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Activities & Classes for Beantown

Activities at The Beantown Retreat  (Activities subject to change.)

Taking International Teachers Classes:  We have worked it out so Beantown is letting us join in on any of their classes for free.  We will be taking a couple of classes from some of the top international teachers in Lindy Hop and then meeting back up to discuss what we liked & didn't like about the classes.  This is something that has made a huge impact on my teaching over the years and I expect it to be even more impactful to hear what all of us have to say about the classes done from the best of the best.

Possibilities of A Wealthy Dancer:  I will be running a class on exploring the possibilities of making over $100,000 per year by teaching dance (without overworking yourself).  This class is not designed to make you $100,000 right after you take it.  Instead, it is designed to show you that this is NOT an unrealistic goal and give you some framework to start working towards significantly increasing your income.

Action Plans:  Many events can give you lots of ideas of things to practice, or implement into your dancing, organizing, teaching, or life, but they all rely on you to actually implement these ideas on your own (and we often forget to do this).  The action plans are when we each get 30 minutes to work on something that we want to implement into our life.  During this 30 minutes, you work with a buddy and the buddy's only job is to help you implement this action directly into your dancing, organizing, teaching, or life. 

Aha's:  After each class & activity, we spend a few minutes talking about the things that impacted us strongly during this class.  Aha's are also known as the "light bulb" moments, epiphanies, or simply put, things we want to remember.

Classes: Each participant teaches 1 class to the rest of the participants on a subject that is unique and important to their dancing, teaching, &/or organizing.  Examples at bottom of page.

Class Feedback:  Get constructive feedback on how to improve the class you taught.  Learn what your peers would keep and change about it.  Learn from hearing everyone else's feedback for all the other classes too.


Classes at The Beantown Retreat  (These are some of the classes that are being taught by some of the current attendees.  Classes subject to change.)

Ted Maddry is leading some teacher training classes where we will be teaching 10 minute classes and he will stop us and critique our classes as we go, giving us a chance to implement ideas directly into the classes we are teaching.  Ted has trained professionally to do this and it shows.  I saw him do this in another camp and was in awe at the amount of information I could learn about my own teaching flaws by having him do this for me, so I wanted to have him do this for all of us during the retreat.

Mihai Banulescu will be running a class on marketing your classes (& yourself) which will include some seriously effective edits to your bio and lots, lots, more.  I am especially looking forward to this class as I have used some of these techniques on my bio and am ready to look at another aspect of my career and see how to implement them into that.

Andrew Sutton will be teaching a class on how the arms are a vital part of our dancing and how teaching "body leads are the right way" can be misleading and slow the learning process for dancers.  He taught this class at the very first retreat (and only that one).  If you don't have this technique implemented in your dancing (and he finds that many "body lead" oriented dancers don't)... this will heavily add to your dancing technique (for both leads & especially follows) without taking anything away from your body leads & "body follows".  If you already have this in your dancing but haven't thought about it that much, this will help you explain things more thoroughly to your students and help fill in the dance puzzle a little more.

Jeff & Liz Camozzi's classes are still undecided but they have submitted the following ideas.  Once we get a better idea of what will work best for the group, we will add a better description of their classes.  (We are leaning towards some version of the 1st or last ideas).
  • Bringing Energy to your Lessons: Exploring the teacher’s role in class as well as different methods of keeping the students engaged at all levels. 
  • Creativity Methods: Techniques to help people who don’t feel creative have building blocks towards creativity within the dance.
  • Different Ways we’ve taught the Swingout…and WHY: We never seem to teach it the same way twice, and we’ll tell you why.
  • Passing on the Practice: this is a class that focuses on methods of practicing dance to help your students up their game!
More coming soon... but to give you more examples of the style of activities & classes at retreats... read on!


Activities in Past Retreats  (These will not necessarily be the exact activities for your retreat but it can give you an idea of the style of activities we strive for.  Click here to see an example retreat schedule.)

