The Art Of Failing Vol. I

As an old proverb says - If at first you don't succeed, then bungee jumping is not for you. Failing is nothing that is part of the culture in which I grew up in and not in many others that I see. Failing is bad. The goal is to succeed. What is often overseen is that succeeding and failing are not mutually exclusive but rather two sides of the same coin. You can only succeed in two ways. Either by doing only one thing, that you've always done, or when trying something new, fail till you succeed. What is failing to learning and how can we include this knowledge in our classes?

A Fail A Day

A wise man once told me, "The best way to advance is to make a mistake a day". If you learn from each mistake, you learn a lot. It's in the nature of learning that you have to make mistakes. Trying out new things always creates possibilities of failure. If you failed you probably tried something new. This is something good and a key to learning! If your culture doesn't support mistakes, you will have a tougher time learning. So what we need to do as teachers is to encourage a culture, an art of failing and provide an environment in which this can happen.

Say It!

When I introduce a technique that is new to students what I see happening is that instead of trying out the new technique, students rather go with what they already know and will try to accomplish the moves or exercises with the old technique. This might prevent them from failing at this new technique, but also from learning it. So tell your students that it is ok to make mistakes. Tell them that prohibiting to make mistakes will prohibit them from trying new things and hence learning and improving. Hearing this from a person you trust should help. A good moment to tell them to do so, is when they are struggling with something new. Tell them that what they are doing is exactly what it needs to accomplish whatever you are trying to teach.

Support It!

Expect failure and learn to deal with it. No matter how well you prepare your classes students will fail. And this is good. If students always advance without ever failing, you probably never actually challenged them. It's a great feeling to fail at first and after some work on it succeed. It gives a feeling of accomplishment. Your job is to create an environment in which mistakes can happen, and then support your students in fixing the problem. Don't get me wrong, don't fix it for them but support fixing!

Live It!

A friend of mine told me he once saw the teacher (male) in class do a movement he hadn't seen him do before. So he asked how this can be turned into action. Instead of a response he got laughter from the other teacher, how ridiculous that would be to do. The result was that the male instructor didn't show the move for the rest of the class, too embarrassed to admit he had done a mistake or even just doing a variation that wasn't intended. Instead of making fun of mistakes, rather take them as opportunity to grow. Don't hide your mistakes, but give your students a realistic picture of what a good dancer is like. Teachers are also imperfect, we also fail. It might be difficult sometimes to see that as student, if the only things they ever see are performances and shows that have been rehearsed behind closed doors for hours. Hiding mistakes in classes will only contribute that students form the subconscious image of the perfect dancer.

Lose your fear of mistakes and if students know, feel and see that we make mistakes too, even need them to advance, and that the words "Try and it doesn't matter if you make a mistake" are not sheer words, but lived experience, hopefully they can reduce their fear of failing, try things out and become faster better dancers.

Read Part 2: The Art Of Success

Nothing Rhymes With Unt

I'm convinced that more dancing in class and less talking will result in faster and more in-depth progress, if we need to talk though we should be aware of the consequences. The regular way to talk, when teaching, is to describe the desired outcome. We can enhance this by using images and analogies. A way more powerful kind of talking is suggesting. With this method, people think of what you would have said by themselves, and that's why the content sticks better.

The Benefit

I make a distinction between describing something and this way trying to make the student form a mental image versus suggestion. In the first option there is nothing happening unless the student tries to form the mental image. Suggestion on the other hand works without explicitly saying something but rather implying it and hence getting students to draw the conclusions more as a reflex or logical conclusion than an active action. 

But why is suggesting more powerful? It is because students think the thought, or create the mental image by themselves. To them it is a logical conclusion or ending to what you've been saying and it happens passively. Because it's logical to them, they will be remembering, what ever it was, better and also find it more convincing. They thought of it - it must be correct.

Suggestion can happen by accident, which I believe is most often the case, or used intentionally. An example for utilizing the power of suggestion intentionally can be seen in creative uncertainty. There we say that if something "is" something, the possibility of it being something different becomes excluded. We restrict the object to one purpose. If we say something "could be" an exit to a move, we imply and hence suggest that whatever we just showed, could be used differently. This is what enables people later on to use content of classes more creatively.

