The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia, and let me share something with you that I personally hate. I hate those awkward couple of minutes when one dance class ends and the next one begins, and there's pandemonium with students getting picked up and other students coming in and parents asking you questions and students asking you questions, not being prepared.

There is so much going on typically between classes and as a casual dance teacher, I don't have a whole staff to support me in that transition. So today I'm going to talk about a couple of my personal ideas and techniques to help smooth the transition between dance classes and hopefully get some advice and some tips back from you. Let's talk about it.

So before I begin, let me just ask you, am I alone in this or do we all hate the transition period between classes? I know in all the studios I've taught at, classes are back to back. And of course, we typically want to schedule our classes as a dance teacher in blocks so we don't have big breaks in between each one. So that creates a little bit of awkwardness where I do tend to get questions.

I'm trying to make sure that students are safely dismissed to a parent or someone that's in charge of picking them up. And it can be a little stressful when I have other students coming in. And as soon as those students come into the space, if you're not giving them direction and they're coming into the space in a very disorganized and chaotic fashion, I feel like you've already lost them for the whole class.

It's so hard to get them back in, reel them back in and get that class off on the right foot after that couple of minutes of transition period. So I have established a few techniques that work pretty well for me. And I'm going to go through these in order of age, roughly.

Of course, different techniques will work with different ages, depending just purely on the personalities and the skills of the dancers. But just roughly, I'll give you a few ideas for different age groups, starting with young kids. This is kind of a blessing and a curse when you have young students coming into the room that you're trying to manage and transition for because they're not very good at keeping themselves occupied and sort of self governing while you need them to.

So that's a challenge. However, I think they can be pretty easily occupied as long as you are giving them a clear and simple directive. So with this age, I'm sure a lot of us like to start them off with a coloring page.

There are lots of great free resources where you can download coloring pages that show the students different positions of the body, different dance steps across all different styles of dance. So I would recommend, of course, having a coloring page available to the students when they first walk in that is relevant to what they're doing in class, not just general coloring just for the fun of it. Early in the season, I also like to tie in something like having them decorate a name tag or having them decorate a little place marker.

It helps them memorize where they're meant to be in the space because at the young age, I typically do have assigned spots for them. And it also helps me to recognize their names as I'm trying to learn names, because the more I'm seeing that and the more time that they're spending interacting with the name badges, the more opportunity it gives me to keep coming back to those names. So I can learn the dancers names myself.

Here's another area where I'm not sure if I'm alone in this or this is across the board, but I think maybe too many teachers are trying to rely on coloring pages to keep students occupied when they have downtime. So sometimes these younger students even are kind of pushing back against that. "Oh, Miss Maia, I'm bored. This is boring. I want to move. I want to dance. I'm already done with my coloring page after two seconds."

And that's the last thing you want because that is not helping with your transition, right? If someone's asking you a question, and at the same time, your young student is saying, "Miss Maia, I'm bored. I need something else to do."

That's not helping you manage the transition time between classes. So one thing that you could have them do interactively would be a large floor puzzle. There's a lot of dance theme floor puzzles.So that's a great one that they can work together on.

There's also matching games. I have one called Prima Ballerina.

I don't know if it's still available, but I believe it is still available. It's a small card game. And there's two decks of cards.

There's blue cards that have, well, I don't know if it's blue or pink, but half of the cards have the arms and the upper torso of a ballerina. And the other half have the legs and they're in all different positions. So I will let the students use those cards for a matching game or make different pairs and then try to emulate the pictures of ballerinas that they've created with those cards.

And this is an area where you could do that with any style of dance. Again, it's very nice that there's this game that already exists with the ballet positions, but you could easily print off those downloadable coloring pages with a different style of dance, chop them right in half, and then the kids can mix them up and create their own fun poses and try to emulate those poses. So that gets them moving physically, it gets them interacting.

