Ep 46: What Teachers Are Missing When They Cue Alignment

Why do alignment corrections still fall flat even when dancers are trying their hardest? This episode uncovers what teachers are missing when cueing alignment in dance training.

In this episode of It’s All Relative, Cara Dixon dives deep into one of the biggest struggles in dance education and dance technique training: why dancers continue to miss alignment corrections even after hearing them repeatedly. From “engage your core” to “lift up” and “square your hips,” Cara explains why broad corrections often create frustration instead of transformation.

This episode breaks down how alignment in dance is not just a shape, but a full coordination system involving stabilization, muscular initiation, weight transfer, and body awareness. Cara shares how visual anatomy, directional cueing, and movement coordination can dramatically improve dancer understanding, retention, and technical consistency. Whether you’re a dance teacher, studio owner, or competitive dancer, this episode will change the way you approach dance corrections and alignment training.

Cara talked about:

• Why generic dance corrections create generic dance training results
• How dancers interpret alignment cues differently without visual and anatomical understanding
• Why alignment is a coordination system, not just a final shape or position
• The role of muscular coordination, stabilization, and weight transfer in strong dance technique
• How visual learning and anatomy-based dance training improve correction retention and dancer confidence

3 Key Takeaways from Cara:

1. Replace broad dance corrections with specific, directional language that helps dancers truly feel the movement
2. Ask dancers to identify their own compensations so they build stronger body awareness and technical understanding
3. Use visual references whenever possible to help dancers connect corrections to their own body and movement patterns

