Dance Daze, Inc.

Dance Classroom Management: Be Seen Looking

Hey everyone!

It seems that I took an unplanned break from blogging to focus on some other areas of my dance business! But, now I’m back with new ideas and newly inspired, ready to start writing here again.

A little earlier this evening, I was reading about teaching preschool dance classes, and the author recommended that we dance teachers use some behavioral management methods that I will talk about in further detail later–positive behavioral narration and specific public praise.

Behavioral narration and public praise are two techniques I absolutely love using to help manage my dance classroom. However, as I was considering these two methods, I couldn’t help but backward mapping and considering what newer dance teachers might have to do before feeling comfortable enough to use either of those tools.

I know that finding one’s “teacher voice” (and yes, dance teachers have a “teacher voice” also) can be difficult and take years to understand and develop. This made me think about all of the non-verbal cues that I’ve learned to use in my dance classroom space over the years, whether I’m teaching dance for my studio-based dance classes or for my dance programs in schools.

One simple, effective strategies I use is called “Be Seen Looking.” It is one of the short phrases that was drilled into my head (thankfully) during my intensive classroom teacher residency program. It is a tool I continue to use today to manage my dance classroom.

In Teach Like A Champion 2.0, Be Seen Looking is listed as High Behavioral Expectation Technique #51. This technique is described as a way to, “prevent nonproductive behavior by developing your ability to see it when it happens and by subtly reminding students that you are looking” (p. 387).

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When I was taught this technique, I remember being encouraged to do it overtly and with a flair of drama (which is typically my student when teaching). For example, in the dance classroom, after giving a clear direction or explanation such as, “I’ll know everyone is ready when you are all standing with your feet in first position and your arms in low fifth position (or en bas),” I might lift my chin just a little and simply wait, while checking the position of each student’s feet and arms.

I think this is a powerful technique for many reasons:

It is quiet and doesn’t distract from your lesson.
It gives the dance teacher an opportunity to develop their teacher presence and non-verbal teacher “voice”.
It reminds the students that you care about what they’re doing during class time.
It lets students know that they should be vigilant about listening to directions during class.
It’s easy to remember and simple to implement.

The Be Seen Looking technique is part of a cycle that works to get 100% of students’ attention 100% of the time. Page 387 of Teach Like A Champion 2.0 states:

“Great teachers ensure that they have 100 percent of students with them for the teaching and learning; their expectation is 100 percent of students, 100 percent of the time, 100 percent of the way. Great classroom managers generally step in to address distractions earlier than other teachers, allowing their interventions to be almost imperceptible. The recipe implicit in their success is simple and powerful: catch it early and fix it noninvasively, without breaking the thread of instruction.”

That is my Management Monday tip for today, folks!

What techniques are you using or encouraging teachers at your studio to use manage student behavior and maintain atmospheres that are focused on learning in an engaging and artistic environment? Let me know in the comments!

But, what’s a hobby?

Okay, so the title of this blog might seem a bit ridiculous to some people. But, in the same way that I’ve always hated answering questions about what kinds of music I like (and, yes, I’m saving those juicy deets for another blog), I’ve always hated answering the questions “What are your hobbies?” or “What do you like to do for fun?”

I strongly dislike answering questions about my hobbies because, quite frankly, it makes me feel like I’m not doing anything with my life. But, of course, anyone who knows me (or maybe even you, because you’re reading my blog, maybe follow me online, or at least know that blogging is a THING that takes time and effort) knows that I’m always, always working on something. And when I’m not working on something directly, I’m making plans for how to complete a project.

Still though, I can’t help but wonder if all the somethings I do are legitimate hobbies. I mean, really, what’s a hobby?! (I just feel like I’m a hard-working, type-A, ambitious, relentless hustler!)

Google tells me that a hobby is “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” Wikepedia tells me that a hobby is “a regular activity done for enjoyment, typically during one’s leisure time, not professionally and not for pay. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements.”

Okay, so then there’s me. I spend my waking hours doing only things that give me pleasure in some way. I explained this in Episode #7 of The Happy Dance Podcast. I honestly feel like every single thing in my daily life (when I have complete control over my time) I’m doing either because it makes me instantly happy or because I believe it will make me long-term happy.

So, let’s take this blog for instance. Is blogging a “HOBBY?” Or am I working as I type these words? Sure, writing is fun for me. Writing is something I enjoy. It gives me great pleasure to craft words, communicate ideas, perhaps spark new insights, and maybe even engage in the occasional online conversation with a fellow blogger/digital-entrepreneur type. But, I’m also working. I’m also creating content. I’m also trying to build an audience. I’m also keeping this blog up-to-date as part of a carefully planned mini-project that is as part of a larger business-growth plan of mine.

