quickly is if I asked the class, “Does anybody have any questions?” I would be met with blank/confused stares and occasionally a brave soul.

Vocabulary

Often for students something will feel wrong but they sometimes just lack terms to articulate what exactly is ailing them. When a follow tells a lead that a move is being lead wrong, it is useful. However it is far less effective then an answer such as  “You are tensing your left arm so I can’t feel connection.”

What I try to do when asking students a question in a class setting are questions that target specifics. For example if I am teaching a rock step, “Follows did you feel a stretch from a rock step that propelled you forward?” or “Leads were your follows waiting for you to release tension on the rockstep, or were they backleading?”.

This works as well if you are trying to get students to give each other feedback, which I often do in my intermediate and above classes. An example of this is “Okay after you try the move three times to the music, stop and talk to your partner about what made it work or didn’t work. Some potential things to talk about are connection, tension, not looking at the ground, and if it was smooth or choppy.” When I phrase feedback that way, they have four different categories to flesh out their conversations with and this usually results in actual conversations giving vital feedback, versus the chit chat or blank stares I see during some classes during feedback time.

What I plan to try one of these days, is the classroom I teach in has a blackboard. I want to put the words up in chalk and see if visual stimulus would help my students out. Try this out, tell me how it goes!

Recently I have been finding that using famous routines on youtube is a great way to teach my students Lindy Hop technique and vocabulary, in addition to inspiring them about the dance.

Several benefits include:

1. If students want to review material, the video is easily accessible on youtube.
2. Often students if they watch the video get curious and look up other videos of the dancers featured, providing them with inspiration.
3. Students get excited about doing material which has been done for a performance, especially if it is by instructor/professional level dancers.

One story I have frequently encountered in the last year of my swing dance travels is individuals being thrown into the situation of teaching swing dance lessons and having to learn how to teach… while teaching. This story mainly has been encountered from individuals coming from college swing dance clubs or smaller and more isolated scenes.  This trial by fire experience for some people can be often an intimidating and stressful experience.

With this post I strive to create a list of suggestions and ideas for people who may have recently found out they will be teaching in the near future or those who eventually strive to teach.

1. If Possible Teach At First With An Experienced Partner: This is not always possible, but having a mentor in most fields ranging from musicians, business, to sports have numerous benefits. Their previous experience will help you avoid pitfalls they may have encountered when first teaching and you will not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to teaching methods. In addition your partner will likely be able to fill in gaps for moments you do not expect in a lesson due to inexperience.
2. Take Introductory Classes Again, Except Focus on The Teaching Aspect: The first large benefit of this is it will force you go over your basics so they are clean for demonstration purposes. Second you will learn examples of visual tools such as exaggerating the wrong type of motion and verbal analogies teachers utilize in class to educate students.
3. Learn the Opposite Role: I hold the opinion that if you only know how to lead or follow as an instructor, you are missing half the equation. It is frustrating for a student to hear, “Well I don’t know what to say, they just follow it/they just lead it”. What learning the opposite role allows you to understand what possible things can be going wrong within the lead or following of a partnership. A side benefit of this is if you are decent enough at both roles, you gain the ability to teach by yourself.
4. Practice Being An Effective Speaker: Being a swing dance instructor is not just knowing how to dance. The way you hold yourself when you teach means a world of difference between someone who is perceived as “They know what they are doing.” versus “This person looks nervous and unsure of themselves”. This means when practicing speaking to a class you; project your voice so the whole group can hear, do not have distracting extraneous motion such as fiddling with hair/clothes, and make eye contact with students in your class.
5. Learn the Importance of Word Choice: How your phrase things to students in your class can mean the difference between them feeling encouraged and understanding what you are trying to convey or them feeling lost and frustrated. Often with beginner/introductory level classes I try to phrase everything positively and use social reasons for motivation. I can rattle on all day about the aesthetic and technique reasons why looking down is bad for ones dancing and leads in my class will continue looking down. However if I list the two points that it you don’t want your partner to get upset when you collide into objects and it reduces the chances they will want to dance with you in the future (social acceptance/safety) many leads in the class start looking around the room to take care of their partner.
6. Get Feedback From Individuals In Your Class/Other Experienced Dancers Or Instructors: Often when teaching classes people make mistakes not intentionally but out of inexperience or situations out of their hand such as a group of students walking in 15 minutes late. While there will always be that chance of unexpected variables, feedback from all sources will help you realize your strengths and weaknesses as an instructor and allow you to fine tune your lessons.
7. Continue to Improve Your Own Dancing: Do not fall into what I refer to as “Big fish in a little pond” syndrome. Mostly in smaller isolated scenes I notice people start teaching then immediately think they are above learning and their dancing stagnates. I am a firm believer in that students learn dance mostly visually and the better example you are, the easier it is for them to learn and the less chance they will develop bad habits they will have to fix later.
8. Continue to Improve Your Teaching Methods: If you do step seven occasionally you will encounter in your swing dance learning perhaps better teaching models then the one you currently use for a six count basic or swingouts. Perhaps you have discovered a better analogy that gets people to not be as tense while they dance. Constantly being in the mindset of “What can I improve?” is always an effective way to becoming a better instructor.

