Great teacher but only an average dancer?

[Tom Schueler]

Do you believe these kind of teachers exist, can we even separate the dance from the didactic aspects? Would you even want to learn from them if they do not shine on the dancefloor? No name shaming, let's just keep this discussion civil and not mention anyone in person.

 

[Latinjazz]

Oh yes, of course!
And the opposite, too, unfortunately!
It depends of the level.
But for beginners a medium dancer who can explain well what he does might be even better than a super dancer.

 

[Smiley79]

This is common in many fields. I had a brilliant economics professor who was a consultant for the US government making huge bucks but couldn't teach worth sh**. All the students would study together (equivalent of another class just to do well in his class.

Teaching is a skill and talent in knowledge of the subject as well as having great communication skills.

My best (Salsa) teachers (where I felt I grew the most) were those who were recognized but not Superstars.

The mindset (likely due to the requirements of your money making activity (as well as personality) affects ones ability to be in both categories equally.

 

[salsajenniferMX]

Teaching is an art form
Dancing is an art form
They are very different skill sets.
I believe someone learning on the beginner level can learn from a teacher who does not “shine”, head turn, amazing physique etc on the dance floor. Basics and mechanics can be taught by anyone who indeed knows them, understands them and can teach them.
In yoga, we were taught, one can not teach an asana that we ourselves can not do and feel in our own body. I assume this applies to dance. How could one effectively teach a triple turn if they can not do it? If they have never felt it in their own body?

Certainly everyone has a different standard of what that means “to shine” based on one’s viewpoint and experience level.

I have seen lots of amazing dancers at congresses blunder teaching a class. They have literally no idea how to teach.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

I have never had a great teacher/average dancer.

I've had plenty of great dancers/average teachers. As a beginner, I was blinded by good looks, so naturally I would only pick great looking dancers (with fancy websites) to take lessons from.

If I had to start all over again, I'd choose to be taught by the teachers who produce the best dancers.

 

[SoFloW]

Do you believe these kind of teachers exist, can we even separate the dance from the didactic aspects? Would you even want to learn from them if they do not shine on the dancefloor?

I have experience with both situations.

I'm a difficult student, I always keep my own way of thinking, never fully trust anyone, and will speak up if I see something that doesn't jive. For me to accept someone else's leadership I have to agree with the end result, and the end result is a dancer who's style I admire (I'm experienced enough now to know what I like). But then I'm not a beginner anymore and not desperate for information.

But I'm also an independent student. I learned to dance watching YT videos and practicing with a partner. So having an instructor that's a great dancer but not good at breaking things down is not a big deal to me. I just need them to show me, a few times slowly. However if by bad instructor you mean one without patience, or without work ethic (I had one that would cancel lessons last minute) than no I can't learn from those either.

Examples; I have a friend who's raving about a particular teacher, how good he is at explaining/breaking down everything etc. But I've seen this instructor dance and had the idea he comes from a ballroom background (which later I found out he does). I don't like that look in salsa, it looks affected to me. I would not train with this instructor, I would be concerned that he'd imprint on me.

Exception; I'm now training with a senior instructor. I don't like the way he dances for myself, he's got incredible control but is now limited in mobility due to his age. but he has deep knowledge which I would never be able to find anywhere at any price. So I stick it out. But it's hard to filter everything down to what I want to end up using. more so because I still have to show him the results he wants to see.

 

[Offbeat]

Do you believe these kind of teachers exist, can we even separate the dance from the didactic aspects? Would you even want to learn from them if they do not shine on the dancefloor? No name shaming, let's just keep this discussion civil and not mention anyone in person.

Yes, that can happen. Take Thomas Guerrero of Santa Rico, not really cited for his social dancing. But did produced excellent dancers. Take ET. If someone didn't know who ET is or made ET unrecognizable and posted his social dancing, it wouldn't attract too many hits. He has produced a lot of excellent dancers. I wouldn't call them average dancers, they are terrific performers and great dancers. But their social dancing wouldn't be eye catching.

 

[granrey]

Bad players or below average make good coaches.

Good players rarely make good coaches.

I would say the same about dancers but I cannot back it up.

Being a teachers requires set of skills and personality as well.


Some people are so gifted or do extreme hard work that others cannot replicate the way they do.

A bad player becomes very observant and sees a lot of things from the sidelines also learns a lot but unfortunately a lot is this knowledge comes to late to him or simply lacks other things to shine.


However, regardless if you are good teacher or not. It seems the people making the money in Salsa dancing are the stars. Which in my books I put in doubt their social dancing skills as they typically dance with the same partners (staged) or students which know their moves and leads very well.


As a side note. I saw a documentary with some of the big stars in it and they could not identify certain salsa rhythms like son, rumba, guaracha, etc. They can dance it but they dont what it is, neither the proper dance secuence for each rythm.

I can link you to those videos but that would derail the tread.

 

[Smejmoon]

I guess the case can be made for situation where good teacher is a bad dancer (average dancer ain't that good). This is always suspicious though.
Also as was mentioned above, some people are good dancers because they are talented, not because they understand what they do. (and even more can explain it to others and understand how others can move).