And, while I suppose I’m not a professional blogger (I can tell you right now: I’m not making a dime directly from this blog….), I definitely spend some of my time reading about how to become a better blogger or writer.

I’m in no way a professional podcaster, but I’m constantly consuming information about how to manage, grow, and monetize a podcast.

In fact, I’ve gotten paid for many activities (e.g., posting sponsored tweets, editing resumes, managing social media accounts, etc.) that I’ve never considered my professions.

So, are these things hobbies? Simply because I’m not getting paid any big bucks to do them? Because, personally, I view everything on which I regularly spend my time as sort of a low-key startup.

I mean, as I recently said in my Instastories: In the age of influencers, isn’t any hobby a potential business? Isn’t any leisure activity a potential means of income?

When people are getting paid to make sounds into expensive microphones, the possibilities are endless, right?

So, all of the above to say this: I’m not sure where the line blurs or the boundary ends between doing something strictly for fun or doing something because it’s fun and because it could potentially make some financial income.

Maybe I don’t know what a hobby is. Or maybe I’m so wonderfully fortunate because I am spending a large portion of my life doing the things that I love, so much to the point that my work feels like fun and leisurely activities. Or maybe I’m living with such a high functioning level of anxiety that I can’t even tell that I’m a workaholic with restless mind syndrome who has to literally schedule in social activities, otherwise I’ll forget to make friends or to talk to humans IRL.

Maybe I’m super ahead of my time and the word hobby should be eliminated from our vocabulary.

Maybe the word “hobby” is only relevant for people who haven’t found the magical blend of taking every single opportunity as a learning experience, being a student of life, observing human behavior, and using what they observe to better govern themselves and their daily decisions.

Maybe we need to expand the definition of hobby to include a space for us internet entrepreneurs, nay, born hustlers who are living each day casually mixing what we love with making money and making the world better.

Until next time, I’ll be working on my hobbies (or hardly working???)!

What Is Your Primary Responsibility As A Dance Business Owner?

If you are a dance studio owner, if you run a dance education program that serves children in your local community, if you run any kind of business that provides the service of dance to clients, what is your primary responsibility?

Some might say their main responsibility is to introduce students to the art of dance and to help foster a love for dance for all students.

Some might say that it is their responsibility to properly prepare all students for professional careers in dance, including careers in dance performance, dance education, arts marketing, arts fundraising, dance research, and more.

Some might say they are focused on using dance as a tool to empower their students, giving them a lens through which to see the world and a voice for self-expression.

Perhaps your primary focus is social and restorative justice. Maybe your programs are focused on repairing and uplifting the people in communities that have been forgotten and neglected.

Maybe you feel that you’ve moved on from all of the above. Now you’re focused on making money. It is a dance business after all, right? If you don’t meet your bottom line, the business ceases to exist.

Maybe you love the marketing, the digital content, the UX design, the social media. Maybe that’s your primary focus and responsibility. Because, no matter what you’re doing, if you aren’t bringing in clients, you can’t really do what you want to do anyway, right?

Is your primary focus simply being organized? Handling registrations, hanging those flyers, getting those dance team jackets out, directing rehearsals, overseeing end-of-semester surveys and technique progress reports, making sure every student has the correct front-stitched leotard or slip-on jazz shoes, ensuring that all students and their parents know how to correctly sew elastic onto their ballet slippers?

Maybe you have mastered the art of delegation, and you are now primarily responsible for making sure your team does all of the above. Your team has to know and live out the values of your organization, manage the day-to-day tasks, communicate effectively with students and families, be a positive representation of your dance program in the community, ensure that regular outreach is happening, manage the social media accounts, teach the classes, keep students engaged and challenged, and more.

So what do I think? What is the primary responsibility of someone who owns or directs a dance business?

All of it.

Yes, when you’re running a dance business, your primary mission is to make sure that all.the.things are getting done, every minute of every day, by any means necessary.

I talked about how challenging finding balance can be in Episode #7 of The Happy Dance Podcast. I also talked about how we may sometimes be doing really well with doing the things that naturally bring us the most joy, while simultaneously failing (yes, failure is a thing… it’s just not a forever thing) at doing all the things that are the most tedious, the most time-consuming, or the most stressful.

So how do we do it? How do we stay motivated? How can we keep worrying about things like performance costumes or even on innovating within our established programs when we are in the middle of a slow season and we want to dedicate all our time and all our funds to marketing and outreach?

We can leave for a while, but we have to come back. This is a paraphrasing of some advice I got from my world religions teacher in high school, by way of my mother. I remember my mom told me that, during a parent-teacher conference, my former teacher mentioned to her that I spaced out during his class sometimes. He was fine with me letting my mind wander, as long as I always brought myself back.