My Story

When I found out about two years ago that after a summer I was probably going to teach classes at my college, I was at first apprehensive but then I did two things that helped me out tremendously. First I took a 4-week series of beginner Lindy Hop as a follow and focused on mainly what analogies instructors used while they taught and how they demonstrated moves and concepts. Second I went up to instructors who I admired their teaching and asked them to give me a brief talk of what advice they would give to a new teacher.

I feel learning from those who had experience versus attempting to figure out how to teach on my own was the most pivotal concept in learning how to teach for myself and it is the message I recommend the most to those who are new to the process. I have two blog posts related to this topic listed here and here. Otherwise if you have any thoughts or suggestions, I encourage you to post them in the comment section below.

Edit: Updated August 6th, 2019 to have more inclusive language for followers and leaders.

For this post I am addressing a different crowd then I usually do, this post is mainly geared is those who consider themselves swing dance instructors or those who are trying to become them. However, it will still be an entertaining read for those who are interested what goes in behind the curtain of how a college scene hires instructors.

To give you my background I’ve played a part of the contacting and hiring of instructors for five different workshops over the last two years at Penn State.  Two of them were a Lindy/Blues workshop, one was a Lindy/Balboa workshop, one was a Balboa workshop, and the last one was a Collegiate Shag workshop. Choosing one couple out of the myriad of potential instructors across the United States is never a simple task and I wanted to give some transparency to the reasons behind the choices myself and other officers in the organization I participated in made.

Background Information

The funding committee Penn State in the past funded 80% of total operating costs (upgraded to 90% this upcoming semester) of approved events. However here is the kicker, we only are allowed honorarium for four different individuals an academic year. We deal with this by having one instructor and one band for each semester. We don’t hire instructors who live outside of the United States simply because the funding committee will not cover travel outside of the United States and it is a nightmare of paperwork to deal with international honorarium.

What this means is are limited in how many instructors we can hire, but we have the ability to financially afford top-notch instructors who live anywhere in the United States. In addition we can offer these workshops at prices that make most national events look like a kings ransom.

First Half: Convincing Groups of People

The most annoying part of the process for myself is I have to convince two groups of people that a set of instructors is worth hiring. First is the whole council of Penn State Swing Dance Club officers, second is the allocations committee who votes to allocate us funds.

The council of officers for the Penn State Swing Dance Club consists of variety of dancers: seasoned dancers who attend events all over the East coast and keep in touch with the national community, dancers who travel once in a blue moon but generally only stick in state college, and dancers who are self-isolated and never dance outside of state college. All of them have different perspectives of who is a good dancer, what dances should be taught at a workshop, who would be a good fit for our club, and who would draw in the most out of town dancers. For instructors it has to be a set of them that all parties including myself can compromise on. Unfortunately the side effect of this is quality instructors who may be more old-school or just great instructors in general that are not in the national competition circuit may get passed over, this is especially true the further away they are from Pennsylvania.

The allocations committee is comprised of 8-12 people who for the most part have no dance experience whatsoever. Jerry Almonte’s post Your Bio Sucks though is something to take in account, last thing I need is something that looks ridiculous when I am trying to convince a group of people that two individuals are professional dance instructors worthy of tuition money. Having; a website, quotes in professional media such as newspaper reviews about performances/workshops taught by instructors, examples of your dancing on youtube, and a list of awards/honors received are all things that make things easier on our end to get funding.  I mentioned to Mike Roberts and Laura Glaess at the Lindy & Blues workshop they taught at Penn State this past fall, the easiest request hearing I had was with them. This was because I was able to show the committee the Broadway Melody performance they did at Lindy Focus which many of them were able to relate to and found impressive due to having seen “Singin’ In The Rain”.

Second Half: Criteria for the Choices Made

Now that you have the background for the resources my college scene has for hiring instructors and the different sets of people that have to approve the selection of instructors made, I want to go in why personally as an organizer have chosen instructors to present to the council of officers and eventually to the allocations committee.

First off my biggest rule is I do not hire somebody I have not taken classes from personally or at a bare minimum had several respected peers give me the seal of approval. I often contact friends in other colleges/scenes who have had those instructors and ask them to give me the inside scoop of; what it was like working with them, quality of instruction, and how they interacted with the community during their stay. Instructors talk about their experiences with organizers, it goes the other way around as well.

The two biggest criteria for hiring instructors comes down to teaching ability and how good they are at fostering an enthusiastic spirit for dance.

While dancing ability is a factor, what is more important for my community is the ability for the instructors to translate that to the students. This is often tricky at Penn State because of the unique nature of it being a college workshop, yet having ridiculously cheap prices you get people ranging from a typical newbie college student dancer to an advanced out of town dancer who just came into town for a rare chance to get a private lesson from a high quality instructor. This means I particularly look for instructors who thrive in a mixed-level classes environment.

