Teaching Skills

 

Teaching skills are the cornerstone of a successful masterclass presentation. It enables your masterclass participants to learn your choreography in a smooth and seamless fashion.  We are therefore trying to get our people to enjoy the journey of the class as well as the final product, or destination.

 

Involved in this terms there are various aspects that should be discussed; namely

 

1. Cueing skills

2. Breakdown Skills

3. Choreography Construction

4. Class Pacing

 

As presenters we are trying to make distinction between a masterclass and a studio class, and possessing advanced teaching skills will allow us to achieve that easier. Coming into this workshop it is assumed that you are at least aware of some of these skills, so they will only be mentioned briefly here.

   Cueing Skills

 

These are skills that allow us to direct our students, and cue them onto the next movement in your class. Included in here are:

 

	Pre Cueing/phrasing:	Physically cueing the next movement while the class is performing the current movement.
	Strong visual cues:	Important for giving directional changes within a class.
	Verbal cues:	Clear verbal instructions are obviously important to maintain interest while teaching the various progressions of your class.
	Right Footing:	The process of changing from Mirror image (facing your group) to Participant image (with your group), to hybrid (a combination of the 2). This is an important skill to enable participants to clearly understand directional changes and foot patterns.

 

Breakdown skills are the methods used to breakdown your act 4 of swan lake, and gradually add the levels of complexity so that your full masterpiece can be appreciated and learned with minimal stress.

 

Although there are many ways to achieve this, here are the most common, learning curves:

 

The Link Method

 

Here, you add on separate sequences of  moves.

Example Move:

 

Sequence A		A	Grapevine with pivot turn
		B	mambo cha cha cha x2
Add A+B together
Sequence B		C	3 marches forward and back,
		D	4 ½ jacks

 

Add C+D then link Sequence A to sequence B  ie (A+B) + (C+D)

 

Repetition Reduction

 

This is where you start with a high number of repetitions of a movement, and then reduce them to achieve your final result. For example : 4 ½  jacks right and left leg, reduced to 2, then single half jacks. This can apply to whole combinations, eg splitting an end routine in half.

 

Layering

 

This is where you as an instructor have established a base pattern, and then you would layer on another progression.  For example after establishing a 3 grapevine and 2 leg curl base pattern , you could then layer on the directional changes. Then you could layer on rhythm changes to the leg curls, followed by layering on a turning change to the curls.

 

Visual Preview

 

This is closely linked to layering.  As you are about to layer on the next variation, then you visually preview the next move.

With dance  type classes like hip hop/ funk  there are some additional teaching skills that could be utilised.  These are:

 

Half time teaching;

 

As the name suggests the combination/movement is performed at half tempo to allow the participants to get the move. This really shouldn’t be used in cardio classes.  The FIF teaching organisation in Italy actually states in their teaching that if a move in step or cardio has to be broken down half time then it shouldn’t be taught at all!

 

Staggered time;

 

This is where a movement, for example. An arm pattern is performed at actual time, but with pauses at certain points to allow participants to learn a bit at a time.

 

If we look at Marcus Irwin, Rebecca Small, or Lincoln Bryden’s (J) masterclasses we can see how they always manages to build choreography in a seemingly effortless fashion, and still maintain balance between right and left leg lead.  This workshop is not designed to give you a set formula for that as there are a million ways to “swing a cat”.  However we will be looking for balanced construction of routines, so here are 3 pointers.

 

	A	= Identify the Lead Leg Changer (LLC) in your routine (1-3) and teach them first. That way you will always teach in a balanced manner and avoid teaching 15000 reps on the right leg and 2 on the left (ok slight exaggeration!).
	B	= Find the base move of each mini combination.
	C	= Gradually reintroduce the elements of variation.

 

Again with hip hop/funk style classes this is not so important, but more thought needs to go into having easier choreography at the beginning of the routine, and then gradually increasing complexity.  Also it is a good idea to intersperse a complex 8 count, with a “filler”, or something that does not require that much thought.

 

The burning question is; you have this awe inspiring class and thought about the class structure and breakdown, but it took you longer than anticipated to teach a certain part.  So do you try and teach the whole finished product regardless?

 

Again experience suggests that it is always better to spend as long as it takes to teach a movement/combination, and therefore make that journey as smooth as possible.  In RSA courses we are taught to go by the 80% rule, ie when 80% of your class has the choreography move on.  I believe that holds true for masterclasses as well.  Then if you do not get through your whole intended class, then so be it.

 

It is always better to have too much choreography than not enough. If you are choreographing a routine to an end song, then it may be an idea to have an easier version of your routine as a backup if you would not be able to get the original choreography in.

 

Remember, we are trying to maintain that high and positive experience of being in a masterclass rather than achieving brainache.

 

So to conclude this part of the workshop, attaining elite teaching skills, in terms of developing your choreography, and being able to break it down in an effortless fashion, will increase the likelihood of your classes being a roaring success!