The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast, brought to you by CasualDanceTeacher.com. 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. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so stoked for today's episode because I have been wanting to have today's guest on the show for over a year now.

It's a special treat because this is a guest that I have actually met in person, which a lot of my guests I haven't. I only know them and meet them virtually. But I met today's guest at a conference about a year ago from when I'm recording this, and we actually took a ballet class together, and she was so kind to share her portable ballet bar with me.

Of course, she had a portable ballet bar with her. I was totally unprepared, and she shared the bar with me. It was so nice getting to know her ever so briefly.

After I learned a little bit more about what she does, I was like, you have got to be on my podcast. It's the most perfect fit ever, and it just took a long time to make everything come together to get her on the show. So I'm so, so excited to finally introduce and have on the show Heather Jean Wilson.

To tell you a little bit about Heather's background, she is a ballet educator, curriculum developer, and arts administrator with more than 35 years of teaching experience. Heather is the creator of the Grunt If You Understand Teaching Method, which is a visualization based approach that helps dancers develop stronger technical understanding through imaginative and memorable learning tools. Throughout her career, Heather has founded and directed dance schools and companies, developed arts outreach programs, guest taught throughout the Northeast United States, and mentored generations of dancers, teachers, and arts leaders.

She's also the founder of Baa Baa Ballet, which is a preschool dance curriculum currently used by educators in 24 states and eight countries. Currently, Heather serves as an adjunct professor of ballet at Eastern University, and throughout her career, she's been dedicated to making ballet education engaging, accessible, and developmentally appropriate for students of all ages. Her teaching emphasizes visualization, artistry, musicality, anatomy-informed movement, and a lifelong love of dance.

How perfect for the Casual Dance Teachers podcast, right? I'm so excited to delve more into specifically the visualization aspect of what Heather does and the Grunt If You Understand Method. Without further ado, welcome, Heather. Thank you so much for being here.

Heather
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat all things dance.

Maia
Me too. And I have a lot of questions for you. So let's just jump right in.

And I want to start by hearing a little bit about your background with ballet and what led you specifically maybe in your career as a dance educator. What led you to start Grunt If You Understand?

Heather
Yeah, well, as a student, as a child, I grew up at Princeton Ballet, which is here in New Jersey, and at the Joffrey Ballet. And I loved dance.

I was going to be a professional dancer. I was going to get into ABT or New York City Ballet. You know, everybody's big goal is the two big companies.

And I was dancing at the Joffrey and taking my classes at Mason Gross School of the Arts because I was going to school there at Rutgers. And one day I'm walking down 42nd Street and I was like, I don't really consider myself a city person. And I was like, this is going to be a dilemma, Heather, because if you want to be in one of these big companies, you have to live and settle into the city.

So I started to rethink what I was going to do. And at the time I had started teaching when I was 19. So I was already teaching a little bit.

And I did love teaching, but I thought, well, let me, maybe I'll become a teacher and maybe I'll open my own school. And if I open my own school, I'll open a nonprofit company. And then I can not only teach, but I could dance with my own company because I was still in my early 20s.

So what do they always say? If you can't find it, create it. So I created my own company. We're a nonprofit performing company and it was ballet based.

So now I'm teaching and dancing. And I guess, granted if you understand, it was just the way I was solving everyone's problems. So if they couldn't understand a step, I would just naturally come up with these visualizations and visualize this and this will help you understand it.

And years later, I guess I had been teaching for, I don't even know, probably 25, 30 years. And I was teaching a group and they called them heatherisms. All the visualizations were heatherisms.

And they're like, Miss Heather, how many heatherisms are there? And I was like, oh, I don't know. So I grabbed a big stack of sticky notes and they all started writing them down and we put them all over the mirror. And then that class left and I looked at the mirror and there were 71 sticky notes.

And I was like, you know, this could be a book or I should pass these along because I know they work really well. I know that I can get these, you know, all of these things across to the dancers. But maybe it would be helpful for other people to have it.

So I kind of had that in the back of my mind for a long time. And then my current partner, we were talking about it one day and he was like, I don't think you should do a book. They need to see you in action.

He's like, I think you should do a video library. And that was it. Correct as You Understand was born.

