Teaching Moves Thread v2.0

The teaching moves thread. v2.0

Soooooo, I've been thinking about this, cos of making a tutorial DVD. Teaching people in general is a interesting area when there isn't any definatives on correct technique nor are there any rules. Super badly written, but at work, no time to proof read.

So when you're teaching someone something, there are certain ways of teaching that are going to work best for them, but you won't know them in advance, you have to discover them for each individual... and sometimes they have to discover them for themselves, or even find new techniques.

Nor do you know what part of what you teach, or what you say is going to be taken on board by the student. In essense, you don't know if what you say / show them will inspire or ultimately stagnant their passion for what your teaching them.

On one hand it could be that you say a a particular sentence like: "everything can also be done in horizontal" and they go away and learn everything they can in horizontal, leading them to new and cool things and ultimately they become as passionate as you about the subject.

On the other, they get frustrated by the huge range of possibilities this opens up and they can't even learn an easy move in horizontal, so they give up learning the art and don't do it anymore.

To what extent could saying something different have changed those two's future course? If you had said more to the second would they have stayed inspired and gone on to become a great spinner, experienced satisfaction from spinning that they didn't get from any other source?

If you had said more to the first spinner, would they have revaluated their entire learning style, quickly jumping ahead in all aspects of spinning and starting to concentrate on learning how to learn...

What you say to students can affect their passion and decision to continue with spinning, maybe not to the great extent pictured above, but certainly to some extent, and to some people to the extent above, or even at some critical times in your learning, you can affect a student that much.

I don't know. I certainly don't want to ruin someones passion by saying the wrong thing for them... but in a big group of people you've got to try and teach them all as best you can... what works for one might destroy another...

Something I've heard is that motivation is more important that ability sometimes. If you've motivated to learn something, I'm sure nothing will get in the way of your learning it. Likewise if you enjoy it, you shouldn't need motivation to do it, it should be it's own reward.

So if I happen to teach bad technique... it might ingrain bad habits in people... but they will have learnt it. Subsequently some of them might become depresseed and irritated that they're doing the trick 'wrong' and that they need to relearn it, others will relearn it and file the bad technique as a way to recover from a failed move or just as a bead of technique they won't need to use again, but that's good to know. They might awaken and look over all their technique for bad habits.

Ultimately of course, I'll never know what will affect a person in their future passion for spinning, or even if I can affect them.

But sometimes I thinks I should be more careful with teaching... it can change somebodies life don't cha know?

If I make it seem too easy will they not be motivated to learn? If I overload them with knowledge will they be burnt out before they even go home and practise? If I don't teach them enough will they not come back to spinning cos it's too easy? If I teach them at all will that stifle their natural style because they'll be busy learning tricks / my style instead? Will I, by teaching them, stop them developing along their own natural paths and finding whole new areas of spinning, because they're learning stuff already found?

Will what i say and teach affect what they think are the 'rules' of spinning? Or create in them the idea of 'rules' where there are none? (Plane Breaking = bad would be an example of a rule I like.) Will that stop them exploring entire areas of spinning? Just cos of something I said that they took to heart?

Is something better than nothing even when the something is a bit wrong? (bad technique.)

These are not reasons for me (at least) to not teach. [I have much better reasons than these not to teach, but still i do.] Rather, they are worries I have. All the time.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

Forums > Technical Discussion > Teaching Moves Thread v2.0