This episode is a reminder that dancers cannot apply corrections they do not fully understand. When teachers shift from broad cues to visual, anatomical, and coordination-based training, dancers gain clarity, confidence, and consistency in their technique. Strong alignment is not about forcing a shape, it’s about creating coordinated movement patterns that dancers can repeat with control, awareness, and strength.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to It's All Relative, the podcast where dance technique meets purpose, progress becomes visible, and passion fuels the path forward. I'm Kara Dixon, co-founder of Relative Motion, and our team is made up of professional dancers, teachers, and choreographers here to make high-level training feel doable, measurable, and exciting again. Whether you're a teacher searching for fresh cues, a dancer craving more clarity, or a studio owner chasing a bigger vision, this space is for you. Each week, we'll break down complex technique, dive into real studio strategy, and share tools that spark transformation from the inside out. Because in this community, we train with intention, we lead with love, and we know that better dancers start with better teachers. So let's grow, let's move, and let's rise together. Because at the end of the day, it's all relative. Hi, friends, and welcome to our next episode. Today we are talking about what teachers are missing when they cue alignment. Now, most dancers are trying very hard to apply corrections, but they don't actually understand what their body is supposed to do. And this can be frustrating, right? We are giving our best. As teachers, we are giving all we have, giving, giving, giving to get our dancers to that next level. And the dancers are trying, they're trying so hard to take what we're telling them and apply the corrections. But if they don't understand what their body is supposed to do and they don't understand really what we're asking, our corrections fall flat. And everyone ends up just a little bit frustrated, right? We might see our ribs flaring, we might see the pelvis tucking or hilting, we might see their shoulders still at. We might see that they're unstable on their supporting leg. There's so many things that we cue all the time. And the dancers are trying and we are giving, and everyone is giving and everyone's frustrated, and we wonder why our progress stalls, right? Why is it not enough? And so the first thing is, and as teachers, I'm gonna use this word very generally because it's not supposed to be, you know, offensive. It's generic, general cues. And not that you're a generic teacher, not that I'm a generic teacher, it's that a lot of times across the board, we as an industry are giving similar cues, right? Generic corrections create generic results. So when we go into studios and we are working on our curriculum, when we're developing curriculum with studio owners, with teachers, we talk about, hey, what corrections are you saying the most frequently to your dancers? And here's the thing: most of our corrections are repeated corrections. Most of our corrections across the board from studio to studio, from teacher to teacher, we have things that we say because we want to get the result that we need to see. A lot of dancers are having the same technical issues, right? And so when we are talking about corrections, a lot of times the corrections are gonna feel teacher to teacher, person to person, very similar. And so we're gonna use the word generic, not because our teaching's generic, because we know that we have a robust community of teachers. We know that we have incredibly driven, incredibly talented teachers. But using the word generic is just gonna say, hey, what you're saying, we're saying, what we're saying, they're saying. And we're starting to get results that this studio is complaining about the results they're getting, similar to this studio. And this is the cool thing about when we're in person at Relative Motion Live and we have all these teachers together and there's no dancers there. And we're just able to talk very candidly with each other. And we have these Me Too moments where one teacher or studio owner might be kind of emotional about something that they're seeing. And in a moment, every other teacher is just nodding their head as well. And it's just a sense of relief because you're not in it alone. Everyone is seeing that, everyone is going through that. And it's a really deep moment of connection and a moment of being seen among other people in the community that you respect and other people that are doing great work as well, that they're saying the same corrections as you and they're getting the same results as you. And this is happening because a lot of times traditional cues, they're too broad. And that's what we're talking about when we're saying generic. It's just in general, it's too broad. An example of this when we sit down with teachers and we're working on curriculum is a lot of teachers, and we're saying it, right? We're saying engage your core. We're saying lift up, right? We're saying turn out. We're saying make sure your hips are square. We're saying things that across the board, our other teachers are saying too. Our friends are saying too, our community of other incredible teachers, they're repeating those cues in their environments and they're getting similar results. There's a moment of frustration. There's a moment of that, we talk about this a lot, that technique treadmill where we're giving and giving and giving and giving, and we feel like the results should be much better. And so today we're gonna talk about dancers and they're interpreting these cues differently. What we're saying, even though it feels general, it feels like this dancer is gonna interpret it this way in their body, this dancer's understanding and interpreting it this way. And so, why are we getting totally different results? Why are we getting this dancer who's soaring and this dancer who's struggling? And also, corrections at that point become emotional, right? They become frustrating. And so we start to see as teachers, we start to see it's hard to keep showing up, to keep doing it. Why aren't we getting the results for the effort we're putting in? And dancers feel the same way, right? They're feeling a sense of overwhelm, they're feeling a sense of lack. And we don't want our dancers to leave the studio feeling overwhelmed or feeling the lack because that's what they're taking home with them and they're bringing back that heaviness. You don't want that. We don't want their families to see that resistance and see that heaviness. We want them to see the aha moments. We want them to see the results. We want them to see the encouragement, the excitement, the motivation. And so when we are talking about the corrections, instead of thinking about an overarching sense of corrections, I want us to think about alignment and the alignment not being so much a shape, but I want us to think about alignment being a coordination system. And so a lot of times when we are doing technique, the dancers are mimicking shapes. And when we say this in studios, the teachers are just nodding their heads, you know, like, yeah, our dancers are mimicking, our little dancers are mimicking the older dancers, the less advanced dancers are mimicking the shape of an advanced dancer, or they're mimicking