Analogies, Drills, & Games: We pick a few teaching topics/goals, like 'having a flexible frame', or 'being grounded', etc...  Everyone shares their favorite analogies, drills, or games they use to teach their students how to acheive these ideal dance techniques.  In one hour we got 96 analogies, drills, & games explained at one retreat.

Dance Feedback:  Get constructive feedback on your dancing from at least half of the retreat attendees (hopefully all).  Learn what you can do to make it even better or get some quick ideas on how to change things up and get yourself trying new things.

Focus Board:  Through out the retreat we all write down ideas of things we would like to do during our free time, ie: have a discussion on how to teach without a dance partner, play improv games, go for a hike, do a Yoga class, etc.  Then when we have the free time, (while eating, during breaks, at dances, late at night, etc) we choose from this list of topics and anyone who doesn't want to take a break can join in.

Improv Games:  This is a chance to relax and have some non-dance related fun.  If you have a favorite game, share it with us.

Lab Experiment: The objective was to explore the differences in dance styles/methods within the group, specifically by watching couples dance side by side and looking for/pointing out comparisons and contrasts.


Classes in Past Retreats  (These will not be the exact classes for your retreat but does give you an idea of the style of classes we strive for.  Click here to see an example retreat schedule.)


 

Giving and Receiving Feedback: One of the main goals for this weekend was for everyone to find their good and bad "monkeys", or things that they didn't know about their dancing (or about their personality, etc). This class helped us to learn how to find our own "monkeys" and how to help others find theirs.
 

 
 

Solomon's Favorite Swingout Technique: This class went over the opposition of frame and hips involved in the swingout which helps create a great style and feel in the dance.
 

 
 

Arm Leads Are Not Inherently Evil: This class went over the difference between an arm lead and a body lead and the difference between an arm follow and a body follow, and shows how both arm and body leads can feel great as long as the partners match each other.
 

 
 

Improving Body Awareness: The aim of this class was to introduce touch, temperature and muscle work to improve our body awareness and apply it to connection. There were some great ways for getting people to feel the difference between moving from your center and not moving from your center as well as many other great things.
 

 
 

Exercises: Frame, balance, and posture exercises and experimenting with varying amounts of tension/weight.
 

 
 

Teaching Beginners To Dance: Held a physical discussion forum on what are some good techniques to teach a beginner how to dance. Some brilliant exercises were brought out during this, including having the follows hold their right wrist with their left hand to help keep their frame (try it, it works great!).
 


 

Hip Hop Lindy Hop: A great morning class that inspired an awesome jam circle to liven up the day.
 

 
 

Tai Chi For Lindy Hoppers: An exercise in awareness of your partner and working with them and the music to create something that is truly a team structured dance and not just an individuals dance (and we learned a nice dip at the end of class too).
 

 
 

Borrowing Tango Concepts: In this class, we looked at some basic concepts from Tango and thought about how they applied to our lindy hop.
 

 
 

Copycat Class: The objective was to explore the diversity in dance styles/methods within the group, specifically by looking at how our swingouts differ.
 


 

Neutral Connection: This class was focused on the moments in the dance where the connection is so shared or so neutral that either partner can gain control either for a moment of creativity or for a permanent (or semi-permanent) shift in the lead.
 

 
 

Attitude Makes A Difference: This class showed how confidence can make a huge difference in your dancing - this was followed by an exercise on giving positive compliments which I am sure has improved all of our confidence levels more than we could have ever imagined! Very impactful!
 

 
 

Massage Circle and Balance/Connection Exercise: The aim was to teach the following: 1: You can never fully give or receive if you are trying to do both at the same time (apply to lead follow). 2: Balance and Connection improve when both partners are able to meet in the middle (excellent counterbalance/placement of body weight and support). She also did a mini Latin Styling class.
 

 
 

Stretching, Massaging and Contact Improv: The instructor led the stretching each day and also an educational massage class as well as the crazy contact improv class that closed off the weekend. This was one of those classes that would have been totally different if it had been done on the first day and I am glad it wasn't!