They might be a little less bored with that. There's lots of other games that you could have them do that even young students, I mean, if you're talking three or four, it might be trickier. You might not want to let chaos reign quite that much.

But some young students, or if you have like a five-year-old and the rest of the class is four, it's possible that one of the older or more mature students could lead a game of Simon Says, or What Time Is It, Mr. Fox, or some of these fun Red Light, Green Light, where you can incorporate doing different dance steps. And those are games that they're familiar enough with that you don't have to sit them down and explain the rules when they first come in. You can kind of establish that in the very first week of class and then say, hey, when you guys come in, if Miss Maia is talking to somebody else, when you first walk in this door, I want you to start playing this game and they usually should be able to pick it up.

If you have a group that's a little more chaotic and not as good at doing those activities, where you're just going to open up the door for them to get really, really wired if you let them start off with a game, you can start them off in a circle and ask them to do very simple stretches or put on a song where they follow along to the steps or the directives in the song. Movement songs are so easy. You can have that playlist queued up at the end of the previous class and ready to go.

And they'll know that when they walk into the class, even though Miss Maia is maybe not teaching right then, I have to take attendance or I have to make sure that the previous class of students have all been dismissed. They have the instructions playing over the sound system to tell them what to do with their bodies to get warmed up. I am very hesitant with having them just come in and say, go ahead and stretch because that's when you get students and this is across all ages, not just little ones.

You get those students that are just going to splat down into a split, right? Or they're just going to go into like their biggest stretch that they can do without warming up at all. And I want to teach them from a very young age that that's not a healthy approach for our bodies. So giving them something that's actually active or telling them that they can take turns leading in the stretching, but it has to be a dynamic stretch, has to be something like picking up your knees or moving your arms in circles or circling your head.

Those are more functional warmups that the students can do together while they're waiting for you to do whatever you need to do in between classes. I have talked about this before. I'm a big proponent that all ages will benefit from games and silly activities.

So you don't need to shy away from introducing the concept of games to any age group. But when you're getting into maybe middle school age students, they might want some other activities and they also have more of an ability to think critically and to work on some deeper concepts without you having to be like right there over their shoulder. So if you need a couple minutes of transition time between classes with that middle school age level, one thing that I like to introduce for that age is showing videos and then having some questions queued up after they watch the videos.

For example, did you see any moves that you recognized from that video that we've been working on in class? Were there elements of artistry in that video that we've been working on or that you think that you can improve upon? Now I don't know how you all do your music for your classes, but I play my music off of my laptop. I have Spotify playlists. I've talked about this before.

And that's one of the ways that I do try to make my transitions as smooth as possible is that I have a separate playlist for each class that I teach with the songs that I'm going to be using in that class relatively near the top. They're not necessarily always in the exact order because it's not like I can plan every single second exactly how my class is going to go and always stick to it without breaking out of that at all. But I do have the music organized in advance.

I can remember a lot of times as a student myself, when my teachers used CDs, and they would be taking one CD out and putting another CD in or even just changing the number on the CD players, you know, the CD changers, and they had to find the right CD in the player and then find the right song that they were looking for. And I can actually remember like, the energy just coming down in the room when that happened and just having like a moment where I would zone out and I wouldn't be in the pocket of whatever it was we were working on anymore. So I'm really, really leery of that as a teacher, I always want to keep the energy going.

And that's why in order to decrease the amount of wait time between classes as much as possible, I do try to have those music playlists totally queued up ready to go. So it's one click of a button from one class to the next. And with my laptop playing the music, the other nice thing is that I can have the videos already queued up before I even start my first class.

So there's no transition time there. All I'm doing is minimizing the audio player and saying, as the students are coming in the room, hey, head over to where my laptop is, you'll see that there's a video queued up, I got to take care of a couple things, you know, attendance, grab a quick drink, whatever it is that I need to do. When you have a couple students there, I want you to hit play on that video and pay attention because I'm going to ask you some questions after it.

