Dancer breakthroughs...I weep with happiness.

I teach a cardio latin fusion class 3 days a week.  I have for 6 years now.  So I have this woman in my class that's been with me at least 4 of those.  She's a good dancer.  She has great timing and picks up quickly.  She's always asking how she can get more out of our hour together.  I have been telling her over the years that she's too "high off the floor"...that she needs to dance "down into the ground" more.  The other day in class the light bulb finally went on.  She was doing what I had wanted from her for years.  I approached her after class and told her how great of a class she had had.  She responded, "You know, I realized I wanted to dance STRONG and I was dancing...".  In my head the first word that came to my mind was "light".  She fished for the word she wanted for maybe 3 seconds before she finished her sentence with "light".  She had that epiphany that we dance teachers are always searching to draw out of our students.  Just two days after my cardio student had her "Aha" moment, I was working with my burlesque workshop ladies.  We'd been working on the same routine for the previous three weeks.  It was looking fine, but not QUITE right.  About 3/4 of the way through our hour together I said to them, "Dance the entire routine staccato...like a Tango." There was a universal "Ahhhhhh!" from the ladies.  I'd found the right phrase.  The next time through the routine was totally different, and exactly what I'd been looking for. We live for those moments that the light goes on, for those seconds of realization, of comprehension.  We get off on it.  Sometimes as teachers we struggle to find the key that fits that lock.  It's not that we're bad teachers or that they're bad students, it's just that everyone has a slightly different key.  But when we're able to turn that key magic can happen.

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I'm first and foremost a teacher

So many of you may not know that I've been teaching dance to earn a paycheck from the late 90's on.  It's my profession.  My career.  I'm REALLY effin' good at it. I teach amateurs.  I teach professionals.  I teach social dancers.  I teach competitors.  I get off on it.  Besides teaching my ballroom competitors, one of my favorite things to teach is burlesque workshops.  It is SO exciting to see shy women transform to confident divas over a course of just a few weeks.  I love to see the excitement in their eyes when they step on stage, and the flush on their faces when they step off.  It gives me an absolute rush.  Almost as much of a rush as it does seeing my employees perform well, and certainly more of a rush than me actually performing.  So when you see those incredibly brave and amazing workshop women dancing at our shows, get on your damn feet.

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