The Outpost: Personalised learning

New salsa dancer dancing socially with an experienced dancer / teacher

This post continues a theme (see links below) of individuality & uniqueness. Being individual, not in the sense of selfish, but in the sense of unique, is about exploring and expressing identity and finding points of connection with the uniqueness of others. That exploration means it is also about freedom.

At the tango / salsa / bachata event we ran I danced with many new dancers and was asked often if I teach. Smidgens of historical guiding and lecturing, teaching French, English and environmental surveying is doing nothing close to bringing home the bacon. So, still needing more employment after having to leave my course, perhaps I should have said "only privately". Instead I said, as had once been suggested: It's against my religion. If you were to say to me, What is wrong with dance class?, ordinarily one of the first reasons I might give is It teaches people to think dance, instead of feel it or People learn steps and ignore the music and the partner or It promotes controlling and hierarchical behaviours.

But last night I relearned with emphasis that the reason dance class often doesn't work is because everyone is different. This is true for many things we learn and why class in school can be such an inefficient, even harmful way of learning. Everyone I danced with was entirely unique in how they danced and in what they needed from the partner. Some new guys who trying guiding need you to transmit confidence to them. Others need the beat. Total beginners often need something: even the tiniest murmured suggestion of reassurance, encouragement, praise. Mostly people just need confidence which comes from reassurance, practice or both.

Recently, a beginner kept hollowing his chest when guiding. Obviously, he felt nervous because guiding when you are new is not easy. I need your chest, I said, swapping to show him what it was like to dance without connection in the chest. Ah yes, he said, standing taller. It is all connected: standing taller immediately helps with confidence, with breathing and hence relaxation and provides the connection in the chest the person being guided usually wants.

Everyone new though needs you to adapt to them, to some extent, to their feelings, essentially, in some way and that you cannot do in a class.

Even with twelve years experience dancing tango, and dancing with beginners nearly every time I go out, it still surprised me that the best dancers were without a doubt two older women. I will not have been alone in this surprise, showing we still have a long way to go to break down prejudice about age. They had a focus, connection and lack of self consciousness and nerves that usually takes longer and that was not yet present in the younger women.

Gratifying was that all the new guys wanted to be guided, often closing their eyes. Being dancers they probably understood that is the way to understand the dance or maybe they had seen those of us who already dance doing it. I was impressed the salsa teacher was willing to try dancing vals and tango in front of all his students, as a beginner. He had a dancers sensibility, musicality and sense of connection and will pick it up quickly. He danced socially with new salsa dancers too which was lovely to see.

29.5.24:

Life's is largely a solo flight. Family, friends, partners come and go. The way education is assessed in the UK is by individual exams. When you go to dance in the milonga, your choices, your dance ares yours. We are not a hive mind, we do not live as one. So why is learning done as a group? While there is some focus on collaboration, it is primarily for perceived efficiency, especially cost efficiency and the convenience and of the organisers and instructors.

Personalised learning produces the best results. One on one guidance, with space to explore and time to collaborate is invaluable.

Individuality revisited (April 2023)

Authenticity (April 2023)

The frog and the nightingale: a cautionary tale (March 2019)

Standardisation and individuality (April 2016)

Being unique: learning from children (December 2015

And there are pieces on the antithesis of individuality e.g.

How class dancers dance

Elbow whacking automata