In the example above we suggest more possibilities and it's the way I use suggestion most, but with suggestion we can also limit variety of possible answers.

... or

If you have guests at your place and you want them to leave without saying so you could say "Somebody wants another beer or ...". They are very likely to decline and soon people will leave. By keeping the end open, people finish the phrase themselves. You suggest a yes-no answer, so they will conclude the phrase in their minds with the word "not". Humans strive for accord and that is what makes thinking "not" and answering "yes" difficult, that is why they will likely decline the offer.

The suggestion of the word "or" comes in nicely when you talk about coin-options, like yes-no, left-right, top-bottom, leader-follower etc. "So we can do this move on the left side or ..." .

... but

Take the word "but". This word suggests that what is said before is not really the case. Sadly, the word "but" is often, hopefully unintentionally, used together with positive feedback. "What you are doing is good, but keep your rhythm a bit more". All that sticks is "Keep your rhythm more". The positive feedback got lost. Positive feedback is a essential part of motivation, loosing it because of a three-letter word is such a waste. Throw the word "but" out of your vocabulary unless you want to negate the formerly made statement. If you have the feeling you need it, try figuring out what it really is that you want to say, and say that instead. If it is really both you want to say, - make it two independent phrases.

As a side note, verbally formed suggestion works best on native speakers.

The power of suggestion is a two-edged sword. I find it OK to use, just apply gently and be aware of what you are suggesting. Sometimes a limited amount of choices can help, sometimes the exact same can inhibit progress.

Share how you think how this could be used constructively in class in the comments below!

Dance Etiquette And Other Nonsense

Do I have to do one dance or two? Can I refuse a dance? Am I supposed to say thank you, or is that the little sister of "This dance sucked balls"? It's those questions that one faces at a certain time once you've travelled a bit. While there have been many heated discussions about this topic, I'd like to offer a different perspective on these questions. One where it doesn't matter what side you chose.

It is completely normal for any social group to have a set of certain rules. They define the design of interactions and accepted behaviours. It might even be part of the groups identity. Social rules make interactions inside of the group easy and comfortable. Social dance rules arise from the fact that dancers form groups, sometimes country-wise, sometimes city-wise and often even smaller.

Taking A Look At Rules

Let's take the rule how many dances are polite. In the some countries, e.g. USA it is completely normal to dance one dance. In others, e.g. Switzerland it is completely normal to dance two. Now what I've seen happen all over the world that when two people from different countries with different rules meet on the social dancefloor, that one feels afterwards insulted. One might think it is rude of the other person to want two dances, while other one might think the partner didn't like the dance or that they themselves dance like crap and that's why the refused a second dance or said thank you and left. Is one of them right and the other one wrong?

Another example of a common rule that is heavily debated is refusing dances. Is it impolite to refuse a dance? Often the answer is simply yes. But what if your feet hurt? What if you want to dance this song with someone else, because it's your song? What if you need a break? What if you hate this song? What if you don't feel like dancing currently?

Sticking To The Rules

The lindy hop scene is a world wide scene with people travelling all over for workshops. People from different social groups mix all the time. Naturally everybody grows up with a different set of social dance rules. Is there a correct behaviour? There doesn't seem to be, unlike teaching methods, here things are just different. The problem we are facing hence is not that certain people are not complying to the rules and being rude, but rather comply to a different set of rules.

Based on the rules we are used to, we have the tendency to make assumptions about the reasons for someone's acting. The two above described situations usually result in either a bad feeling for oneself or in bad mouthing about others. Both results are going against a good atmosphere and good feelings.

We should remember how we make those assumptions - we make them based on our rules, rules that are supposed to help us get along better. The actual results can hardly get any further away from the original intentions.

Since we've learned in the meantime that pushing our rules onto others doesn't really work well, based on all those hurt feelings from rejections and bad mouthing, we should try to find another way to solve this. 