I started recording different studios and splicing the videos together with my narration and my teaching. And it's all consistent.

Maia
Wow. Do you know how many you have in the library now?

Heather
I think there's maybe 108 online, but I have a big spreadsheet with all of them. And there are over 250.

Maia
Oh, my gosh, because that was going to be one of my questions was, you know, did these all start as things that you actually used in the classroom, which it sounds like predominantly?

Heather
Yes.

Maia
And then do you have a certain approach to adding more? Is it like, oh, I have to come up with a specific visualization for this move? Or do they just come to you as you're teaching?

Heather
It's a good question, because when we decided to make this library, I had to figure out how to organize it. And so I kind of need these categories, you know, some are for technique, some are for etiquette, some are for artistry, some are for musicality. And as I put them down into the spreadsheet, that's when they started to really pile up.

And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, we're over 200. And then also, so most of them had already been created, especially since I had been teaching so long. But I still teach.

So while I'm teaching now, if I have a student who's having a problem and a concept that's not getting across, then I'll, you know, on the fly, think of another one. And then I have to remember, like, write myself another little note, like, oh, don't forget to put that on the spreadsheet. That worked out really well.

So it still grows. I don't know how long I'll continue to make videos and putting them up on the library. I mean, I definitely want to try to get close to the 250. And depending on what other adventures and nonsense I get myself into in life, maybe I'll keep adding to it.

Maia
Very cool. So you saying that this started with you teaching at your own school with the dancers that were also going into your company, it sounds like this started, or at least a lot of these visualizations were designed for more advanced dancers or dancers that had some experience. Is that accurate?

Heather
Actually, no, it's for it was for any age group. So it could be as simple as, let's say, a first grade ballet one group and day one, the minute they walk in and they go to approach the bar and you're teaching them to start with your left hand and how far they're supposed to be from that bar and how their hands are supposed to take that bar. I mean, the very first visualization is that you're going to visualize that bar as your partner.

So even the very beginner dancers are learning visualizations right off the bat. So I teach them how to hold the bar with four fingers without the thumb tucked underneath because they're imagining holding their partner's hand. And how would you hold their hand? Would you squish their hand? Would you lean on them? You know, so each visualization can help with beginners all the way through the dance.

Obviously, if it's a visualization to help with fuette turns, the beginners are not going to have that. But it was really just to help every single one of my students, no matter the level, the age, how to work organically. You know, I teach at a university and I have students with all different body compositions and degrees of turnout and flexibility.

So some of the visualizations are for that to help you use your turnout that you were personally born with and not to force. So, you know, some of them are also for anatomy and kinesiology and body longevity and health.

Maia
Okay. Thank you for clearing that up. Because, you know, when I first heard about your program, I think I was reflecting on visualizations that I use. And I tend to use a lot with younger dancers when they're first coming in.

I'm thinking, you know, how can I put this in terms that they understand? But I think that one of the areas where I need improvement on is that as the dancers get older and more experienced, I might phase those out and just assume that they know what I'm talking about. And they have an understanding of what's happening in their body, and they really don't. So when I looked at your library and saw that there were different levels, and it actually is organized by this visualization can be used for this level and this level, something clicked for me. And I was like, Oh, wow, there's so much depth to this. That's really cool.

Heather
Yeah, it's great. You know, some of them get very visualizations are so you're fine tuning such small aspects of technique. So, you know, the visualizations are obviously going to be for that advanced dancer that's just tweaking, let's say pelvis alignment, or an eight palm off visual focus. It's, it's something that's not reserved for little ones. It's only for the older students.

Maia
Do you happen to have an example of one that you don't mind sharing with us that maybe you saw an aha moment in a student when you shared that visualization or you saw some kind of change in a class or a specific student?

Heather
Yeah, I can actually give a couple. Speaking of beginners, I just taught at a school may have these things called power hours where they bring in, it's a semi private.

So there were five students. I had never met any of them before. They were all, let's say, first, second, third graders.

And right away, I start teaching my system, just because it's my method of teaching them, it helps. So I see them all facing the wrong way at the bar, you know, so we go over the bar as your partner. And then we were talking about your brava position for the arms, because we're going to start right off in first position, brava arms or omba, preparatory, whatever you call it, and their hands are leaning on their costumes on their tutus.

