The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Maia
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be. Let's talk about it.

Hey, everyone. Happy early Valentine's Day to those who are listening on the day that this episode first comes out. Because tomorrow is Valentine's Day when I'm releasing this, I'm going to start today's intro with a little story. Do things a little bit differently. Those who have been listening know that I just love love and I love to follow a theme.

So I want to tell you how today's episode sort of came to be. We have two very special guests today. We have Mr. Chris, Chris Tyler, and his wife, Jenny Tyler, joining us to talk about Mr. Chris, clean dance music for all different styles of dance.

We'll get more into that in a second. But I just want to tell you for the theme of Valentine's Day why I'm so obsessed with this couple and today's episode. So Mr. Chris reached out to me about doing an episode talking about his process for creating these clean dance mixes and using them in hip hop, tap and other styles of dance as well.

And I was really excited. I love his music and the way that he goes about incorporating all these different cues in music that dance teachers can use really easily in their classes. So I was so on board for that.

And we were doing my typical system of kind of prepping a guest for an interview, which is just emailing back and forth with like dates and notes about what we're going to talk about and things like that. And I get this email from Mr. Chris. I'm just going to read it to you.

He says, Maia, I'd love to invite my wife, Jenny Tyler, to join the episode if you're open to it. She's a longtime dance teacher and is really the person who originally shaped the entire Mr. Chris concept. The idea of teaching through music and creating classroom ready tools came directly from her experience in the studio. I think having her voice in the conversation could add a really helpful teacher perspective and give listeners a deeper look at how the brand came to be.

So immediately I'm like, how wonderful to prop up your wife's voice in the conversation. And yes, absolutely. Like all voices that can contribute to this conversation are so welcome. So I was really excited about that. And I thought in my head, I was like, when we're recording, that's going to be a little bit before Valentine's Day, husband, wife duo, maybe this could be a Valentine's Day episode.

So fast forward, we get to the recording day, and I turn on my camera for the call. And here's Chris and Jenny sitting right next to each other on the couch. They're sharing a set of headphones with the earbuds like in their outside ears. So you know, they have to be really close together with the earbud in their outside ear. And my heart just melted and the way that they spoke throughout the interview, you will hear obviously that they just have this really beautiful collaborative mindset and approach to communication and they're bouncing off of each other while also like listening and propping each other up. It's just so awesome.

So yes, immediately I was like, yes, this is our Valentine's Day episode. We've got a super adorable couple doing amazing things for dance teachers. At the beginning of our conversation, they do kind of talk a little bit about their own backgrounds.

And then we get into what they're doing now more at the end. So rather than read off both of their bios, I'm just going to let them speak for themselves so that this intro of me kind of like swooning over like, oh my gosh, so cute. I don't need that to go on for too long.

I want to make sure you hear from them. It's already kind of a longer episode because of everything that we unpacked. So let's get right into it.

I did just want to add one more thing, which is that during this interview, we did have a couple of little audio glitches. It's nothing major. And thankfully, I didn't really lose any of the content of the actual conversation.

But the reason why I'm bringing this up, even though I hate to draw attention to it, if you notice that like mid sentence or mid conversation, all of a sudden it sounds like the audio shifts or changes, and it feels very abrupt. It's just because we had to like very briefly, pause, reset, and then restart. And when that happens, you know, obviously, the audio can change a little bit.

But I didn't cut anything out as far as content. I just don't want anyone thinking that they missed something or something weird happened on their end. So there's a few little audio glitches that you can be prepared for in this one.

Things happen. It does not affect the actual content of what we're talking about. So I hope that you still really, really enjoy the conversation.

Here are Chris and Jenny Tyler. Chris, Jenny, thank you so much for being here on the podcast today.

Chris
Thank you for having us.

Maia
Yeah, I'm super excited. I want to launch right in because I got a lot of questions. I don't even know if we'll get to all of them. But I want to launch right in with hearing about how Mr. Chris developed. You have this awesome concept of creating music for teaching dance. And I just kind of want to hear about like, what's your background? What are the roots of that? How did that all come to be?

Chris
Whoa, okay. I don't know if we have enough time to let all of this out. But I mean, I guess the origin story, there's like, different parts of it. Like from me beginning as music and then...