This is what I believe we need to do as dance business owners.

We literally are some of the people in the world who DO IT ALL. (See also: women, moms, stepmoms.)

It can be daunting. It can be exhausting. It can be overwhelming in a terrible way. It can be impossible.

But impossible is nothing.

If you’re a dance educator reading this, you likely already know that huge responsibility that we have in the world as well as the great opportunity that we have to make an impact.

Follow your dreams. Model your educational philosophy. Develop great dancers and great citizens. Live your business mission and see the vision through.

Do it all. And if you ever just can’t do it all, then leave it for a minute… then get up and get back to work.

Creativity Is Definitely A Habit

So does it seem like I’m super into everything related to Dance Daze, Inc., Dance Daze in Schools, and, my newest, Dance Ed Startup? Well, that’s because I am.

But does that mean I like doing every single thing associated with running those businesses and projects? Absolutely not.

Earlier today, I was thinking about a comment from my very first mentor teacher when I was in an intensive teacher training program, credentialing program, and accelerated Master of Arts degree program to become an effective classroom teacher in one year. I must have asked her something like, “What do you not like about being a teacher?” I remember her response to this day–it struck me because I felt like she was either lying through her teeth or delusional. She said, “I like everything about this job.” I simply couldn’t believe her. In fact, I still don’t.

When people talk about their “life’s work” or “walking in their purpose” or “doing what they love” and all that sort of stuff… YES. I 100% GET THAT. Those are ALL the feels I get from running my dance organizations. But, I wasn’t raised to lie. And I’m not in denial. I know what lights me up and what things I completely avoid. (I even know exactly why I’ve gotten behind on this blog… It’s because I hate editing my podcast transcripts. Even though I completely love having a podcast, getting my voice out into the world, developing new skills like audio editing and transcribing audio that I’ve never previously had to do at any j-o-b I’ve ever had… But I still hardcore procrastinated on doing my last two transcripts, which got me completely off track with my little blog pattern I’ve been working on keeping up here.)

All of the above to say: I think I’m a super creative person who is lit up by the work that I do for my businesses. But, if I didn’t make myself do some of the stuff, it would simply never get done.

For example, I love teaching dance. I love having spending time creating learning objectives, structuring activities, challenging my students, and creating incredible experiences through the medium of movement in my classes. I love when parents and other family members enjoy the experience too. It all makes me feel like I’m a super awesome person who is having fun, getting paid, and helping other people have fun and enjoy watching their kids develop into awesome people because of their experiences in dance education.

HOWEVER, I almost always wait until the last minute to plan my classes. The “artsy” part of me feels like it is part of my process to “get inspired” at the last minute then rush to create well-executed masterpieces.

But what did I tell you in my last blog? I totally believe that a failure to plan is a plan for failure.

So how do I satisfy the super prepared and always 10 steps ahead part of me with the wait-until-the-absolute-last-minute-to-produce-your-best-work part of me when it comes to planning dance classes?

I’ve created a habit.

I give myself the “thrill” of planning my classes at the last minute by waiting until the morning of my classes to plan them. But I stay 10 steps ahead by giving myself like 5 hours to do the planning and get to the studio.

That’s right. Most mornings that I’m teaching, I’m up by about 5:30 am to plan my classes for the day.

Crazy right? Probably. (I’ve even gotten up that early on Saturday mornings after being up after midnight. But if you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I can function like a somewhat normal–if not hyper-cranky and hyper-emotional–human on just 5 hours of sleep. And I can fake it on less than 5 hours of sleep. So there’s that.)

So, in my opinion, am I still being creative? Absolutely.

And, am I still planning ahead? Probably not as much as the next gal, but I’ve never been one to do things in a typical way anyway.

The Best Mindset to Start A Business

The next launch of the Dance Ed Startup Course is happening in just over 5 weeks! This has gotten me thinking a lot about the first module, which is called The Pre-Game Head Game Work.

So what is this first module of the course all about? It’s about getting in the right head space to win. It’s about being prepared to lose. It’s about feeling completely ready to soar when your idea becomes a reality and you are suddenly speaking with real clients and running a real business.

Starting a business takes a lot of risk. It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of preparation and planning. So the first module of the Dance Ed Startup Course is a little quick-check for you and for me to make sure that you have your head in the game so that we can work together successfully over 8 weeks to start, streamline, or grow your dance businesses.

To do that, we are going to make sure a few specific expectations are in place. We will do that with the following 5 action steps.

