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TOCA TEACHER · Lesson 01 · Teaching

Being a great dancer does not make you a great dance teacher

Dancing happens inside your own body. Teaching has to create change inside someone else's. Those are two different crafts, and one is not proof of the other.

Dawou Tarraxo, pioneer of Tarraxo. Being a great dancer does not make you a great dance teacher

I have watched incredible dancers empty a room, and quiet teachers fill one for years. The difference was never talent. It was whether the person in front of them was actually getting better.

So here is the only scoreboard I trust. Do not watch the teacher, watch their regular students. Not the demo couple. The ordinary student, over an ordinary month.

Teaching kizomba is a separate craft from dancing it.

A great dancer is not automatically a great teacher, step by step

  1. A GREAT DANCER IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY A GREAT TEACHER.
  2. Dancing happens inside your own body.
  3. Teaching must create change inside someone else's body.
  4. Showing beautiful movement is not the same as explaining it.
  5. Fame, technique and experience can help - but they do not prove teaching ability.
  6. The real question: are the students actually improving?
  7. Do not only watch the teacher. Watch their regular students.
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This lesson comes from the book

Page 17 of The teacher's guide by Dawou Tarraxo, the TOCA Method page this lesson comes from
The teacher's guide · page 17

The student’s book takes dancers from the first foundations to real feeling. The teacher’s guide gives instructors the structure to pass it on. Both in English, French and Spanish, on Amazon and Apple Books.

The student’s book The teacher’s guide

The method

T O C A

Two bodies. One connection.

TTouchThe connection with your partner. Feeling through contact, never through force.
OObservationListening to your partner’s body, energy and tempo.
CControlMastery of your own movement. Precision without tension.
AAwarenessFull presence: with yourself, your partner and the music.