A few days ago, I came across an interesting reel on a social network. In this reel, a couple of instructors were showing three common “mistakes”, as they called them, of beginners. In one of them, the leader was looking at his feet until the follower asked with sarcasm, “Have you lost something?” and he replied, “I lost the figure…”. I found that reel very annoying because my belief is that instructors should embrace beginners’ difficulties and not make fun of them nor put pressure on them with arrogance in any way.
This post is not about judging those instructors nor their teaching style/method – I don’t know them and I can’t express any opinion on them. It’s not with polemic intent that I write this article.
It’s, however, a good chance to talk about a key aspect which is the relationship between instructor and student: an aspect that many instructors fail to spot, either due to a lack of empathy or due to a lack of psychological/pedagogical knowledge (often due to a lack of both).
I genuinely believe that the intent of the reel was to suggest students to take the learning process easy. However, I watch these reels with the eyes of an experienced instructor, and I believe that the message reaching viewers is miseducative and marked by a disheartening lack of depth and substance.
Why students look at their feet
Students who dance while looking at their feet are students who struggle to put together the steps, the rhythm, and the leading/following. Beginners are often extremely focused on what they are doing; they try to control their movements.
The way the brain works makes it easier to control a movement by watching it with your own eyes rather than elsewhere. This brings into play the most powerful adaptive resource: attention. Beginners watch their feet because their full attention is absorbed in performing that movement.
In short, it is a sign that you they are trying their best. It is therefore part of the learning process, which will continue until they have internalized the necessary movements.
Therefore, they are not making any “mistakes,” and an instructor should be able to recognize what is a mistake and what is not.
Those who publish reels are accountable for their behavior
Reels are what they are and should be taken cum grano salis: short videos, carefully prepared to show something and attract visitors. Those who take social networks seriously misunderstand how social media works. It’s fine to take them as inspiration, to watch them out of curiosity, but it’s naïve to believe that they are useful content for dancers.
However, this does not exempt content creators from taking responsibility for what they communicate and how they behave.
Content creators are responsible for the messages they convey within their content
We live in an era where everyone claims the freedom to express their opinion and where critiques are never welcome nor accepted.
On the other hand, there are also fragile people who are seriously affected by these disqualifying reels. Accepting that an instructor can. Accepting that an instructor can mock students, even when the intention wasn’t to humiliate them, simply means failing to understand how deeply certain attitudes can affect the motivation and self-esteem of someone who is learning. This is particularly true when it happens on social networks, a place where a video can spread worldwide and stay online potentially “forever” and reach potentially everyone.
Understanding the difficulty
It took decades to understand that a good teacher does not judge students but helps them overcome their difficulties. Unfortunately, many instructors have no basic training in psychology or pedagogy, and their entire knowledge is based solely on their personal experience.
A good teacher does not judge students when they make “mistakes”: a good teacher tries to understand the difficulty they are facing, embrace it, and provides them with the tools so that they can overcome it autonomously through practice. If necessary, side to side with them.
The message that I want to send to you all is to embrace the difficulties of other dancers. If you end up dancing with someone who looks at his/her feet, just let them do it. In the end, it’s more fun to dance with them than to dance with an experienced instructor always judging your movements.