I find that I remember for months turn patterns I learn from some instructors, while I don’t remember for a week turn patterns from others. This has been vexing me for a long time particularly since all the classes I take are by instructors teaching material I really like. I finally figured out why some are memorable and others aren’t.
Teachers, listen up. What follows may be the best nuggets of teaching advice you’ll come across in a long time.
My first hypothesis was perhaps the difference between the instructors is the level of difficulty of what they taught, but that didn’t explain it. The memorable patterns were both hard and easy and long and short, and the forgettable patterns were also hard and easy and long and short.
My second hypothesis was perhaps a difference in the flow of the choreography of the patterns. Again, while each instructor has their own set of preferred themes and look for their overall patterns, there was no correlation to which ones I remembered and which I didn’t.
My third hypothesis was perhaps a difference in how quickly the pattern was demonstrated/taught. While this would seem to be big factor, it turns out not to be for me. One instructor’s style was to run through a pattern quickly for the students without much explanation and I could remember those better than those of instructors who taught them more slowly and with more explanation.
After a year of pondering this question, it finally hit me. The most memorable patterns are not the easiest, nor the hardest, nor with the most flow, nor the most slowly explained, but… the ones that are most systematically drilled in the same class they are taught. This is important and here is what i mean by systematically drilled in the same class. After a pattern is broken down (whether in 5 minutes or 30), the teacher has the students go through it “together” a couple of times, rotate the ladies, and repeat. First without music and then to progressively faster music for 2, 3, or even more songs.
In one of the more memorable classes, the instructor taught a challenging eight-bar pattern in no more than 20 minutes, then we drilled it for 5 songs straight. It was in synch – no one was allowed to start early or late or stand idle during the iterations. it was toke-and-pass – you did it with one partner and then they rotated and you did it with the next. A four minute song has about 100 bars in it. Allowing for say 8 bars between partner rotations, that’s around 30 run-throughs of the pattern in the 5 songs that the instructor played in that class. I’ll probably forget my phone number before I forget that one.
Here are five specific teaching tips that fall out of the above:
1. Allow for more time to drill the pattern than it takes to break it down. If you only have 30 minutes, spend no more than 10 minutes teaching a pattern and the rest drilling it. If you spend 20 or 25 minutes teaching a pattern because it’s that difficult or that long, your students might feel like you’ve given them a lot, but in reality most won’t remember it and it won’t enter their repertoire (even if they film it right after class).
2. Drilling the pattern should be in unison and not couples practicing on their own. Letting people “practice the pattern on their own” in the class loses the control you need to have over the class and abrogates your responsibility for it. If students need a lot of time figuring out the pattern on their own, they shouldn’t be in that class level, or you shouldn’t be teaching that level pattern to them.
3. Drilling the pattern in unison also means not letting men hold up the rotation because they fell behind or weren’t paying attention. Each rotation is an opportunity to practice with a different follower. If they don’t use it, they lose it. Holding up the class for them is taking away from other people’s drill/practice time.
4. The instructors should start the pattern from the same orientation in the room when demonstrating it, breaking it down, and leading the drills – except for the occasional demonstration at 90 or 180% rotation to show the “other view” of the pattern. Why? Same reason as tip #5 below:
5. If the class format is to rotate partners (recommended), have the ladies rotate and not the men even if there are more men than women. Why? Turns out that an important way that I and other men remember patterns is by visualizing the environment we learned them in. That includes remembering where in the room I was standing, which side of the room I was facing when starting the pattern, where I ended up, etc. (e.g. I remember I was always running into the coat closet during a part of a particular pattern). If the instructor keeps switching orientation as they teach the pattern, the men will keep switching to be in synch, and if it’s the men and not the ladies who rotate, we won’t have a constant reference of where we were in the room while learning it.
Sounds like great advice. Regarding tip #2 (drill in unison) I think, that – especially in smaller classes, where it is more feasable – it is very helpful when the teacher goes from student to student and gives individual comments. But maybe you consider that to be part of the first phase, where the pattern is broken down. However, often the tips are more valuable (or my questions smarter) when I know the pattern rather well already, so that this individual phase should come after some extensive “drilling”.
Comment by Bernhard Seefeld — 6/9/2004 @ 3:09 am
Dead right that more teachers need to know this – I’ve commented and linked to this on my blog.
Comment by bailamos — 6/14/2004 @ 1:27 pm