How Your Most Spontaneous Sessions Could Be the Best!
The more spontaneous I allow myself to be as an experienced movement instructor, the more the magic happens. Why is that?
If I'm in my doing-it-like-I-always-do-it mode, if I go on autopilot, I do not make room for the magic to enter in. Just on the other side of my usual, my habitual way of teaching, I find that I have an enormous, untapped reservoir of possibilities waiting. When I find that brand new approach, and it works, that’s when I LOVE teaching, and that’s when my students LOVE my classes the most.
Of course, we could always teach a movement as if we were using an instruction sheet to assemble a complex LEGO structure. Many coaches and movement instructors provide intricate piece-by-piece instruction for every body part. For coaching a potentially dangerous move, this strict instruction sequencing may seem to be critical to you.
However, by allowing yourself to be more spontaneous with your movers, you may find other possibilities beyond a strict 17-step teaching style, possibilities that still provide clarity and safety. You might come up with an even BETTER approach than you’ve ever tried before!
You are an experienced teacher, and you are a lifelong learner. Can you open yourself up to a new way? Maybe by scaffolding your coaching, you may be able to teach your movers layer by layer, adding different and maybe playful angles to approaching the same move.
One of our intern trainers for the Academy of Mindful Movement, Stacey Stone in the Virgin Islands, did a super effective teaching demo last week. She’s a personal trainer and an ELDOA instructor. In 5-10 minutes of her scaffolded lesson, she took me into the best balanced posture I’ve attained in a long time.
She guided us to play our way into finding an elongated “ELDOA spine”, first on our backs, then sitting, then on our knees, and eventually while standing. Along the way, we stretched our back like a “guitar string” - a fun image that I could sense along my vertebrae.
By the time she invited us to the end of our imaginary “diving board”, my body felt perfectly aligned with a full spinal stretch as I balanced on the balls of my feet, unwavering, ready for my Olympic dive!!!
Stacey’s playful approach made complete “body sense”. Some of her lesson was new for her and might have been even more effective than her same ol’, same ol’ standard. It worked like magic for me as her student!
Moving mindfully with you,
Renée Tillotson