the shapes that we're trying to explain to them or we're trying to demonstrate to them. And alignment, while we need this certain placement to happen, alignment is less of a shape and more of a coordination system, getting into that shape, getting into that placement, getting into that movement, getting into that initiation. And so we want alignment instead of feeling like, okay, alignment is this final shape, alignment is dynamic. Alignment is the movement pattern into the shape. It's an unfolding, it's an element of layering, right? And so alignment is gonna have to involve stabilization. It's gonna have to have specific muscular initiation and not one thing, but this muscular initiation starts this whole pattern of movement into what we need that body to do. It needs to understand weight transfer. If the shape is moving in this direction, how does that weight transfer in that direction? And from there, what is our body called to do? And where does that unfolding happen at that point, right? It's muscular coordination. This muscle needs to initiate, but this muscle needs to stabilize right away. And so this is gonna be our activator muscle. This is gonna be our stabilizer muscle. And from there, we're not just working two muscles, right? We're gonna start there and then it's gonna be this robust activation of the whole body into that next position. It's got to be a developing. And then we need to understand the relationship between different body segments. If our lower body is moving here, our lower body doesn't move and then the upper body responds, but they work together, they engage together, they empower each other. And so we don't want it to be as we think about fondue into a devlopee, and sometimes the leg gets there, or the arm gets there first, and then the leg's still moving, or the leg gets there first and the arm's still moving. It's this beautiful dynamic partnership in the body between the body segments. And so when our dancers start to see alignment as coordination, alignment as yes, there is this placement, but there's also this unfolding, there's this coordination of the body. Now we're starting to get different results, right? We're starting to get instead of just this shape we're trying to hit, this momentum that's required, we get this gorgeous coordination that's happening. Now that's where we start to see the elements of our beginner dancers really become what is our advanced dancers. And it becomes more of not to be cliche, but it becomes more of the dance. Sometimes we see these gorgeous dancers on stage and their technique is so good, but when they're not in the technical elements, where they're in the transitions, it's just flat. They're just losing everything. And then it makes that advanced dancer look less advanced because in the moments where we want to breathe with them, in the moments where we want to see this gorgeous unfolding, it falls flat. Everything just kind of sits. And so we want them to understand like, hey, this is coordination, this is unfolding. So thinking about we talked about that fondue into the extension, right? And everything works together, unfolds together, thinking about that arabesque, and we're feeling the opposition between the upper body reaching and the lower body reaching, and maybe they're reaching away from each other and really unfolding and finding this power and dynamic. Maybe it's turns. A lot of times the upper body moves separately from the lower body in our turns. And we see that a lot in the turns. It doesn't feel like the leg is connected to the arm. It doesn't feel like everything's moving together. It feels disjointed, jumps. Are we getting the power in that unfolding? Is there a time where it's like boo-ba as they develop the first leg of that knee and that first part of the line is getting that power up? But as the leg continues, the devil pay and the back leg brushes up, that power happens together, that it's like boom, extra breath for that full line. And so, how does that coordination happen? And that sometimes is the difference between getting a good leap and getting this mind-blowingly powerful leap. And so, as we're like, how do we get our dancers to do that? How do we get them to understand that? We have to recognize, and we talk about this all the time. So if you're on our podcast regularly, visual anatomy, visual understanding, it changes everything. If a dancer can see it, if they can truly understand what's happening in their body and what we're asking them to do, it changes everything and it changes it instantly. It changes what they're doing and what they're understanding they're supposed to do in a split second. When dancers can see their body correctly, first of all, corrections speed up. So if we're like, this is so frustrating, they just don't understand it. If we want those corrections to happen, get them to see it. We talk about this with our apparel all the time, that it's just you can't unsee it, right? The second you see the dancer moving and they feel it for the first time, they can't unfeel it. When they see the correction for the first time, they can't unsee it. Unlike sometimes when they're just in all black in a class or they're just in whatever they're wearing, they can kind of skim past it, like, yeah, I'm doing it. And they actually feel like they are. But the second they really see it, like, oh, this is the panel I'm supposed to see, this is the panel I'm supposed to feel, you can't unsee whether your body's doing that or not. And so corrections speed up, their awareness is instant. Their awareness improves in a flash. From there, their consistency approves, improves. Once they have the awareness, now, boom, they're seeing consistency. They don't just do the correction once, they replicate it. They can do it again. Now their retention improves. Now, look, as soon as that happens, this technique, it skyrockets. They also, and this is just like the trickle effect of results, they also start to begin to get that passion back again. The overwhelm starts to melt away. They start to get really excited, right? Those aha moments come quicker, even if they're small, even if it's just like, oh, I've never felt that before. That increases. As soon as we increase that, their retention for corrections improves, but their retention for coming to the studio and wanting to be involved actually improves too. And they start to take that home. So the trickle effect not only happens with their technique, but the trickle effect happens with their excitement to be in the studio, what their parents are seeing when they walk out the door, the change of their energy, the change of their motivation level, right? And that's where we're gonna see that tenfold impact. So when we are trying to get them there, the first thing they need is that visual. And so for us, we use our color block apparel. We say, hey, this is the anatomy we're using. These are the panels we're focusing on today. Everything we do today is gonna come from these panels. Now, we're not using all the panels. We're not gonna cue every panel that is on our apparel in every class. Pick the top two, pick the top theme that you want them to be able to feel or see or do in that class. And we're gonna bring awareness there. We're gonna have them understand what it is that we're having them do. And directionally, how do we want them to feel it? We don't just want