And just a three to five minute video to get them started off with having their brains engage with movement, having a good example of whatever style of dance they're working on, that can be a really nice way to let the students kind of start out slow and not really challenging them too much physically, but engaging their brains and not letting them get right into the socialization and gossiping about what happened in school that day and being distracted from dance, right? You want it to be dance from beginning to end, even if you need a minute, even if you desperately have to run and go pee, if you desperately have to get that drink, if a parent has a question that is just so pressing that they absolutely have to talk to you right that second, you have that three to five minute buffer that the students can watch that video and still be engaged. Another really valuable exercise for engagement is to have the students do listening exercises. I think especially when we get into doing choreography, we are often so focused on the steps themselves that we don't give the students the opportunity to listen to that music with a really keen ear.

We often play the music for them like one time and then teach them the steps or we even are saying, okay, here are the steps. It's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now do you want to try it with music? Now, at that point, we as the choreographers probably have heard that music a thousand times and it's like intrinsic to us.

But if you don't give the students the opportunity to just listen, not be worried about the steps that they're doing, not being worried about the timing that you taught them. I'm saying that in quotes, the timing, because the music has its own timing and they might notice things and intricacies and have a better depth to their movement. If you give them the opportunity to listen to music, and that's great for choreography if you're working on dancing to a specific song, but that can be good for just general combinations if you've been working on a combination to a song for a couple of weeks and you want them to just get a little bit more out of the musicality.

It can also be fun to do just as a general music exercise, play music from a different culture to kind of just test out their ear with instruments that they might not be familiar with hearing in that class or play music that has a unique time signature and quiz them. Can they figure out what the time signature is? Like this isn't an eight. How many counts are there per measure? Can you guys figure that out? Or even just have them lie down, close their eyes, listen to a piece of music, then maybe have a little powwow afterwards.

You know, they had the first three minutes to kind of relax and get into this piece of music and then they have another three minutes to debrief as a group how that made them feel. That can help them tap into their artistry as well as tapping into the camaraderie of the group. A nice social exercise, give them a little mental health boost before they get into the hard work of the technique that you're working on that day.

That age group might really benefit from that. So I'm all about just putting on a piece of music. You can have that queued up.

That gives you your couple of minutes that you need and it gives the students a minute to breathe but still be engaged in what's going on in the class. If you want to get right into having the students working on technique, getting their bodies warmed up, you can still do that circle time. You can assign a different leader, maybe going alphabetically every week.

Week one, so and so is the leader and needs to take us through some dynamic warmups and then the following week someone else and they know that they each get those five minutes of fame at the beginning of class, right, where they get to be the leader and in charge of how they warm up. You could put them in a circle and have them take turns where they each do one exercise to warm up together or they're playing off of the music or playing off of each other in some fun way. And at this age, you can maybe just start to have set warmups.

I find if I set a warmup, let's say I set a ballet bar or I set a warmup in the center during the first couple weeks of class, I'm saying this is what you're going to do every single week when you come in, you're going to do this many jumping jacks, you're going to do this many crunches, you're going to do this many pushups, you know, this is just an example. I probably would never do anything that generic, but it's a possibility. So if that's a warmup and I'm setting it and I'm having them memorize it and then I just put on a piece of music when they first walk in the door and they're expected to get right into it, I still struggle with the kind of middle school age, even like eight to 14.

They probably are just not going to be doing that warmup as full out as intricately as I want them to if they know that I'm not watching. So if I really want to get the most out of these students and not have like kind of half heartedly doing the exercises, but actually talking or, you know, whatever, carrying on being goofy and not paying attention to the movement as much as the socialization, then I might just try to give them a social exercise to start out one of those games in the circle, letting them take turns being the leader, giving them something that they actually can talk about and provide some feedback, what they liked, what they didn't like, what they heard, what they saw, that type of thing, because I'm fulfilling that need for them to come in and have the social interaction. But then once I personally am stepping in fully engaged, and I'm finished with the transition, everyone's safely dismissed from the previous class, then I can immediately turn on that teacher mode and say, Okay, now it's time to work.

