Yasmine Bint Al Nubia
Moderator
Ok my beautiful people, here's my rant. I currently have 3 classes at the time all within the first 12 weeks of our Beginner A curriculum. This is the first time I've had classes of students who do nothing but walk upright. The greatest frustration is coming from the students themselves and it's so hard to see them struggle with just standing in basic position. Last night my 6 pm class (which is in week4), we were adding variation to the 4 ct base step(forward,middle,back,middle)I had to b-r-e-a-k i-t d-o-w-n v-e-r-y slowwwwllllly and they were introduced to this step in week one. it was just awful to watch feet flying all over the place and bodies swaying in all sorts of directions.Usually there are 1 or 2 such students but the whole class!
My teacher who was there also, heard but didn't see the class, after the torture was over, she just rolled her eyes. I asked her for feedback and she felt I did what was appropriate for the class at the time. Again the hardest part is that the students are acutely aware of that they have serious lack of coordination. My teacher and I have already started recovery plan:
1) Stop here in the curriculum, progress no further until the students can truly understand what they are doing.
2)Drill the moves only esp during warmup-and focus on one set of movements during combination section. For example, just use hip circles with medium paced music.
3)Offer continued encouragement.
Does anyone have any other ideas, plans experience along these lines. I truly believe that bellydance can actually help them overcome these physical obstacles and hope they stick around long enough for it to work.
Yasmine
Thanks for listening
My teacher who was there also, heard but didn't see the class, after the torture was over, she just rolled her eyes. I asked her for feedback and she felt I did what was appropriate for the class at the time. Again the hardest part is that the students are acutely aware of that they have serious lack of coordination. My teacher and I have already started recovery plan:
1) Stop here in the curriculum, progress no further until the students can truly understand what they are doing.
2)Drill the moves only esp during warmup-and focus on one set of movements during combination section. For example, just use hip circles with medium paced music.
3)Offer continued encouragement.
Does anyone have any other ideas, plans experience along these lines. I truly believe that bellydance can actually help them overcome these physical obstacles and hope they stick around long enough for it to work.
Yasmine
Thanks for listening