And I said, you can't have dirty paws on your tutus, because I'm not going to give you a white tutu if you put those muddy chocolatey hands down on your body. So they're visualizing getting your dirty paws off your tutu. And then their hands are harsh, and they're stressed.

And I'm like, and also, you need to be holding baby chicks in your hands, you need to make little nests. Are you going to squeeze the chicks? No, you're just going to cradle them. So now I'm watching, like speaking of aha moments, it's literally one after the next.

Now they're the proper distance from the bar. Two minutes later, their arms are off of their body. Another two minutes, their hands are shaped.

And then it just progresses through the class. And I also have them visualize that they should retain all of these corrections and use them in all of their classes for the rest of their careers. So I'll finish the dirty paws.

I said, OK, put that in your pocket. And they put the dirty paws, you know, physically, they're putting it in their imaginary pockets. So at the end of this power hour, I had given them so much to take home with them.

And every one of them, I told them to put it in their pockets. So at the end of class, after reverence, I said, OK, hold on. Everybody sit down in a circle.

Empty your pockets on the floor. And now they got the giggles. You know, it's also great just because it's so interactive and it's playful, which is great for younger students.

So they poured them all out on the floor. And I said, OK, let's go through each of them. And I want you to make sure you still have them before you put them back in your pocket so we could go down the list of the visualizations we had learned that day.

And, you know, dirty paws and baby chips and credit cards and everything. I'm like, OK, put them back in your pocket and use them forever. But yeah, the aha moment, like I went home after teaching that class.

And even though I've been teaching this method, my whole teaching career, I'm always shocked at how well it works, especially like in a short hour. They left so much more on their, you know, so much more knowledge and so much more fixings for their technique and their artistry and everything. So it's great.

Maia
Yeah, I love that having them physically put it in their pocket and then take it out and present it at the end. I think so often we can get fixated, especially with the young ones of going like, are you listening or they're not listening to me? I've said the same correction so many times and it's just not sinking in. So having those physical and visual cues is huge.

And actually, this brings me to another question that I had, which sounds like it's another sort of cue that you use to check in with the dancers, which is the name "Grunt if you understand." Can you talk more about the origin of that?

Heather
Yeah. It's funny that you said that a lot of times you're checking in with your students because they don't seem to be paying attention or, you know, are you really memorizing everything I'm saying? So that's where this comes from.

When I was dancing with Princeton Ballet and I was between the age of 12 and 17, the director at the time, his name was Dermot Burke. He's one of my mentors as far as who I want to become as a teacher. He was very strict and knowledgeable, but he also was funny and warm.

And one day he's teaching me early in my career with him. And you know how those dancers get those blank faces and you've given the combination, but they don't, you don't know that they're there with you right now. But I guess he, as a teacher, would see us looking like that and he would just suddenly say, hey, Grunt, if you understand.

And we would just jar to attention and jump up and we would all grunt together. And I think it was, you know, it was obviously his tool of, are you with me? Are you following? Are you understanding? And I always used that as a teacher when I started teaching. And then when it was time to put this program together and offer it to others, I was like, I think I have to name it Grunt if you understand.

Number one, Grunt if you are understanding all these visualizations and all of these tips and tricks we're giving you. But also, I thought, since it was originally going to be a book, I thought, can you imagine going to Barnes and Nobles and looking at that kiosk and seeing that dance related book called Grunt if you understand? How could you turn it down? Yeah.

Maia
Yeah, it's a great name and it really makes the point. And I feel like it also kind of levels the playing field, I guess, especially with like teen students I'm thinking of that sometimes can have an attitude and they don't really want to like talk to you. They just want to kind of want to go through class, but they can probably at least muster up a Grunt. So I can see that being very effective.

Heather
Yeah, it's almost like a tension breaker. Yeah, gives everybody a quick giggle, brings them back down to earth. And we're all together again.

Maia
So yeah, I had read about that and some other things on your website that I really liked. And one of them that I want you to talk more about for the listeners that really it just spoke to me and I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast before is the difference between giving a class and teaching dance. I love that you pointed out that there's a difference. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit more about your experience with that.

