A cheery hello to all and welcome to September’s Blog,
As I said last month, I have been getting into the classroom a lot lately, as the student – and as such it has been very useful in me revisiting my own teaching techniques and honing those skills.
And the more I do other people’s classes, the more and more I am appreciating the information that can be of incredible importance in assisting the student { aka ME } in picking up the step effectively.
To this end I have discovered two of the major components in effectively getting the message of the step across to the student:
- WEIGHT TRANSFERENCE : this is such an important skill to develop when teaching tap I feel, as knowing when to transfer your weight from one foot to the other is often times paramount to the successful flow of the step and combination. As many of you would know – having your weight in the wrong place can totally undermine the step and see it careering into hopelessness. So making sure you explain to the student exactly when the weight is staying on the foot being used and when it is being transferred over to the other foot is incredibly important! I really can not stress enough how much more quickly your students will ” get it ” if they know where their weight needs to be. And in tap that can vary so much as sometimes we use the same foot twice, or transfer weight from one foot to the other whilst turning or sliding etc etc – so explaining that transference in detail could really ” make or break the step” for some of your students! This was really pushed home to me when I was trying a ” sliding type step” I had never done before. I just could not get it – and then suddenly I realised that my weight was all in the wrong place. If only I had realised earlier ha ha ha ah ha! But point made! This is super important!
2. WAIT WAIT WAIT FOR THE COUNT OF EIGHT: This is something I find a lot when I am teaching and that is that the children will often not realise that there is a pause somewhere……..often on the count of 8 funnily enough and so they start the next repeat of the step, on the L side on the count of 8 – instead of waiting to come in on the count of 1! It can be quite frustrating ha ha ha ha! So often times I will get them to add a ” click ” or “clap” in on that count of 8 and then take it out later when they have the hang of it. Another good idea, is to do any combination that has missed beats in two groups. GROUP A marks time by stepping, stamping or clapping whilst GROUP B does the combo. Then hopefully they will hear when those ” missed beats ” or ” waits ” align with the group holding time.
In my experience these are two of the major things that can stop your choreography flowing either visually or rhythmically – so always check on the WEIGHT and the WAIT!
With that in mind – enjoy your next month of teaching and I shall return to your inbox with another tapping tip then!
Christine
PS: And if you are looking for a structured set of lessons to use in your dance school – for all levels – check out the Tapatak Oz Syllabus online at: www.tapatak-oz.com
All our programmes are instantly downloadable online and accessible to all!
From 5yrs to Pre Professional – all levels come with a video file, music file and PDF written manual for easy class use. And it’s all explained in great detail from the front and back for easy ” on site ” learning with your tap staff – just like you are in a class with me.
AND – all clients have FREE ACCESS to all our updates and teaching tips on the website!
Enjoy 🙂