Jenny
Pick up on the story as the music side.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so right after high school, I actually started off with a dance group. And then once we graduated, there was a friend of mine who asked me if I ever thought about singing. Because he had a singing group. And then I was like, no, not really. I just really only kind of dance. And that was like my focus until he came along and was like, you know, let's make a deal. And there were like three guys. It was a group called The Fellows.

And they were like, we'll show you how to sing harmony. So you'll be just a background singer. But then you can be the choreographer for the group, you and another.

It was like two of us that dance. And so that was how that journey begun. And then we, you know, went out to, we're originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, went out to LA.

And in search of a record deal, landed a record deal with Warner Brothers. And that was the beginning of me, you know, kind of getting into music production. Like we wrote and produced a lot of our own stuff.

Then fast forward. So we're doing that. And then I was working with an artist here in Nashville.

And I ran into, like when I was here, I decided that I wanted to teach dance. And so I was working like a truck driving job in the meantime, trying to pay the bills. And found a studio by accident, had a dancer in the front yard.

And I was like, oh, let me go in here and see if they're looking for a hip hop teacher.

Jenny
Yeah, a sign in the front yard, but a sign to the dance studio.

Chris
Yeah, sign to the dance studio. But the reason I said dancer, because the logo was a dancer. And it caught my eye because I was not supposed to be even on that street at all. I like missed my turn. And I noticed this dancer and I was like, wait, it's a studio. So I'm going to go in there. And then I go in and ask if they ever had a hip hop teacher. If they were looking for one. And they said they didn't even do hip hop at all. And I was like, oh, OK.

And so I just thought it was going to be, you know, I'm like shot down, have to go back to work. I was like, OK, well, thanks for talking to me. And then the lady at the front desk runs out. She's like, wait, hold on a second. And she goes to get Miss Jenny, who was teaching dance. And that is my beautiful wife right here now.

But so it was like a double story. Like we met and I was like looking to teach, had never taught younger students before. So up until this point, I only danced myself, did choreography for the group and then did a few classes.

But they were like advanced classes. And then that was the beginning, the origin story of the dance journey of where Mr. Chris came out of.

Jenny
We taught ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, gymnastics, point, like standard dance studio. This was in back in 2001. So hip hop was actually kind of fairly new, you know, kind of on the dance scene. And people were doing hip hop, but they were, I think at the time, it was kind of transitioning from boy band when it came to dance studio hip hop.

Chris
Definitely boy band. Yeah, we're from Nashville, Tennessee. So it was a little later, you know, down here in the south.

Jenny
But yeah, my front desk lady came to me and said that I had to meet this guy. And he was so charismatic and, you know, all that. And I came out and asked if he could. Well, we didn't teach hip hop at all. I mean, none of my parents. I had, I don't know, 500 students.

Maia
Wow.

Jenny
Nobody was interested in hip hop, but I had a competition team. So I asked him to come back and show you two counts of eight. It was on a Thursday. Was it going to give me an edge for the competition. You know, like my jazz company was going to be like edgy with 16 counts of hip hop. But also in the back of my mind was like, if he's any good, maybe I could teach him to tap. Like not tap, but teach tap to Littles.

He was just who he was within five minutes. And I was like, oh, my gosh, these kids are going to eat this up. But I kind of was thinking maybe I could teach him to teach Littles and hip hop too.

Chris
Whoa. Yeah, that was the challenge of the whole thing. Because like I said, I never worked with younger students before.

And so, you know, but I knew everything that I was trained in was like all the classic hip hop, everything from popping, locking, waving, gliding. I started off as a break dancer. It was short lived, but I did it.

But that was the world where I came from. So I knew right away once, you know, I came in, showed the two counts of eight. It was terrible, in my opinion. I was nervous. It was nothing. But.

Jenny
But the kids loved him. Like it was just just like the front desk lady at the dance studio. She was like, you just got to meet this guy. He, I don't even know. And then I was like, I guess - I was teaching two year olds at the time and didn't have an assistant. It was 9:30 in the morning.

Maia
Oh, my gosh.

Jenny
I didn't have an assistant. You can only leave two year olds for 30 seconds. Yeah, maybe. So my front desk lady came and watched these two year olds for, you know, 30 seconds to a minute. And I said, come back on Sunday. We have a group. Give me 16 counts. He came in tight.