them to activate the hip fluxors because then they just grip them. We don't want them to just activate the glues because then they just grip them. We want them to feel a directional awareness. Hey, in this purple panel, I want you to feel that energy reaching in this direction the entire time you're using it. So now instead of just tightening the panel, they're engaging it in a direction. They're engaging it energetically to do something very specific versus just gripping and closing off that space, maybe the space in the hip joint, maybe the space in the ankle. Then we wanted to help our dancers understand things, like help them understand rotation, help them understand pelvic stabilization, help them understand the line that we're actually calling them to make. So it's not a shape now, it's integrity in the line. What is the line's energetic feeling? What are we trying to get the dancer to see? What should they be doing? Right. And so now their movement has integrity to it. And now we're gonna see that massive result. And so as we're doing this, as we're getting them to understand it, what we want them to do is make those connections quickly, but repeatable. We want them to feel it, we want them to see it, we want them to repeat it. The constant being able to retain and not just for our class, right? We want them to, if we're the lyrical teacher, we want them to take this into the jazz class. We want them to be able to replicate this in their ballet class. And so getting them to understand we don't want general cues, we don't want general results. Alignment is now a coordination system versus a shape. And then also get them to visually get it. So now, as we're leaving you today, I want you to have three main takeaways. The first thing that we are going to try this week is replacing broad cues with specific language and not only just specific language, but specific energetically directional language. And so instead of straighten your knees, I want us to think, okay, what do we really need them to do? Because for them, straightening is the opposite of bending. So they're most likely gonna push into hyperextension and still close off that joint. So if we want them to extend the leg longer, maybe they're gonna straighten that black knee panel through the calf and out of the foot for an arabesque. Or maybe if they're planted in a closed chain, maybe they're gonna straighten the black knee panel up through the hamstring and through the glutes to extend that leg longer. And so that's just one example of instead of saying straighten your knees, we're gonna replace that cue with specific directional energetic language so that the dancer can really feel what we're asking them to do versus just taking it and running with it and trying to replicate a shape for us. The second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna ask the dancers to identify the compensations themselves. What do we see happening in your body? What is the correction you're hearing all the time? Where do you feel that? Where are you compensating? Especially if it's something like, oh, our quads are gripping. Okay, we're compensating in our quads. We're talking about external rotation in this example. Where should we feel that? Okay, we should feel it in our inner thighs and our glutes, but we're feeling it in our purple panel, the quadriceps. All right. So we're overcompensating in the quads. Is it because our inner thighs aren't strong enough? Or is it because our quads are so strong that they're taking over everything we're doing? Let's figure out why the quads are overcompensating and let's figure out what we can strengthen to help work that out. And the third thing we're gonna work on this week is we're gonna use visual references whenever possible. So maybe you have the apparel, this will be easy for you. You just figure out all right, this is what you're seeing, this is what you're feeling, let's give it a shot. Anytime you're not seeing this panel or you're not feeling this panel, we're gonna start over, we're gonna go slow, we're gonna make sure that you feel it. If you don't have our apparel, what are some other visual references that you can give your dancers? Get creative here. What can you do to have them see it, not specifically on a skeleton, but how can they make this about them? How can this become a personal experience for them, seeing it on their body, feeling it on their body? So might have to get creative. That's okay. So as we take this with us, I want us to be able to apply it. I want to be able to get results. But here's the thing: sometimes it is hard to take something that should be clear and really apply it, right? And sometimes we might, as teachers, go back into our old habits of the way we teach, the way it feels good to us. Even if we're not getting the results, sometimes we just slip back into it. And so, what I want to invite you to is our relative motion live, RM Live is coming up. This is gonna be three days where teachers in our community are coming together and we are going to get deeply personal about what you're seeing in your studio, what you want to see, the results you're getting versus the results you want to get, what you feel like you're getting stuck on, what you feel like your dancers are getting stuck on, and how to soar past that. This is amazing for planning a brand new year. It's amazing for planning a brand new season and taking those results to the next level because right now you're just wrapping up a year. You're seeing where you actually ended up versus maybe where you thought in September you would be at this point. You're seeing the patterns of corrections that are still happening in the studio. You're seeing things that you're getting frustrated on, right? You're seeing things your dancers are getting frustrated on. You're seeing goals that you have that maybe they met and goals that they are still working towards you thought that maybe they would have met by now. And it's a great time to really take into account what you want for your dancers next year, what you want for your program next year. If you're a studio owner, what you want for your faculty and teachers next year. It's an amazing time to reset. And our community is so incredible. Not just our teachers and our team, but the teachers that come to this event are incredible. It's just a mind-blowing time. And so we would love to invite you to join us to get in the room. It's Orlando, July 17th through 19th. And we would love to share the time with you. It truly is a game changer. And it is oh our favorite, literally our favorite thing we do all year. So get there. If you want more information, you want to register, it's the relative motion experience.com slash RM Live 2026. And until next time, have an amazing, amazing week. That's a wrap on today's episode of It's All Relative. Thank you for spending your time with us. We believe what you bring to the dance world matters, and we're honored to support the way you teach, read, and inspire. If this episode moved you, made you think, or gave you something new to try, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss with that. You can connect with us anytime at RelativeMotion Dance on Instagram or visit relativemotiondance.com for more tools and training. Until next time, keep growing, keep leaving, and keep dancing with perfect. Because remember, it's all relative.