Someone Who Dances Well May Not Be Good at Teaching

As a trained dancer, I always hear people within the profession say, “Someone who can dance well may not be equally good at teaching”. What is the rationale behind this comment? I will discuss this question in view of the different functions of the left and the right brain.

In my opinion, unaccompanied, or solo dancing, is a deeply personal experience, mainly controlled by the right brain, which is in charge of sensibility. Whenever someone dances in this manner, he or she is using their physical body to express the rhythm of the dance by merely following their intuition. While they may occasionally need to consciously think of how to perform bodily movements in terms of an aesthetic sense, or to be briefly aware, in order to control a subtle change from movement to movement, everything else happens subconsciously, if not instinctively.

Conversely, teaching someone how to dance requires the analysis function of the left brain, which has more layers of transmission processes, and is how you are able to express, as well as demonstrate, your understanding of dance to another. This involves multiple teaching skills including movement demonstration, verbal explanation, analysis of the dance, and imaginary guiding. When done correctly, such teaching often provides a clear guideline of how to perform a specific dance movement in order for the participant to replicate it completely, both theoretically and physically.*

Hi, Ya Wen. Great job! Whatever changes I made were to allow your sentences to sound more natural to my native ears, to clarify your thoughts, and for ease of reading. Sincerest apologies if I misinterpreted. I hope that this helps you. J.

*Over the past few years, I had thought that “Right brain/Left brain” theory has fallen out of favor, so I am not sure whether it should serve as the basis of your analysis. Personally, I have never heard the term, “self-dance,” thus, changed it to "unaccompanied" and “solo.” Finally, as to your last sentence, as originally written, it was an “absolute” statement, however, my own teaching experience has been that the conceptual limitations and physical shortcomings of each student are the difference between one being at the top of the class, and others being a level or two below, despite both receiving the same exact teaching. Therefore, I “qualified” it by inserting the word, “often.”