And I need to see you actually working when we start the physical movement element. With that said, I'm not by any means closed off to doing a set warmup. And I find that a set warmup works really well with the teen, older, more established, more mature students.

Sometimes that group of students really likes to be told so explicitly what to do. And giving them a warm up that they need to memorize and do on their own without me watching is kind of challenging them in a different way, to be accountable for themselves. And that's a skill that they really need to learn at that age as they're getting into high school and the transition beyond high school, even for older students.

I'm a big fan with this group of doing a warm up that incorporates going back and forth between improvisation and set movement exercises. There's so many different ways to do that. One thing that I've done is you would maybe call it like a circuit where they are doing very basic exercises like jumping jacks, but it'll be 30 seconds of jumping jacks and then 30 seconds of improvisation, 30 seconds of mountain climbers, 30 seconds of improvisation.

You can make this fun and interesting and different by changing up the music every week. And again, have that music ready to go. The music is already playing when they step into the room.

That way they're engaged from the second they step in. But they're being asked to do these exercises, two different beats, two different measures, two different rhythms, and then also move their body in an improvisational way, two different rhythms. So that's a fun one that I've really enjoyed incorporating with my older students.

They also, of course, can just memorize a set warm up usually takes a couple weeks to get them comfortable with it. But then you can have the same music playing when they step into the room every time. And they know they just are expected to come in and do the warm up.

No questions asked. And once you get into those teen students, usually, knock on wood, I don't have to remind them too much to stay focused and to actually do it. You never know.

But it's the age where you can at least expect them to do that. How many times you have to remind them or work with them to make sure that they're doing that depends on the group. Another exercise that I have actually mentioned before in a previous episode would be actual circuit training going from one station to another.

And I'll typically do four stations in the four corners of the room and just teach the students or even have like a sign up, although that takes a little bit of extra setup. So sometimes that's not practical as a transitionary activity. But just let them know that in each corner of the room, they're expected to do a different exercise.

And usually, just so that I do not need to be occupied by that at all, they're completely self-sufficient. I'll tell them to count off a minute and then transition to the next station or something like that. And these can be anything from very simple exercises.

If you're working on a dance, it could be to do a certain step or a certain combination from the dance X number of times. You know, if they're struggling with this one eight count in the dance, and you have them do it 10 times and then transition to another station where they're doing another eight count 10 times, and then just one step from that phrase that they've been struggling with, they're probably going to get it. But being able to move around the room, be in these small groups, it gives them that social interaction as well that I was talking about with the middle school group.

They're moving their bodies, they're getting warmed up, they're having the opportunity to interact and have fun. They're getting the spatial awareness of rotating around the room. They're getting to use the four corners of the room, which a lot of times we might ignore and try and keep all the students in the center, but they're feeling like they can fill out the whole space.

So that can be really engaging and fun. And then finally, with this older group, you know, I talked about doing the listening exercise and trying to incorporate social interaction with middle schoolers. I think for the older students, you can also delve a little bit further into the idea of doing some mindfulness exercises, some meditation.

It might look really similar to the music listening, but you might start to delve a little bit more into introception, how the students are feeling about their feelings, how different feelings that they're carrying with them from the day have manifested themselves in their bodies and what they need to do with that in order to have a successful dance class. You know, these are deep topics. I'm not saying that you take half an hour to unpack all of that before you start dancing because we just don't have that kind of time.

But if you do a brief exercise with the students as a group, you talk them through that, you get them to tap into that together and recognize that. And then you give them an assignment that if you happen to be tied up for those first couple minutes that they walk into the classroom, transitioning between classes, if you're not directly available to tell them what to do or to get them started, that they should be doing some kind of mindfulness, that they should be journaling, that they should be recognizing what it is that their bodies need and to be able to voice that to themselves, to you, to their fellow students. And that by being able to do that, they're setting themselves up for greater success as a group when they're dancing together.

