Helping Students Use Corrections
Last week, we looked at why some students may have difficulty feeling or using the corrections they are given.
Body awareness is not simply something a dancer either has or does not have. It is a sensory and attentional skill—and it can be developed.
So how do we help students become more aware?
The shift may be from asking:
“How can I explain this correction differently?”
to asking:
“What experience would help this student feel the difference?”
Here are several ways to begin.
Use contrast
Subtle changes can be difficult to recognize when a student does not yet have a clear sensory map.
Instead of moving directly toward the “correct” position, allow the student to explore opposites.
Shift too far forward and then too far back. Use too much tension and then too little. Make the movement very small and then exaggerated. Press heavily into the floor and then lighten the pressure.
Then ask the dancer to find something in between.
The nervous system often recognizes difference before it recognizes correctness.
Contrast gives the student something concrete to compare rather than asking them to find a sensation they may not yet understand.
Ask questions that direct attention
Teachers are very good at telling students what needs to change.
But awareness grows when students also learn how to gather information for themselves.
You might ask:
Where do you feel the most pressure under your foot?
Which side feels more supported?
Where are you working the hardest?
Did that feel more stable, less stable, or simply different?
What changed when you moved your head?
Could you reproduce that without looking in the mirror?
These are not questions the student needs to answer perfectly. Their purpose is to direct attention toward information the dancer may usually overlook.
The wording matters.
“Can’t you feel that?” can make a student feel that they have failed another test.
“You may not feel it yet—let’s compare the two versions” keeps the student curious.
Allow time to notice
Sometimes we ask students to move again before they have had time to process what just happened.
A simple sequence can be:
Move.
Pause.
Notice.
Repeat.
Compare.
This does not require stopping class for a lengthy discussion.
Even a few seconds can give the nervous system time to register what felt different.
Without that pause, the student may simply repeat the familiar movement pattern before the new information has had a chance to settle.
Consider the movement experiences students bring with them
After last week’s newsletter, dance educator Laura Donnelly shared a story from teaching young children.
During an improvisation exercise, the students could easily explore light, delicate fairy movements. But when asked to become powerful, physical goblins, there was very little stomping, jumping, rolling, or large movement.
Laura later discovered that many of them were not allowed to climb trees, jump, or take the kinds of physical risks children once commonly experienced.
Her story reminded me that students arrive in our classrooms with very different movement histories.
Some have spent years climbing, falling, rolling, running, and figuring out how to recover their balance. Others may have had fewer opportunities to develop those experiences.
What looks like poor body awareness may sometimes be a nervous system that has simply had fewer chances to build a varied movement map.
Connect what it looks like with what it feels like
Laura also described college dancers who struggled to recognize and change their alignment through mirrors and verbal corrections.
When she videotaped a simple movement sequence and asked them to assess what they saw, they recognized their patterns more clearly and were better able to make changes.
I also use posture pictures and short videos at the beginning of a semester—or at the beginning of a new dance year—for many years with great success.
Students often see something in a still picture or recording that they miss while moving in front of a mirror.
The next step is to connect that visual information with sensation.
After viewing the picture or video, ask the dancer to recreate the change without looking. Then return to the visual feedback and compare.
The goal is not to make students dependent on pictures or video. It is to use what they see to help them build a clearer sense of what the movement feels like.
Help students compare rather than judge
Many students immediately sort an experience into good or bad, right or wrong. That can interfere with awareness.
Instead, encourage them to notice:
Easier or harder.
More stable or less stable.
More effort or less effort.
Clearer or less clear.
Different—not necessarily better.
Awareness grows when students learn to observe before they judge.
This is also why I often use the language of better, same, or worse.
The student does not have to force an improvement. They are simply learning to recognize change.
Create enough safety for curiosity
Teachers cannot remove every source of stress a student brings into the studio. But we can influence how safe it feels to experiment.
A student who is afraid of being wrong is often focused on producing the correct answer as quickly as possible.
A student who feels safe enough to explore is more likely to notice.
Simple phrases can help:
“There is no right answer—just notice.”
“You may not feel it yet.”
“Let’s compare.”
“Different is information.”
Curiosity gives the nervous system more room to gather information. Fear of being wrong narrows attention.
This does not mean lowering standards or avoiding correction.
It means giving the student enough room to investigate the correction rather than merely trying to obey it.
Teaching body awareness does not require turning dance class into a long anatomy lesson or stopping every few minutes for discussion.
It can be built through brief moments of contrast, attention, comparison, visual feedback, and repetition.
The goal is not simply to give students more information.
It is to help them become better at noticing and using the information their bodies are already providing.
To your success,
Deborah