Breaking The Rules

Ask yourself how important those rules are to you. Ask yourself if they are important enough to feel bad about yourself or make others feel bad. 

Bending those rules or throwing them out of the window is not easy. It also requires a bigger inner calmness to notice those moments where we make assumptions that make us feel inferior or get a bad impression of others. But if you allow for bending those rules and allow for more possible reasons for a person acting in a certain way, it will be worth it, because you'll feel happier and others will too!

If you like being happy, comment on, share or like this article.

If In Doubt, Try It Out!

Teaching and learning are complementary but different. Simply put - teaching is done by the teacher and learning is done by the student.

It is fortunately impossible to open a student's brain, pour in information, close it, and then see immediate results.

Teaching is providing a learning environment and supporting the action of learning.In this article, I'll talk about 3 ways to improve your learning -- all tested and proven by yours truly. ;)

Expecting

I'm positive that most students come with an expectation to learn. But there are certainly those that come expecting to be entertained or to receive some form of affirmation. In both situations, it's the teacher doing the work. To learn, you have to do something.

If you are a student coming to class with the expectation that your teacher is supposed to give you something, your classroom experience will improve drastically if you change your mindset to: "Today I'm going to take the most possible out of this lesson."

Helping

I've found that lindy hoppers are a very collaborative bunch - which is great! I support inter-partner-exchange 100%! However, if you main focus is improving your partner, the extent of your own personal growth decreases greatly.

So what do you do, if your partner isn't "getting it"?

If you are a leader and your partner struggles, try harder to do exactly what the teacher has instructed. If you don't know how you can improve, ask how you can make things better, so it'll be clearer. This way you will improve. 

If you are a follower, try following exactly what your partner is leading, because it's not the move you are trying to learn, but rather the art of following! (That is, as long as the focus of the class is a new move or new technique. This obviously doesn't apply if you are working on individual improvisation.)

Trusting

Last but not least, trust your teachers! I've personally found this one tricky from time to time, so let me repeat that: trust your teachers! Why? There are a bunch of good reasons, but let's focus on the one related to learning only.

Instructors provide you with information, instructions and help. If you question one or all of these, you'll do them half-heartedly. It is crucial, especially when trying out something new (and might it be an old move with a new technique), to do what the instructors tell you 100% in order to make it work.

Remember - If in doubt, try it out!

Music in Class, Vol I: Or Why It Should Swing

Playing swing music in a Lindy hop class is very natural and important, since music and dance are so strongly connected.  Yet despite what might seem like an obvious choice, it is not always the case that swing music is chosen for Lindy classes.

This post looks at the arguments some people offer for using non-swing music in class and provides counter-arguments. 

The reasons that teachers use non-swing music are usually one or a combination of the following:

  1. There is no (good) slow swing music
  2. It's difficult for a beginner to hear the beat (in comparison to pop music)
  3. Real swing music might not attract people

Let's start at the end and move up.  Regarding Argument Number 3, in my experience patronizing people has almost never been a good idea.  Even more importantly, I've had many students in my classes who first appreciated the music and then started dancing.  Also, if someone doesn't like swing music, maybe Ð just maybe Ð Lindy hop is just not for him or her. 

Moving on to Argument Number 2.  First of all, it's true that hearing the beat is not always easy.  Hearing the beat tends to be more tricky on late 20s Jazz and New Orleans Jazz.  But with a good music selection, you'll find swing music, that has a nice and easy-to-hear walking bass.  Secondly, avoiding swing music ignores the main problem.  We don't avoid teaching swing outs just because they are tricky.  If students have trouble hearing the beat, come up with exercises to help them develop that skill.

And arriving at the Number 1 Argument against using swing music in class, good, slow swing music absolutely _does_ exist.  It's just about getting up and doing some research and finding it. It's not as easy as finding good fast swing music, but definitely still doable :)

In conclusion, it is my firm belief that it is crucial to play swing music in swing dance classes.  I do it, advocate it, and enjoy it! :)

Now read Music In Class Vol. II