Actually, I agree if by "dancer" you mean "performer". A teacher doesn't have to be able to physically dance much above her students - but s/he needs to understand the dance and be able to communicate it to the students. ...the teacher needs to understand how to create the movement and how to spot what difficulties the student is experiencing. Many "great" dancers cannot do this as they adopted the dance as easily as breathing and cannot understand why the students cannot do the same.
I am afraid we can't suggest clubs as, as far as I know, few bellydancers work in clubs (maybe in some ME countries you will find bellydancers) ... different type of dancer. Also we have no idea where you live, so that would make it difficult to suggest anything.hello friend,
I am dancer and I want to join a club for show my dance, so that i can know about my dance, is good or normal.Suggest me a club..
I'm a bit conflicted on this. I held back from teaching for years because I didn't think I was a good enough dancer to begin teaching. But then I got incredibly frustrated seeing what WAS being taught. I knew that I could give students far more insight, far more authenticity, far more knowledge than many of the teachers who are out there teaching.
I guess my irritation is when people start teaching when they are still in the initial phase of "belly dance is a bunch of moves". The moves are the toolbox but I don't believe people should be teaching until they've got through that stage and realised there is so much more to it - connection with the music, emotion, interpretation, etc.
I'm a bit conflicted on this. I held back from teaching for years because I didn't think I was a good enough dancer to begin teaching. But then I got incredibly frustrated seeing what WAS being taught. I knew that I could give students far more insight, far more authenticity, far more knowledge than many of the teachers who are out there teaching.
For me, the conflict became thus: do I hold back and keep waiting until I am "great enough", but in the meantime allow the scene to keep being flooded with those I have described above, or do I do the small amount that I can to counter this, by teaching myself...I'm definitely not saying I'm great, but ...
I have to disagree -- in part, I think. At least about being a good dancer.
I do not believe that a person can be a good teacher without also being a good dancer.
That's kind of like me offering to teach guitar lessons. (I am barely more than a beginner.) I can teach you some chords, but my own weaknesses include: reaching fingers into complicated chord shapes, transitioning between chords, keeping a consistent tempo, finger-picking skills in general, reading the bass line, being able to play with any dynamics, etc. There is NO way whatsoever that I could adequately prepare a beginning guitar player for future lessons. More importantly, I'm quite likely to encourage that student to develop seriously bad habits that might take years to unlearn.
Thinking that a teacher only needs to have SLIGHTLY more experience than her students is what has degraded our dance. If you aren't good at something, why on earth would you teach it????
At one time I would have agreed fully with this as it makes total sense.
However, over the years I have actually met teachers (some who are very well known in this field) who are full of knowledge about this dance and can stand in a class and teach a great deal, but come to perform, and.. well..its not that great.
There have been 'wow' performers who have been dreadful at teaching.
There is another category of teacher who is awful at knowledge, technique and performance.
I dont think it is that cut and dried to be honest, I have been left scratching my head on numerous occasions.
Very rarely do we see all of the 'dance' talents merge into one person.
Yeah, what you said, Caroline. Sometimes that is what is expected of teachers and the very idea makes me want to go hide.
Performing is a skill that some people are great at.
I'm not saying you have to be Aziza or Jillina to be a good teacher. But I do think you have to be a good DANCER (maybe not a fantabulous performer, but a good dancer) to be a good teacher. I'm NOT saying you have to be a great performer. I make the distinction between having an understanding and technical ability to DANCE, and putting that on stage.
Some great Performers also don't have that much technical ability, but they can work a crowd like nobody's business.
For the record, I bought this book and it's AWFUL. So awful, I'm actually going to try to send it back to Amazon. I'll post an actual review in a little while.
I now have several books on teaching bellydance, and have bought several courses, and I can say without a doubt that the one that taught me the most about the discipline of actually TEACHING BELLYDANCE is Taaj's Bellydance Trainer modules and her book Beyond Combos.
Disclaimer: I don't know Taaj. Never met her. But her course material is the most thorough and covers the stuff that good teachers actually teach in class. I'm happy with most of the stuff I have, but I think Taaj's material is the gold standard for teacher training.
Thanks for taking the time to get this book and let us know.This book was probably written for a beginner teacher, but even with that knowledge, my thought is that if you can't write a simple 32 count combination, you don't need to be teaching to begin with.
Funny thing... I am anything but a teacher but I stumbled on her book on Amazon and wish listed it because it just looked so useful. Could it be used by a determined student as well?