3 Ways To Cue Your Class: Tips For Teaching Dance Fitness
Want to know how to turn an OK dance fitness or barre class into a GREAT class?
We’re sharing 3 ways to cue your class so that your students will be able to follow with ease.
When your clients can get the steps easily and execute with good technique the class flows, they feel awesome, you don’t have to struggle to make the class feel great and that all leads to sold out fitness classes!
It’s important to recognise that not everyone will learn the same way. Perhaps you even recognise which method of learning you find the easiest?
Types of Learners
Auditory learners – Auditory learning works best for people who love to listen and they respond well to verbal cues.
Visual learners - Showing moves and watching the instructor helps visual learners follow
Kinesthetic learners - practicing, doing and learning with hands on modifications works well for these learners.
While some workout formats rely on only one or two of these cueing styles here at Corio all of our workout programs require the instructor to master all 3 types of cueing so that their students can nail the class and leave full of confidence.
Reflection:
Have you ever been to a dance fitness class where there’s NO verbal cueing? How easy was it to follow? What about a class that relied on verbal cueing alone, like a fold-over series in a barre class? Imagine if the instructor was not able to verbally cue effectively.
3 Vital Cueing Techniques:
Vocal Tone and Pitch
As a dance fitness or barre instructor your voice is one of your biggest assets. If you’re delivering your class in the same tone of voice and pitch it gets monotonous.
You can practice changing your pitch, tone and inflection to make your class more dynamic.
One mistake instructors make is to shout louder when trying to inject more energy.
You don’t want to damage your voice, so being loud, clear and confident is a must, but also think about other ways you can cue verbally without shouting.
Can you change the speed? Or lower your voice for emphasis? Experiment by teaching verbally to your music.
Often we’re not aware of how we sound (who else doesn’t like watching or listening to themselves on video?) but it’s a great idea to film yourself teaching and notice your vocal habits and spot where you can make improvements.
Have a think about your fave instructors and classes. How do they verbally cue? What can you borrow or model that will work in your class? What don’t you like about other classes? Why not?
Vocal cueing is vital to master inside of your classes. At the end of the day you improve with practice so get into the studio and keep experimenting!
Visual Cueing
Visual cueing or non-verbal cueing can be thought of as showing your class. If you’re breaking down dance steps as you’re doing them, that’s visual cueing. You can also show your clients what NOT to do, so that they can see the difference between good form and incorrect form.
For example, you might show them a plie with the knees pressing out over the toes and the back straight, and you might also show them as you cue - not to round their back, fold forwards or let the knees fall inwards.
In a dance fitness class in particular having large visual cues for any directional movement helps your clients master choreography. An example would be using arms to show the direction you want clients to travel while vocalling cueing, or tapping the leg you want the class to lead with while setting up the move.
Visualization Cueing
Visualization cueing means using analogy or thoughts to help your clients get the moves right. In dance class this is common, you’ve probably heard an instructor say, “Imagine you’re balancing books on your head.”
You might use visualisation cueing to help students get technique correct. Here’s example from a plie series in class that helps clients stay upright:
“Keeping the core engaged, rib cage over your hips and knees pressing out over the toes, as you bend and lower, imagine you’re toast in a toaster, you can’t fold forward or back or you’ll burn, keep upright and push up through your heels as you stand, squeezing the glutes at the top.”
You can mix visual cueing here too: As you say “keep upright” you can bring one hand in front of your chest and push back, or draw up an imaginary string from the crown of your head.
As your begin your dance fitness instructor or barre teacher journey, cueing can seem challenging but with time, practice and training you’ll master cueing in ways that elevate your class and offer an exceptional client experience.