Teaching a couple to dance is not teaching two students
You are teaching two bodies and, quietly, the space between them. Much of what you will fix is in neither person, it is in how they meet. The timing of the offer, the quality of the answer, the size of the frame.
Look at the couple as one single system and you will solve with one cue what two separate corrections could not.
Then manage the dynamic as carefully as the dance. When a couple struggles, one partner often carries the blame, sometimes out loud. Reframe it as shared. The lead arrived a beat early, so the follow could not answer in time. Nobody's fault, everybody's fix. Never let the lesson become one partner coaching the other.
End on something they do well together, so they leave having felt it work once.
A couple in a kizomba lesson is one system, and you teach the space between.
Teaching a couple who came together, step by step
A COUPLE IS NOT TWO STUDENTS. IT IS A RELATIONSHIP LEARNING TO DANCE.
You teach two bodies and, quietly, the space between them.
Most of what you fix is in neither person. It is in how they meet.
See the couple as one system and one cue replaces two corrections.
When it struggles, one partner usually carries the blame. Take that pressure off.
The lead arrived early, so the follow could not answer. Nobody's fault, everybody's fix.
Never let the lesson become one partner coaching the other.
Do you correct the two roles evenly?
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This lesson comes from the book
The teacher's guide · page 223
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.
