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TOCA TEACHER · Lesson 25 · Teaching

Student retention is built inside the dance class

People can find steps anywhere. On a screen, in a cheaper class down the road. What they cannot find anywhere else is the feeling of belonging to a place and a people.

Dawou Tarraxo, pioneer of Tarraxo. Student retention is built inside the dance class

The first three classes decide whether someone becomes a regular or disappears, and a single warm welcome outperforms any marketing. Use their names. Show every student what their next step is. Encourage them to give as well as take.

A community retains students better than any offer, and it markets you more powerfully than any advertisement.

People return to a dance school where they feel progress and belonging.

People return where they feel progress and belonging.

Retention is built inside the class, step by step

  1. STUDENTS DO NOT STAY ONLY BECAUSE THEY LOVE THE DANCE.
  2. People can find steps anywhere. On a screen, in a cheaper class.
  3. What they cannot find anywhere is the feeling of belonging.
  4. The first three classes decide whether a person becomes a regular.
  5. A single warm welcome outperforms any marketing.
  6. Use their names. Show every student what their next step is.
  7. Encourage them to give as well as take.

The full carousel

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This lesson comes from the book

Page 335 of The teacher's guide by Dawou Tarraxo, the TOCA Method page this lesson comes from
The teacher's guide · page 335

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.