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Thread: Muggle's first MJ night

  1. #41
    Registered User Lynn's Avatar
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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisA
    What they do get, apart from some fun and some socialising, is an aspiration - a hope - and maybe a little learning that gives them the confidence that maybe they'll be able to do it, and the courage to come back and try again.
    We had a lot of muggles along on Wed night here in Belfast - maybe 28 amongst 34 in the class. And we don't even have a teacher, so those of us who can dance a little bit had to teach them a few moves. (Goodness knows how many bad habits they are picking up! But its literally that or nothing here.) Quite a few were up on the floor in the freestyle practising the moves they had learned, if they got it wrong, trying again... and I would say that more than half will want to learn more. (And we don't have a teacher ) I will be really pleased if even a few people who came along on Wed night, never having done any form of partner dancing before, have got now some aspiration and hope that they can learn more.

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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    The early classes I attended were so badly taught as to be frankly off-putting. The best training I had was from like-standard female partners who also wanted to work out how to enjoy getting better at dancing. Taking a muggle at their first attendance and enthusing them to do a begginers class later is a vital task and giving a male muggle the encouragement to continue til his lead develops is an even more important task.

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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisA
    After the class, and watching people as you say, I certainly wanted to be able to be do it (duhhh ), but I'm not the sort of person that can still enjoy the kind of lumbering around that new beginners do when they're trying to remember what they did in the class. I hate the feeling of awkwardness, and all I want to do is find a way of not feeling so awkward.
    point conceded - I feel blessed that I picked it up so quickly, or at least didn't seem to suffer from a "lumbering around" phase (in my mind anyway - reality may have been subtally different ).
    I also feel that for men it must be harder than ladies; they seldom have the chance to just loose themselves in the music or forget about what they are doing - it's a constant and paniced "what next?!"

    I wonder if more people were more sensitive to the reality of how the beginners feel in the early days, and enabled them to get through that initial period of awkwardness and frustration, if more of them would stay and not give up.
    Who's reality? Since one in five stay on, it's only realy those that you can measure; and if the majority of those are of the same "aquardness and frustration" reality but remained, then perhaps it is something else?
    Personally I think it's more an ego thing - most folk can't stand being singled out as being bad at something. :shrug: I doubt we will ever know.

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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    Quote Originally Posted by Jive Brummie
    Just because i'm a teacher, by no means implies that i know everything. However, what it should hopefully say is that what i say to you will be the same as the next teacher and so on and so forth.
    My experience is that teachers frequently disagree with each other, even teachers within the same franchise. Some teachers go one stage further, and disagree with themselves, which is somewhat above the call of duty, but very much appreciated.

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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    I agree with Chris A on all this - Chris I'd give you some rep, but it won't let me!

    Not all beginners are naturals, and although they definately need encouragement, this alone will not help all of them (especially the men!). The men all need you to go through moves with them, some need it more than others, and I'll ask them what they'd like me to help them with. Some just need you to dance with them and repeat the patterns from the class, others need you to break down the moves slowly so they have some idea of what they look like. But they all need some sort of "try this, it'll work better than that" type of correction. If a man is bouncing or gripping your hand I will tell him not to do this, but I'll also tell him why - ie it hurts and I'll do it kindly.

    With the women, I agree with Chris, some women are over worried about learning the moves, and with these I'll change the order or add in simple moves so they don't start leading you. I'll also ask them to switch off, listen to the music and try to feel where they're being lead to, so they relax a bit. I'll tell them that it isn't their responsibility to remember the moves, and that they should just do what feels right which I often find relaxes them. I'll make suggestions if they are gripping too tight or pulling your arm off, but I do it with a sense of humour I hope!

    Trish

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    Registered User Lynn's Avatar
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    Re: Muggle's first MJ night

    Quote Originally Posted by RogerR
    Taking a muggle at their first attendance and enthusing them to do a begginers class later is a vital task and giving a male muggle the encouragement to continue til his lead develops is an even more important task.
    The advantage of things being on a small scale here is that I know exactly who has done MJ before and who has not. With one guy last Wed, I knew he had never done any form of partner dancing, and that was his first evening - but I still did the 'I won't go anywhere unless you lead me' bit in the freestyle. He was getting some bits of the moves wrong - but I think he was pleased that he was actually leading me through the move. He'll probably forget the moves - but hopefully will remember the feeling of starting to learn about leading and will want to continue to learn.

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