And then I just think it just kind of progressed. He started teaching hip hop for us. But my dancers, my dancers that I could like, you know, kind of sell anything to the company kids.

I wasn't going to be like, let's have him teach babies. We were only a ballet tap jazz studio. So he had like two company member ballerina bunheads.

And he had about six months with these two girls in black leotards, pink tights and pink ballet shoes. I was like, y'all have got to take off your ballet roll up your tights or something. You know, I didn't know anything. Yeah. So that was kind of that. Yeah.

Chris
And so that was the beginning of I knew that I had to like, in their ballet classes, everything had like massive structure and there were names for the moves. And I would notice, I would say no.

Jenny
Yeah. Across the floor, you know, in jazz, he was like, wow, if they just know what's next. I was like, yeah, pretty standard, you know.

Chris
So that was the beginning of me. I'm like, OK, so I have to break everything down from the beginning, the way I learned it. Yeah.

Jenny
Yeah. He would dance for the kids and he was just a phenomenal dancer. And I was like, but I want them to do that. I want them to look like you.

Chris
Yeah. And so, you know, I started teaching them all the fundamentals and then fast forward a little bit past that when I did finally have some of the younger ones and I was used to teaching the older ones. And I would call out, I would put on like an instrumental beat and I would call out the names of the moves.

So if it was a wave, I would be like, you know, bend your knuckles, wrist, elbow, shoulder, chest. And I would turn them into drills. So that was just normal class for me because I wanted them to know the names of, I would be like, let's do a tutting section.

So I'm teaching them like the fundamentals and the names of the moves that they had never heard of before. They were like, oh, I've seen that before, but I didn't know what it was called. I'm like, yeah, it's the twist-o-flex. It's easy. You should know how to do it. So we're doing that.

And then one day with my younger ones, one of the, I'll never forget it. One of the girls come in and she was like, can you play my favorite song right now? And I was like, well, what is it? And she was like, it's Usher. And the song is called Yeah.

So I was like, hmm, well, let me see if I have the clean version.

Jenny
I was the studio owner. So I wasn't just teaching. These were my 500 girls. And it was on the radio, Usher. I'm sorry to jump in on that. This is the part right here. He plays Usher. I think nothing of it. It's on the radio. The clean version. But it was for my baby company, which my youngest company was five and six-year-olds. And they just loved it. At the time, he, I mean, he was dressed crazy. And so I got a call from a parent.

And she said, you know, we want to discuss the music that's being played in the hip hop classes. And I was just like, well, of course, of course, you know, I'm being defensive kind of of it. And I just, I didn't, I didn't really think much of it. We probably got away with a lot of stuff teaching our jazz classes. But I didn't really think of it. He was also one of our first male teachers. It was the first hip hop, one of the first hip hop teachers in Nashville. It was, it was, it wasn't totally accepted. But they, they trusted me and the studio and our reputation.

So they went with it. And then a parent came in and had a conference with me with the lyrics. Printed out the lyrics and read them.

Chris
And the worst part, she read, like, the rap of, of Ludacris.

Jenny
A little defensive at first, just because I was like, he's such a great teacher. And then when she was reading them, I was like, yeah, this is bad. Bad. And I was like, we will give you a refund. And I do. And so that kind of started that. That was the beginning.

Maia
Wow. Yeah, my brain's going every which way about the cultural history of hip hop. I feel like that plays into all of this.

But I still do really want to kind of move forward with your journey and kind of take it in that direction. So you had this conversation with the parent. And it sounds like maybe mutually you both walked out of that.

And were like, "Oh, we need more clean, kid friendly options." Or no 0 Jenny's shaking her head no.

Jenny
Well, at the time, he wasn't teaching young children. He was with just our company, our competition team. And so I kind of moved it down the ladder in age group just to ease kind of the male teacher into the traditionally ballet tap jazz, you know, dance studio. So I started with the advanced students that had been there their whole life, then kind of moved, you know, into the intermediate and the younger.

And then it was the youngest company, five and six year olds. And I just thought we were just getting ready, like going to finish out this year. And then the next season, I would introduce him to recreational classes.