That can be really valuable for teen students. So whatever age you're working with, biggest takeaways, you want to have as much set up ahead of time as possible, right? Get those playlists queued up, get any videos queued up, teach those exercises really early in the season. And lay that groundwork when you're talking about etiquette, when you're talking about the transition between classes, be upfront with the students that there are times that they will be expected to behave appropriately without your explicitly telling them to and if your back is turned, that doesn't mean it's a free for all that they need to be doing whatever it is that you're assigning them to do.

This kind of comes into studio policy mode. So you know, for me as a casual dance teacher, I'm not the one setting the studio policy, I'm very fortunate to be the beneficiary of a very well established and well communicated studio policy. But if your studio doesn't have one, and you feel like you're struggling with that transition time, because parents don't know what the flow is, students aren't coming into class prepared, or they aren't leaving respectfully, or they aren't utilizing the dressing room, the waiting room, whatever areas you have appropriately, communicate that with your studio owner, whoever it is that sets that policy.

Because no matter what you do, if people aren't aware of how to help you through that transition and make it as smooth as possible, or if parents think that the end of their students class is suddenly like free time to chat with you, and they don't realize that you can't do that, then, you know, parents will come to you with anything and everything if they can. And even if you communicate that they're not supposed to, that's not the time they still will. And sometimes it's fine.

I'm not saying it's always inappropriate to interact with parents during that time. But you want to minimize it as much as possible so that you're respecting the next group of dancers and their parents. So have it very clearly stated when people are supposed to communicate how people are supposed to communicate how they're supposed to come in and out of the space.

Make sure everyone's aware of that. Make sure that there are open channels of communication for parents to have their questions answered so that they don't feel like that is the only time that they're able to do that. And don't engage with certain parents.

This is such a tough one. You know, you're always going to run into this situation here and there where you have to deal with something in the moment, even if you don't want to, between classes, and it detracts from the previous class, and you just do your best with it. But that's why it's good to have the students be aware of what they're meant to do if you are called away.

And don't set a precedent where you're engaging with a parent because you're saying, Oh, well, you know, it's just this one time. So it'll be okay. I'll make an exception to the rule and answer all this parent's questions or something like that.

Be consistent with that so that you're modeling the behavior that needs to continue in order for you to have successful classes. And have a couple little backup activities or games, maybe have some coloring pages printed out and set aside at the studio or in a folder that you carry with you at all times, just in case you never know what's going to come up, right. So you should always have something on the back burner that you can just throw at the students be like, do this activity, do this for five minutes to buy you the time that you need in case you do need it.

Because again, it's always going to happen, right. And if you do happen to lose the energy or lose the focus of the students, don't take it personally. It may affect the rest of the class, maybe change up what you had planned for the class that day.

Maybe make it more of a social class, maybe make it more of a mindfulness class, a musicality class, a class where you're doing different activities and exercises, or just a very, very high energy class where you're throwing a lot at them to try to regain that attention that you lost at the beginning. It's okay, there's always something that we can do. But I hope that those exercises help.

And as always, I'm going to beg you please to give me your own feedback and your own exercises because I know this is an area where I could do a better job. I'm positive of that. So I'd like to hear your feedback.

The best way to share that is to get in the Casual Dance Teachers Network on Facebook and post or comment and tell me and our fellow dance teachers what it is that you do that really works well for transitioning between classes. What your studio's policy is, how you've worded that to make it successful for everybody involved. And as always, big thanks to GB Mystical for our fun theme music.

And here's kind of a goofy quote to close us with today. But I was thinking about how this topic really is important to me because I'm always so obsessive about not wasting any time in dance class because it's so limited. And I always, always want the students to be doing something and to be engaged.

And as I started to think about some of these more social, more fun games and activities that I'm recommending, this quote came to mind. The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. Bertrand Russell