1: Envision Yourself Winning

Before you start a business, or before you start focusing on specific ways to streamline and grow your business, you need to be able to see it happening. When I had a single student in a hip hop dance class of mine for a solid 8 months, I always knew there was a possibility that more students could show up for class that day. I could see the room full of students, and I would prepare music playlists and lesson plans as if I had a full class of students coming. I was able to see my future success (and I was also accepting the success of having a single consistent student, because 1 is better than 0!) before I had it.

Whether you’re enrolling in the Dance Ed Startup Course because you have been teaching dance classes for others for years and are ready to break away and launch your own program or start your own studio or if you’re an experienced dance studio owner looking for innovative ways to revitalize your existing programs and better support your new hires, you need to be able to imagine your success.

2: Be Prepared to Lose

There is risk involved with starting any new venture. Even when taking the most calculated risks, you will lose something. You will be making investments toward what you truly desire, but you will be giving away many things. You must be prepared to give away time, effort, and monetary resources. You may lose some time with friends and significant others. You will be giving away some mental space required for planning your next steps. You will need to invest financially in the business processes, studio space, props, or any area that you want to improve.

Also, you may need to toss out some old ways of thinking. By forging the new business and lifestyle that you want for yourself, you will be sacrificing your old beliefs and mindsets. If you’ve been struggling–with student and teacher recruitment, maintaining consistent income, marketing, or anything else–and if you’ve gotten used to the feeling of struggle, you will have to rid yourself of this.

Finally, be prepared to lose clients, even the ones you adore. Interests, finances, opportunities, and moods change frequently. This means that sometimes you will gain clients, and sometimes you will lose them. It is all part of the process of growth and change.

3: Have A Plan (A Failure to Plan Is A Plan for Failure)

Throughout the Dance Ed Startup Course, we will be creating lots of plans. We want to plan to start and grow your business with strategic marketing. We are going to plan class schedules, class themes, learning objectives, music playlists, reward and consequence systems, and more. We want to make plans for the business as a whole and for the day-to-day operations of working in dance education.

Maybe it is because of my background as a classroom teacher, but I love using the summer months to plan for the year ahead. In fact, I like to plan out the schedule for my entire dance year–from September through June–by June of the previous year. I also like to plan learning objectives and class themes for my classes at least one session (8 to 10 weeks in advance) at a time.

Students enrolled in Dance Ed Startup will learn the ways I do all of the above, and they’ll also be empowered to put their own spin on creating and planning themselves.

4: Think Big (Treat Your First Like Your Last)

Even when I only had a handful of students in my classes, I worked hard to maintain consistent marketing strategies and communication with my clients. Even though my studio is not as big as many dance studios out there, I work hard to maintain a professional website, active social media presence, and quality class programming.

In the Dance Ed Startup Course, we will use our mindset shifts, business plans, marketing plans, operational plans, and lesson plans to prepare for the eventual growth of our businesses in a big way.

We will treat each of our first projects as if they are the last creative works we will put into the world. We will give it our all.

5: Know When It’s Time To Walk Away

I don’t think of myself as a quitter in any way. In fact, I’ve been kicking hard and strong with my dance education organizations for about a decade now, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. However, there have been many ideas that I’ve abandoned over the years.

For example, I used to have class punch cards to encourage students to come to dance class regularly. When students got 10 punches, they got a free water bottle, dance bag, or leg warmers that I purchased from DiscountDance.com. While I still think this sounds like a great idea, it simply didn’t work well for my studio-based dance program. Though the built-in reward system was nice, the majority of my students were too young to be interested in having a punch card or in keeping track of where the card was between classes, which means parents had to do extra work to keep track of the tiny card. Also the cards and prizes cost money that wasn’t being directly being put back into the business. After the students received their bags or leg warmers, there was no lasting effect that clearly positively benefited both my students and my dance program. Finally, when I was running this reward system, the seasonal sessions of my program were running in 8 week blocks, though the cards required 10 punches to be complete. While I thought this was an extra incentive to continue into another session, I believe it created more inconvenience for families rather than an exciting reward system that enhanced their experience in my program.

The above is a simple example of walking away from a very small part of a business. However, there may come a time that you will decide to walk away from your dance business entirely.

You may lose interest, acquire unmanageable debt, receive lucrative opportunities for full-time employment in a different field, or you may even get a new idea for a dance or performing arts-related business that would take too much time away from this venture.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that if your work (not your job, but your work) doesn’t completely and entirely light you up and inspire you in limitless ways, you should leave it. So if any of these situations occur, you may have to make the difficult choice to leave something that you’ve built.

But unless or until that time comes, please believe we’re going to thug it out as hard as possible and grow our dance businesses!

I hope you’ll join me in the Dance Ed Startup Course, launching again on September 9, 2019!