But that mid season, you know, parent that kind of came and said that I was just like, you're you're absolutely right. You know, I mean, you're right. Like, I love it, but I'm not five.

And I didn't at the time, I think I just had a one year old and this was a while ago. So I wasn't a parent yet either. I mean, I was a studio owner, but after that kind of transitioned, you know, that year went by and I don't know, I think I was a little bit timid about what I could say about the music, if that made any sense.

I was like, I don't know where I stand. You know, anyway, so we got through the year and then everybody loved him. And I was like, he's going on recreational classes.

And at the same time, I decided to start three and four year old. We had, I mean, two hundred, two hundred and fifty to three hundred students under the age of five. And so I was like, we're going to do three and four year old hip hop.

Chris
Oh, yeah. And it just I mean, it was it was so wild. It was fun.

Jenny
It was good. We combined it after a semester. I was like, an hour hip hop is not worth too long, too long.

They are. It's not going to work. So we did hip hop and tumbling classes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes.

And I was like, I can teach you how to teach them the skills going into that. So we kind of went there and then he did not know how to teach him. He was fantastic with the advanced students and the older kids.

And I mean, two hundred kids had fallen in love with him. And I was like, the babies are going to love him. But he got in there. I think he was started teaching them like dance, dance.

Chris
And then it went right into choreography. OK, five, six.

Maia
Oh, no.

Jenny
So we had to we spent, I don't know, two, three, four years developing our baby program, our under five, two to five year old hip hop program without music. And then we were like, there's no music for any of this. And then I think that's when you were like, I do music.

Chris
Well, even before that, it was one of the students who like we stumbled on it together, I'm going to say, because the same way I started with the older students, where I would call the drills out, you know, my feelings were hurt a little bit because I was like, oh, I didn't mean to play the the song, you know, on there. But she was so cute and it's her favorite song.

So I was like, every time I come in the class, all instrumentals, every class. So it was just my voice. So I'm in there and I knew that they all had to learn the wave. And the part that I didn't know that Miss Jenny kind of showed me later is that when you keep doing something consistently with that age, then they start to expect it. So they would come in and then I would just call out the drills over and over and would make it real silly. But it wasn't a song.

It's just me talking in the music. But then one of the students came in and was like, Mr. Chris, can you do the wave song again? And I was like, well, I don't.

Jenny
That's right.

Chris
I don't have the wave. I don't have a wave song. Yeah, you know, the one where you go knuckles, fist, wrist, elbow.

Jenny
And that was the beginning of I was like, wait a second. His parent visit started doing it. And I was like, well, the other teachers were like, his parent visits are so different. And he has fun. And, you know, we're all sweating. And they just like him because he's doing hip hop.
And I was like, I don't know on our cameras. Like, I was like, the parents are in their seat. Yeah. Dancing. Yeah. So that was the beginning.

Chris
It was just my voice. Some hip hop instrumentals. And then when they would ask for the song, then I started to talk to Ms. Jazz.

I think I can make the songs on there. And then, yeah, I can play them. And I can go around.

Jenny
Because I was finding it hard to make the corrections when I was teaching them. Because I'm teaching it. And they're not getting it. But I'm like, maybe if the words on the song can say it, then I can just go and fix the elbow, fix the hands, fix the. And so it just literally happened organically. Just in class.

Chris
And that was just how I was able to communicate hip hop moves to students who had never done it before. And the littles.

Jenny
Yeah. Really good for the littles.

Maia
So then, Jenny, were you the one that was like, oh, yeah, do this for Tap?

Jenny
Oh, yeah.

Chris
Yeah. Well, she was like, I need a song for my classes. Recital.

Jenny
Well, I had. I mean, I came from a studio background. I grew up in the studio world. So I was still using some really old music that were just works like Puffy's Gilbert. Like and I still was getting this record from an Alice in Wonderland. It's probably back in the 70s.

This record my mom had in her record closet at the dance studio. And it had the topsy turvy flowers. And it was just like, you know, I call it like it was a hit. I don't know. The two girls come up out of the flowerpots. And but I was getting these records turned into CDs.

And then and it was just really old and like terrible quality. And I was like, let's do Five Little Ducks. So my two year old started jamming like they were kind of a hit.