The majority of the Penn State Swing Dance club college students are beginner to beginner-intermediate dancers who often self-isolate themselves to only dancing in Central Pennsylvania at best or only at the college at worst. This means the majority of our crowd has no idea what the national swing dance community is like and has a very narrow view on what is considered “good dancing”. When we hire instructors, whether they know it or not also carry the weight of being ambassadors of the swing dance community and a source of inspiration. We can show our neophytes all the youtube clips we want but, nothing beats the actual thing in flesh and blood. Often for many of our students these events inspire them to make their first trip to an event outside the state of Pennsylvania. Their experience at our workshops are often the difference between if they just remain state-college only dancer or get motivated to join our core of traveling dancers on the East coast.

The last reason which I consider a minor one would be national reputation within and outside the swing dance community.

For our events we like getting as many out-of-town dancers as possible, however unfortunately for the majority of dancers they only want to travel for people who are popular on youtube and/or well known in the national competition circuit. Having a good reputation in the swing dance community besides attracting out of town dancers also makes it easier to convince the council of officers of why a set of instructors is qualified.

Having a good reputation outside of the swing dance community makes is easier to convince the allocations committee of why a set of instructors are qualified as professional instructors. Commercials, appearances in music videos, and appearances in television shoes make an you easy shoe-in for an easy approval during an allocations hearing. In addition for our newbie friendly lessons during a workshop, it becomes easier for a dancer to drag convince their friend who has never danced before to come along.

Summary: 

I hope this gave a good overview of the process of how the selection of instructors for my college scene workshop works, in addition to the many factors that come into play during the process. I’d like to comment that most colleges have the ability to get a similar set-up due to their student activity fees and in some cases can get their entire events free under anti-drinking/alcohol-free programs run by their schools.

If you have any questions I encourage you to ask me in public on this blog or privately at my email address apache.danse@gmail.com.

For my college club out in Pennsylvania, I have written a rough-draft for a set of guidelines for being an instructor. This is mainly for new instructors to teaching, but it also functions as a personal checklist for experienced instructors. My goal when writing this was to only take up a page, yet still cover the key points for a good swing dance lesson. If you like it feel free to use/edit it for your club/organization. In addition please post any feedback you may have!

Expectations for a Swing Dance Instructor:

• Show Up On Time: It looks unprofessional to show up late to your own lesson.  If you are going to be or are running late please inform an officer, preferably one in charge of setup.
• Bring Your Own Music & Have Students Dance to It: Each person has different expectations of what is a ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ song is and most likely has a different repertoire of music then you do. Ensure you have the right tunes for the class you designed, by having them on you. In addition having students dance to music in class prepares them for the realistic situation of dancing socially, instead of with you counting/scatting.
• Prepare For Your Lessons Beforehand: Unless if this is material you have taught before with this same person, meet up beforehand to coordinate a lesson plan. This especially is true for teaching a series. Doing this prevents possible miscommunication between teaching partners in the middle of a lesson.
• Don’t Argue With Your Teaching Partner: Sometimes during a lesson you find out that you teaching partner and you learned something differently. Compromise and sort it afterwards or work it out calmly in front of the class, but maintain a positive learning environment.
• Introduce Yourself at the Beginning of the Lesson: Beginning of the class is a good time to introduce yourself, set ground rules (especially if it’s a large class) and state your expectations for what the class will cover.
• When Talking Project Your Voice Clearly and Don’t Look Down: Students tend to learn better when they can hear what their instructor is saying. Mumbling, looking down or talking too fast makes it it difficult for students to hear. In addition students may interpret it as you are nervous and are unconfident in what you are doing.
• Balance Out Time For Explanations, Demonstrations, and Practice: A good lesson has a balance of all of these elements. Ever have a lesson that the teacher seemed to just talk the entire time? Don’t be that instructor.
• Rotate Often:  We are teaching a social dance so we should have students dance socially. Whether if you are in a circle or lines have students rotate. For a circle it helps people try things with different partners. For lines it helps students in the back have a better view of the instructor. This rule goes double for classes with lead/follow imbalance.
• Encourage Students to Ask Questions: Often students have questions that will help others in the class if answered. Fostering a positive environment where they are not shy about asking questions makes the class feel like a place that one can get involved in the learning process.
• At End of Lesson Review Material, Motivate Students and Thank the Class: Review material so students can remember things from the beginning of your lesson. Since the whole point of lessons is preparation to dance encourage or even have a call to action for your students to put what you taught them to use. Lastly thank your class because they took time out of their daily schedules to attend your class.

One of the things I have seen teachers I admire do, is when teaching a class and they see someone doing something well, to acknowledge it in front of the class and in some cases have that person demonstrate it for the class.

What I have noticed when observing students who have this happen to them (and what I experienced the one time it happened to me):

1. They get ecstatic. Lets face it, who doesn’t like positive attention.
2. They usually become even more confident in the move or technique you were teaching to the class.
3. You usually have a better chance of retaining them as a student.

In the case of point three, the few times I have done this when teaching at my college scene, I have usually seen the student I complimented stay the rest of the series and/or stay longer for the social dance in comparison to other students in the class.

Now I am not saying insincerely shower your students with compliments on a consistent basis.

Besides being facetious , students will eventually pick up your compliments hold no value. But if you see a student doing something well in your class, acknowledge it. It will make them a happy camper and more confident in their dancing abilities.