I recently heard someone teaching Foxtrot to a brand-new couple. This teacher was throwing out dance jargon and acronyms left and right. "CBM", "using your center", and "LOD" were followed up by little to no explanation.
I've overhead group classes taught where, after introducing the basic step, the teacher goes on to cover swing, sway, shaping, contra-body movement, and footwork... in 45 minutes... to people who kind of just learned the basic figure.
I've seen exercises explained pretty well, and then demonstrated pretty badly, and then performed en masse just so wrongly because the 5 techniques that lay the foundation for that one exercise weren't taught first.
I've heard the phrase "breaking your sides" so many times it's lost meaning, and rarely is it said with a solution on how to repair them.
If teaching technique is what is considered above, I definitely don't teach it.
In beginning classes, I use long-term horrible verbs like "push" and "pull" and really technical phrases like "come at me, bro" to get people to understand connection and weight transfer. I rarely use the words "rise and fall" and "latin motion" in the first 10 lessons.
I often perform experiments on how demonstrating e-x-a-c-t-l-y what I want to see people doing goes a lot further than using a million words (which I also use anyways). Ex.: every time I demo a Rumba basic, I push off my supporting foot as much as possible, doing very little hip and back motion to emphasize using... your... supporting foot. Or the next time we do Rumba, I lift my free foot off the floor ever so slightly so people see the complete weight transfer. And then the people? They do the thing I wanted them to do without me talking about it and then we dance more and I talk less (well, at least while they're just standing around listening) and everyone is way happier.
"Aren't you underestimating your students? Isn't it better to push people to learn more, faster?"
Thanks for asking! No, I don't feel like I'm underestimating my students. Or anyone else's. Considering how long it took ME to understand the phrase "move your vertical spine across the floor", with my pretty extensive movement background and a kajillion hours on the floor and how often anyone has to practice a physical skill to perfect it, I feel like I estimate people.
Do I know that a lead points his foot diagonal wall on the fifth step of a reverse turn? Yes. Do I love the difference between "side and slightly forward" and "forward and slightly side"? Yes. Can I spend 30+ minutes on doing forward walks for Smooth without looking at the clock once? Yes. Can I recite to you most of the The Books? Yes. Will I hit up all that fun stuff in due time? Yes.
Does that help newbies learn how to move themselves and someone else around the floor? No. Literally thousands of hours teaching the same thing to a bunch of different people has told me what works and what doesn't. Sure, everyone may not like my style, but I can probably make you laugh with one of my horrible analogies and you'll probably come out of my class knowing something you didn't before.
BOOM. Teachered.