He started with a couple recital songs for me. And then it wasn't ballet until not a full ballet bar album. But, you know, we were just we were just doing.

We did Mouse House. Yeah, stuff that you need for class. And I needed structure, just song after song after.

I mean, our catalog is getting organized like over the years. And especially now that we're moving on to Patreon, we're putting everything in its right place. But I mean, it was it was a few years where it was just song, song, song, song.

Just we need it for class. Yeah.

Maia
Yeah, it is really unbelievable the amount of music that you've created. And I want to come back to that. I actually want to ask you something else first, because I did notice on your Patreon, you mentioned that you offer so many like demonstrations of how you're utilizing the music in class. And it's not all just with little kids, which was what I kind of initially thought is like, oh, it's like follow along songs for preschoolers. But it's not. It's also for older kids. So I want you to talk a little bit about that, like how you implemented these songs for the older students.

Jenny
I'll tell you, we teach we have three daughters and we teach them all. We've taught them all. And there are some drills. I mean, there's tons of hip hop material that is advanced and has been for a little while. But it was me not wanting to look at my own daughter's face. Yeah.

When I was doing devloppes, you know, center on each leg, my normal students would kind of take it, you know, but my own daughters, I was like, just pass their face and they're looking at me. So I was like, can you just make a devlope?

Chris
And I'm like, what's that?

Jenny
And I'm like, just say it. Just say it.

Chris
And then and then that's how our tag team just really blew up because she would write out all the drills she would need. And then I'm just on the beat all the time.

Jenny
And then I'd be like, say it like, say it like this and say this correction.

Chris
And and so can I can I be me on them? Like devloppe. Oh, gotta hit you with the devloppe.

Jenny
You know, sometimes they were just like, oh, but I'm like, you can't. I mean, he he's having a ball, you know, and they're just and we teach at the time we were teaching a lot of conventions and it's loud. And I was like, we kind of wanted to experiment with the music. So we started some across the floors and then I was like, there's going to be 500 students.

You know, I was like, it has to go on and on. And I was like, well, even if 500 go across the floor, one at a time, it's going to have to be five, six minutes long. Yeah.

And then I was like, in a regular classroom, if you've got 20, 30, 12 students and you're doing battements or grand jetes across the floor in jazz, they need to do two or three rounds of that, you know, and if you're going to across. So, you know, we put our own daughters through it a little bit. They were guinnea pigs.

You know, six, seven, eight, run, run, leap, and down, run, run, boo, do, do, do, do. Also, Chris, when he was trying to how do they know who's next? And my thing was like, because they know. I don't know.

I never really thought of it. So for like a new teacher, there was a count off. Or even when you find yourself as a teacher standing at the front of the line across the floor and you're just going over and over screaming five, six, seven, eight at the top of your lungs.

So the next two will go. And then you're like, y'all gotta pay attention. Yes, yes.

Over and over and over. Yeah. Yes.

Maia
Oh, my goodness. I love it. So you kind of have answered my next question in a few ways.
I wanted to ask about what you've seen in choosing music for dance classes in general. Like what is really good things to look for when choosing music? What are some pitfalls or things to avoid? Obviously, check your lyrics. Like that's kind of one of the lessons that I've learned listening to this.

Also, just hearing you sing it out, the retention for all ages, for all levels, being able to retain the information and also paying attention and knowing when to go and stuff through the rhythm. I understand that that's a benefit. Is there anything else? Like what are you thinking of when you're making it? Like, oh, I have to include this or I have to think about it rhythmically this way in order to communicate what I'm trying to communicate. How are you thinking about that when you're creating?

Chris
A lot of times I will work the whole thing in reverse. If it's if it's a hip hop, like if I know if I'm going into it and I know there's a routine that they're working on and then I'll think about the hardest sections of the dance, then I'll just kind of start working backwards from there. Like what kind of across the floor drill would they need to do to get these set of moves? And then how can I make that into songs? So then and then I realized like within every given dance, there's at least 20 songs that can happen from that.

If I take, you know, the amount of time, like if you're cleaning or if you're going over, you know, even transitions where I'm like, when you guys do transitions, you like fall out of the dance. You just walk or like duck down low and run. And so I'm like, OK, well, let's choreograph something that does that in the song.

