Encouragement for everyone

Encouragement
Everyone needs encouragement, some of us more than others. There are little dancers that dance no matter what you say or don’t say. They are motivated like crazy and work the same way. Then we have the little timid kids, the uncoordinated ones or the ones that might have had a careless remark sent their way. “You are such a clutz” or “I bet that dance teacher is having a hard time making you learn how to dance”, “When are you ever going to learn to skip on two feet?”, “You know you have to be slim to be a dancer” and the list goes on.
We as teachers don’t know what has been said to these little dancers. The little ones trying to learn to skip, tie their shoes, put their tap shoes on the correct feet, the older ones trying to learn to turn, the even older ones working on arabesque and développé height and still others that might be feeling like it isn’t worth it to keep trying.

Remember to keep reminding them how far they have come and where they are now and not how far they have to go. Say things like “remember when you couldn’t skip, and then you worked really hard and kept trying and now you can skip like a pro?” Reminding the intermediate student of how high they could développé in second last year and now how high their leg is going after working on it for a year, how many chainé turns they could do last year (probably none if they were just learning them last year) and now they are turning like a champ, and remember to do the same thing for your helpers, student teachers, office help and teachers. We all love a pat on the back and a reminder that we are getting better and better.
Just one of the things dance classes teach everyone is:
We don’t know how to do it now
We work really hard
We never quit
And now we know how to do it
This is not only a dance lesson but a life lesson and a great one to learn at an early age. We can do whatever we want to do and put our minds to learning how to do it, working really hard, never giving up our dreams and then one day Voila!! We did it!

You can do it too! Remember when you only had 10 students and now look at you!
You did it!!!!
And remember: There’s no crying in dancing school.