One part that is missing in such case is inspiration! Good dancers inspire you to reach for better. They show you examples of what's possible if you put in effort. They give you new ideas of your dance. Just unconsciously we copy people around us. So I believe it's better to surround yourself with good dancers. And teachers who actually dance on the same dancefloors that you do.

 

[MrR]

Yes, I think they exist.

BUT ...
as a good teacher, you need a quite good understanding of the material which you teach.
Which results that you usually are at least in that part not bad neither.
Given, that the vast majority of the dancers on local level have basically no clue, what they are doing - aside from trying to copy other people - everyone, having that clue, will stick out from the masses already.

While the actual ability in executing isn't that important and skills way above what you are teaching, is simply futile.

It is very important as a teacher to be able to motivate, to communicate, to explain the material adjusted to the students, to understand the students and, last but not least, to care for them. Didactics are far more important than fancy dancing skills - just that the marketing machine inverted this.

 

[terence]

True story..


I ran a comp ( in BR ) back in 1974 It was primarily Pro/Am . BYU had attendees and during the course of events one couple was marked way below the students level of dancing.
So, I did something one NEVER does and challenged the Judges. It turned out that they thought the young lady was the teacher. Decision reversed when they were told the teacher was the man .

 

[Offbeat]

Good players rarely make good coaches.

Make that great talented players rarely turn into good coaches. We discussed it several times. Coaching foremost requires an eye to detect what other person is doing inefficiently and to be able to correct it.

A talented person finds it very hard to be able to break down how they do something, precisely because being talented, certain things they didn't had to process consciously.

We all know extremely talented or gifted professors whose classes would make us snooze.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

Would you even want to learn from them if they do not shine on the dancefloor?

After thinking about this for a while, I no longer want to learn from a teacher who can not dance what they preach.

An analogy is English language teaching, which I am more informed in:

I have a Canadian accent.

If a student specifically wanted to learn British English for the accent, they wouldn't come to me for lessons nor would I try to convince them otherwise.

I could scream to the high heavens that accent doesn't matter, that they only need to learn correct sentence structure and grammar...

However, the student won't care as they only want to learn from someone with a British accent because they think it's the best sounding accent.

That's like people who only want to learn Salsa from Cubans.

Personally, that's me and shines/body movement. I only want to learn the movements from those who can perform it themselves the way I like it.

I've also learned that a good teacher will also tell their students to go learn from someone else if they feel they can get better instruction elsewhere in a specific area.

Makes sense, no?

 

[TikiTaka]

Sure, why not, if it's actually a great teacher.

In many competitive sports i'd say the teachers can't do what they preach. Usually in football, boxing etc the trainers are older and experienced but often not in the best shape. In universities you have professors teaching about different subjects (e.g in business and economics), yet often they don't have much experience outside of academia. They can still be great teachers.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

Usually in football, boxing etc the trainers are older and experienced but often not in the best shape.

If the trainer is old but was able to perform the movement in their youth, I'd still go to them for advice.

If the teacher never had the ability in the first place, I consider that teacher unqualified to teach me in that specific area.

 

[TikiTaka]

If the teacher never had the ability in the first place, I consider that teacher unqualified to teach me in that specific area.

There have been martial art trainers that were never good fighters but that produced world class fighters.

Maybe it's different in dancing, but since it clearly says "GREAT TEACHER" i just assume that he/she is actually great.

I came across some instructors that were not very good dancers, but they were also bad instructors. If they had been great teachers, maybe i would have taken more classes.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

There have been martial art trainers that were never good fighters but that produced world class fighters.

I find it highly suspect if those world class fighters learned from ONLY one teacher their whole life. Likely they had many teachers/mentors who were able to impart different skills?

 

[TikiTaka]

I find it highly suspect if those world class fighters learned from ONLY one teacher their whole life. Likely they had many teachers/mentors who were able to impart different skills?

Sure. But that doesn't disqualify those trainers IMO. But i guess overall it's probably very rare, and it's probably very rare thay a bad dancer is a great teacher.

 

[Latinjazz]

That's like people who only want to learn Salsa from Cubans.

I've had this type of discussions with people from different music styles and countries...
"You can't play Son because you're not Cuban", "You can't play a Blues if you're not black"...
They exist in all different colours.

What is really interesting is the effect if you turn it around:
"You can't play Bach if you're Cuban" (Or black, Chinese, take whatever).

All of the sudden the sentence sounds like what it is - retarded and racist.
There would be no SF and no Salsa if people would have stuck to their racial music theory.

 

[Chris_Yannick]

"You can't play Son because you're not Cuban", "You can't play a Blues if you're not black"...

I'm not dumb enough to think like that lol.

In my line of work, that's equivalent to someone saying to me, "you're not Caucasian, so you aren't qualified to teach me English".

That is of course retarded and a bit racist.

However, I do understand if someone's main motivation is to learn a specific accent which I can not speak, so I won't take offense as it's not racially driven.