And then I'll just play that for the across the floor. In class and then I'll go, OK, now you remember everything we've done for the last 45 minutes. All of those moves are going to be in your dance.

So everybody spread out six, seven. They're like, oh, we know this already. We feel comfortable.
We got this because you've already done it. But then there are drills that you can do all the time, whether you are cleaning the dance, getting better, getting bigger and stuff like that.

Jenny
Think about how long the class is, how old the kids are. We're very different, Chris and I. And it goes into the same song. Yeah. So I'm a little bit more of the this is what a five year old is going to do. Right. And Chris is like,

Chris
You know, and then we're going to go this and this and this.

Jenny
And then when he says, Chris says, I got to do this, this, this, this and this. And then I say they're going to do this.

I mean except for like the levels or the ballet bar which are just straight through yeah and the jazz is pretty structured straight through technique but a lot of the other songs there's there needs to be room in there for when, well there's a lot of children's music I did not use when I first started teaching because I didn't know what it was.

Maia
Yeah

Jenny
And so I just I actually didn't use a lot of music with babies.

Maia
Well I think a lot of the baby music is not designed for dance class. At least for me, and it's been a couple years since I taught like pre-ballet, but I felt like I had a lot of music that I could use to just like kind of let them get their wiggles out and as a break and then there was your typical ballet music but that was not engaging at all.

So it was really hard to find something in the middle like this that's engaging in what they're doing from a technical standpoint.

Jenny
And that's kind of tolerable to the teacher. Yeah, I mean because I don't play a lot of music in children's dance classes yeah I used to not just because it was it was just easier for me to do it. It was hard, I mean I was like am I just always gonna put on the most recent Disney song and say "okay yes." I mean and then, "Go to your spot, do an arabesque to the right, an arabesque to your left, tippy toe turn and take a curtsy?"

It was just over and over and over and over

Chris
That was one of the things I noticed about you though in the beginning when when she told me she wanted me to teach the younger ones I first said, "Can I come in your class and watch everybody?"

Jenny
25 teachers and he would, he only taught five hours a week not that that's not "only taught," but you know, for a full-time dance teacher that's so he would bring a notebook in and go to every different teacher's rooms

Chris
What I noticed about my wife I was like she's controlling the whole room with just her voice.
There's sometimes she wouldn't even play music and I'm like

Jenny
At the time to stop it it wasn't being played from the phone in early 2000s you were going to the player yeah and you just don't you know

Chris
But I'm like they're getting all these skills. Yeah so I was like that's what I want for hip-hop I want them to get all the skills yeah so it just made sense I was like I already had the the music knowledge so I was like let's just combine it and start making music like that.

Jenny
Yeah the tap stuff was money though. I mean because if you're trying to talk and trying to have them stay together. I used to do a lot of acapella advanced tap routines and they just you know get to speeding up speeding up.

So the tap stuff was really cool when we we just started I said we're just going to start with paradiddle it's like a fan favorite everybody - I taught him how to do a paradiddle actually before we wrote like to teach I was obsessed one tap combo that if they ever go to an audition they can say I know something and you can get faster and faster.

So he was like well I want to once he started tapping all the time he bought a pair of tap shoes

Chris
Oh, I was ready. I was in. You're going to teach tap, amazing. So that first album when she said we're gonna start with paradiddle actually what happened was after she said that we were just up talking one night and she's going on and on about these different moves so she's like talking about buffalo talking about maxi ford and I said you know what I'm gonna get my phone out and I'm gonna record this because I won't remember any of this.

I was like every time she said something like you know like the name of a move I was like well how do you do that. And I had my phone recording and so she would say what the move was that night we literally, I had the whole album on my phone and I went into the studio and start recording and she didn't even know.

I let her hear it I was like this is what I came up with from your conversation. She was like, "Oh it's perfect!" I was like, well it's you it's what you it's everything that you said and I was like I just followed that and then I put the beats to match the feet and then that's how the first tap album get put together.

Maia
Oh my gosh. This is so off the wall to say it has nothing to do with what we're talking about but because this is going to be like the Valentine's episode I'm really like, "Ladies, this is the definition of 'if he wanted to he would.' If you have an idea and he turns it into an album overnight he's a keeper.

Chris
I love it. She's like you did what?

