This week rocked in so many ways and consistently reminded me why I love to teach hoop dance. I had a heart-to-heart with one of my long-time students (who also happens to be a Hoola-Fit teacher). Check out this video to see what I mean.
And, just this morning, I had the opportunity to work with one of my Tuesday morning regulars. I was hired for a private lesson, and she had some reservations coming into it. She wanted to work on isolations and pop variations, but she came into the experience nervous and hesitant. “I can’t do it,” she said as I was putting on music and settling into our lesson. “It’s so frustrating, and I just can’t get it,” she continued.
I knew that I needed to take a different approach, from when I taught the move in class. These moments are the best… the ones where I get to be creative and stretch myself as an instructor. “Ok,” I said. “Let’s get rid of the hoops.” We put our hoops down, and I started teaching with metaphores. We pretended to “throw a baseball” and worked on our followthrough. I monitored her movement, and when I knew she was flowing with it, we added the hoop. She nailed the trick but didn’t realize it. “Am I doing it?” she asked, unsure of herself…
This is when I asked her permission to take a quick video. You should have seen the look on her face when I played it back, and she realized she “got it.” And it was quite funny listening to the audio and watching the replay. I was so excited that I squealed and shook the camera from jumping! And that’s not all… we ended up successfully executing two more variations of the move, and she skipped out of that lesson with the biggest smile on her face.
These are the moments that teaching hoop dance brings. She enabled me to think outside of the box today, and I provided the road map to help her reach her goals (while buiding her self confidence in the process).
Have you experienced moments like this? If so, please leave a comment below, and share your story…
Until next time… Happy Hooping!
XOXO,
Abby