Heather
Yeah, absolutely. This is I think it's one of my main points as a teacher is that not even just a sales point.

It's just like one of my strengths as a teacher is that I teach versus giving a class because there's so many people and there's so many teachers out there that may have been beautiful dancers and danced with top companies. But that doesn't mean it's two different animals. A good teacher, a good dancer doesn't always make a good teacher.

Some do, but some don't. And vice versa. Some of us who are teachers shouldn't be on stage.

But yeah, there's plenty of teachers who can compile combinations, throw the steps together and give a great class. They can give a great class. But can they teach a class? And to teach, it became more of an issue of how do you do these steps? Not that you can do them, but do you know how you should be doing them? And it could be in reference to terminology.

Do you know what that terminology means? So my job as a teacher is to teach them what that means for anatomy. Do you know why your body is working that way? So it's my job to teach them that instead of just a step. It's like, how is your body moving through that step? What does that step mean as far as the terminology? Even expression and artistry or etiquette, the etiquette of a classroom. All of those things need to be taught and you can't just give combinations and expect them to get all of that from a sequence of steps.

Maia
Yeah, this is a great transition. So we have time - we can always come back to talking about visualization and grunt if you understand, if you want to. But I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because I know that grunt, if you understand, is not actually your only like resource for dance teachers. You have a lot that you offer. And can you talk about some of those others outside of grunt if you understand? Because I'm sure that also helps with all these other avenues of really educating in dance and not just giving a class.

Heather
Yeah, yeah. So I teach guest classes. In addition to my full time job, I teach at a university, but I also teach guest classes. So whether that be in a convention style setting or at a summit or just in a studio setting, I try to travel around, especially in the summers and teach guest classes. And my guest classes can be ballet, floor bar, progressive ballet technique. Fosse jazz is one of my specialties. And then I also do more workshop style classes that are in ballet terminology, etiquette and character building and obviously visualization for ballet mastery, which is the Grunt if You Understand program.

And then lastly, I have another curriculum. It's for preschool dancers, and it's called Ba-Ba Ballet. And that was another program that I created early in my career when I had that school and I had preschoolers. And I needed to prepare them for hopefully becoming an extra diploma fairy in my company.

So I didn't just want to give them a wand and let them run around. I didn't want to babysit them. I wanted them to actually learn what they need to be preparing for ballet, jazz, musical theater, tap.

So it covers everything in creative movement, from rhythm to light tumbling to age appropriate ballet training, musicality. And I based it after nursery rhymes because I was, you know, we use themes because young ones love themes. And I was like, all right, how many diverse months are in Nutcracker? OK, that's not enough for a two year program, you know, or I don't even know.

So I was like, I loved nursery rhymes. I always got a kick out of nursery rhymes. They're funny.

They're sweet. They include boys and girls and young and old and creatures. So I was like, OK, wait a minute.

This is going to give me an endless supply of material and themes for my program. So, yeah, I started that long ago and again thought it would be a book. And it's a new day and age. So you can create these online curriculums and actually video and PDFs.

Maia
And did I see that some of the songs are also now on streaming?

Heather
Yes. Yeah. I had a lot of people ask if there was music included, and it included a playlist, like an Apple playlist, where I went through and found your classic Jack be Nimble, Jack be Quick. And I really curated the list to be somewhat classical, but then also expose the students to different types of music. So there could be a more reggae style piece of Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, or there could be a brass band version of Little Miss Muffet.

So I tried to make a really varied list of music that people could use. But I had people ask me for follow along songs, and I was like, man, maybe I could create them. So again, with this day and age, you have a lot of options with creating music.

So I started writing the lyrics, including all of the instructions for each themed piece, and then used these resources, these online resources, to set it to music. So that's, I'm trying to do one a week and get them, get all 48 of them done. But we're probably about a quarter of the way there.

And I just keep releasing them slowly over time. But eventually, Baa Baa Ballet will have all original follow along songs for every single lesson.

Maia
Cool. Yeah, I can see the benefit of that too, with classes I've had in the past that I'm thinking of. And I think there was something else, I'm probably totally butchering this on your website that was like, who knows what's going to come next from Ms. Heather's crazy wild brain. Your crazy wild brain is doing the best things because these are all resources that I wish I had as a dance teacher at some point.