Maia
Yeah that's beautiful. I have one more uh really hard hitting question for you as I told you in my notes beforehand which is how do you do all the things that you do? Because you got music, you've got youtube, you've got patreon, you're going to conventions, you're doing your public speaking, hyping people up left and right like how how are you doing this?

Jenny
You've got to see his assemblies his his school assembly was too... Well I used to make him, the second I knew he liked a microphone. I was like you know as a, when you're in the dance studio world you're kind of at every fair everything you know bringing your students to perform and you're trying to tell everybody, you know, about your classes.

And you know that's how that used to be, so I was like he likes a mic, and I was like listen, you're gonna host this whole thing

Chris
I'm like what am I?

Jenny
Just you're this talent show we we would host every school's talent show you know it's just it's marketing for dance studios doing all the local events but Mr. Microphone.

Chris
I was like I'm out yeah that was the best.

Jenny
Well I mean if you wouldn't have done that there wouldn't - that led to the assemblies. Because I was like sometimes communicating to people who didn't dance at all but I'm used to doing it in the music and then doing it in in public going to schools and doing it I'm like now it's it's 500 kids.

Jenny
I mean he's in California tomorrow in the morning and it's they're really cool because it's a huge group of teachers and kids and in the school setting - well they don't want to be there they don't want to be there and also it's kids.

I mean they're they're timid about dancing. It's really cool it's really cool what he can do it's motivation and movement.

Chris
It's really good it's great for talking about getting out the comfort zone and you know just all the different things that we learned basically dance lessons teach life lessons and that's kind of what I the whole foundation of the assembly is everything that I've learned from the beginning of this story all the way.

I'm still learning today it's just in dance it's all wrapped up in there so I don't know I mean I guess the way we do it just keep going and so you know we still have one one still in the house and we're all over with her and they teach yeah all three of them so that we still get to kind of be in there and the dance family.

Jenny
Yeah we got a lot of support from each other and our kids. It's cool.

Maia
Oh, so for people listening, obviously like I said it's a lot, but what's the best way for them to see everything that you have going on touch base with you follow you can you give some shout outs to those resources?

Chris
Yes. All, finally all the resources just say "Mr. Chris." That was a whole challenge. I think eight social - yeah instagram tiktok youtube - Mr Chris.

Jenny
Yeah "Zonda Flex" - he came 25 years ago as Zonda Flex and today he is Mr. Chris.

Chris
We transform.

Jenny
Yes all the socials @ Mr. Chris - you can and just dm him, us I mean, we have so much fun we just had um Miss Tammy. oh yeah before last we kind of put it out there to reach out to us for recital music if you need anything we probably have it we've got a catalog of well over 2,000 songs.

Chris
I mean so we and if not we can make it much more and so we kind of put it out there and a teacher was like do you have a slumber party song? We're like we don't.. so let's start writing.

So we wrote and produced it last night.

Jenny
And yeah, it's super cute.

Maia
Wow, this has been so fun this conversation I'm just like, thank you so much for doing this! And I know because you are a motivational speaker, maybe do you have a good inspirational quote to close out the show for us today?

Chris
Well the first one that comes to mind is we had a student that I always used to whenever my wife would be around in class saying things to students, he would always be like "there needs to be a t-shirt, there needs to be on a coffee cup," and so this one it stuck with me forever, and we actually wrote a whole speaking album from this one phrase and it is "You are too good not to be great."

Jenny
Yeah and and I think "keep learning."

Chris
Keep learning, Too good not to be great," Yeah, too good not to be great, and "go for the great."

Maia
Oh, thank you guys so much again this has been a blast thank you! y

Chris
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Maia
Hey everyone, thanks for sticking this out until the end, like I said I know it's a longer conversation, but how fun and beautiful was that to hear from both Chris and Jenny about their experience their history and how they built the Mr. Chris platform?

I just love it. I just want to say thank you again to both of them. Happy Valentine's Day to all of you thank you to GB mystical for the theme music for our show. Please show us some love on instagram at the casual dance teachers podcast and/or in the casual dance teachers network facebook group and on whatever platform you're listening by leaving a review commenting, interacting in any way that you can that really helps us out and sends that love back our way which would be so appreciated. Thank you.