1. Observe the Lead
Often, when we’re teaching a leader-centric movement or step, we tend to leave the follower role in the background. This can lead to the follower stepping into the step without any instruction on what their role requires them to do. ปั้มไลค์ can leave them mindlessly repeating something that they already know – or worse, doing it incorrectly. Instead, explicitly tell the follower what they need to do in their role to make a movement work. This can include things like weight transfer, posture, alignment, engagement, spotting, and more. By bringing the follower to the forefront of the class, you can balance your teaching and help followers see that their roles are equally important as the leaders’. Plus, it’s a great way to create students who can proactively troubleshoot when they aren’t feeling something the same way as their leaders.
2. Observe the Follow
It’s not enough to teach leads how to safely manage the needs of their follow – it’s also important to make sure that followers understand what they need to do in order to dance safely as well. In my experience, many teachers focus on teaching leaders how to lead certain movements without teaching the follow what they need to do in order to do that movement properly. This can be counter-productive as it can create a false sense of confidence in the leader that they can do anything without any additional instruction from the teacher. Observing the follow and explaining to them what they need to do in order to do the movement correctly is a great way to help your students ‘own’ their role more fully in the class.
3. Explain to the Follow
One of the most difficult things for leaders to do is communicate to their followers what they are responsible for. Especially in a dance context, this can be challenging because a follow’s role can be misunderstood or over-exaggerated by their leader. But a well-thought out instruction that includes both the most important thing to do and the most efficient way to do it can have a powerful effect on your follows.
You may have to experiment to see what works best for your particular set of students. But it’s worth a try. And there’s a good chance that they’ll come away from it with a clearer understanding of their own role and more confident in the ability to navigate a dance as a team. Hopefully, you won’t have to do too much explaining for them to get there!
4. Explain to the Lead
More teachers are starting to realize the importance of teaching followers how to navigate their role – from how to close hold, signs of discomfort, etc. But not as many teachers are taking the time to explicitly teach what the followers can do consciously within their role to make a movement happen. If you aren’t explicit about what followers are responsible for, their instruction can become inference-based and it’s easy to forget about them once the focus of a lesson shifts to the leaders.
If you’re unsure how to approach this, you can switch the order of instruction in your classes and feature a movement that is more a mirror of the follower’s aspect first before explaining how it is led. This can help balance the flow of your class and highlight the technical requirements of the follower role. And, it’s a great way to teach the follower what they can consciously do within their role so they are ready to respond when a movement isn’t working as well as it could be.