Heather
Yeah, when you're a creator, and you're a creator, and you just can't stop. I mean, I just wish there was a better way to take notes while I'm driving because I'm texting myself all these ideas.

Maia
Yes, I'm with you on that. Now, before we close, I do want to also make sure that listeners know how to connect with you and all of those things. But like I said earlier, I feel like we went through Grunt If You Understand so quickly, and you provide a lot of great examples and details about that program. But is there anything else that you wanted to mention to the listeners or that we didn't cover yet?

Heather
I will say because it's such a vast library of visualizations, I'm going to redo the website and try to create clearer paths for that. Because like you mentioned, you're like, oh, are these for beginners? Are these for advanced? Are these for professionals? And I feel like I could probably lend a hand navigating the videos and knowing which to use first and second and third, like with a particular age group. So that's my goal this summer is to create some paths for different levels and to help teachers find out which videos to use in which order.

Okay, cool. So beyond them being categorized, and it being an open kind of library that you go in and pick a category, this will give you kind of my way that I go through the order in a class meeting when you meet students for the first time, or if you're fine tuning classes that you've had for a while. Yeah, so I'm excited for that.

Maia
Yes, I'm sure that's no small project.

Heather
So no, it's not, I'm gonna have to create more spreadsheets.

Maia
I love a spreadsheet.

Heather
So it gets a little out of control. And I'm, I'm in school right now, I'm going to be going for my master's because as a dancer, you know, I don't always go the college route.

And I went for a couple years and then ended up going to dance professionally and opened my schools and my life took a different path. But it's fun to be back in school now in my 50s. And I took a data visualization class, which is really interesting because of my love of visualizations, but this is visualizing data.

So it's helping me take my spreadsheets with all of this data and kind of create visualizations to help people see it more clearly. So I was like, Oh, this can be very helpful for navigating our site. We'll maybe clear some questions up.

Maia
Wow, that's awesome. Lifelong learner. I love it. Props to you.

Okay, so let's circle back with all of these resources that you offer. How can folks listening connect with you and learn more?

Heather
The easiest way to connect with me would probably be my name, Heather Jean Wilson, because if you go to heatherjeanwilson.com, that will have links to take you also to gruntifyouunderstand.com. I know that one's really hard to remember. And then baabaaballet.com. So any of those websites, you'll be able to find me and they all cross link to the other programs.

Maia
Perfect. All right. And my final closing question is always, do you have a favorite quote related to the topic today?

Heather
I guess it would be William Arthur words, if you can imagine it, you can achieve it. Because in Gruntifyouunderstand, I always told them if they could visualize it or imagine it, they could then understand it, and then they could execute it or achieve it. So I love that one.

Maia
Hey, everybody, it's Maia hopping back in just to wrap things up with another big, big thank you to Heather for finally coming on the show after all this time since we took ballet bar together. I also as always want to thank GB mystical for the theme music that you hear at the beginning of the show and a big thanks to everyone in the casual dance teachers network on Facebook. The network is growing and I just love connecting with everybody, sharing my thoughts, hearing your thoughts, getting feedback on different random things that pop into my head. So thank you for that. If you're looking for additional ways to connect with me, remember that we also have a YouTube channel, the casual dance teachers podcast on Instagram, and the casual dance teacher on Reddit, you can find me on all of those platforms.

And most importantly, if you haven't visited it yet, I finally sort of consolidated everything on to casual dance teacher.com. So that is sort of your one stop shop to listen to the podcast, find out what I'm up to and what I might be able to offer you. I also have some wonderful resources from guests of the show who were kind enough to share resources for free with anyone who visits the website. So there's tons and tons of free stuff on there that you can benefit from as a dance teacher in any style of dance, any level, whether you are casual or professional, pre-professional, there's something for everyone at casual dance teacher.com. So be sure to hit up the website.

I still encourage you to please leave a review for the podcast wherever you're listening, because that helps us to continue to reach new dance teachers, which is really important to me why I started the podcast. And with that, I will see you on the next episode.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)