Ep 50: Amplifying Your Impact: The Influence You Don't Realize You're Having

Your dancers may forget your corrections, but they'll never forget the example you set.

In this episode, I'm diving into a powerful truth that every dance teacher, studio owner, and leader needs to hear: your greatest influence has very little to do with the combinations you teach or the corrections you give.

As teachers, we often focus on technique, training, and performance outcomes. But dancers are learning just as much, if not more, from the way we handle stress, speak about ourselves, respond to challenges, and treat the people around us.

This conversation is a reminder that our impact extends far beyond dance training. Every day, we're shaping mindsets, habits, beliefs, and culture. The question is: what are we teaching when we're not teaching?

Cara talked about:

• Why dancers learn more from who we are than from the technical skills we teach
• How our attitudes, habits, and responses become examples dancers naturally adopt
• The impact of our language and why words can shape a dancer's identity
• How studio culture is built through the behaviors we allow, model, and reinforce
• Why the strongest studios develop standards that continue even when the teacher isn't in the room

Key Tips:

• Model the behaviors and mindset you want your dancers to develop
• Replace labels with language that promotes ownership and growth
• Be mindful of how you talk about your body, challenges, mistakes, and success
• Create a culture where accountability, positivity, and commitment become the norm
• Evaluate the environments, leaders, and influences surrounding your dancers

Long after dancers forget the choreography, they'll remember how you made them feel.

They'll remember your energy. Your standards. Your example. The way you handled challenges. The way you treated people.

Your greatest legacy won't be the technique you taught.

It will be the person your dancers become because they spent time learning from you.

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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. Good morning, friends, and welcome to a new episode of It's All Relative. Today I am so excited because last week we dove into the idea of the cost of criticism, what it means and what it takes from us when we come into a situation or come into a teaching with the critical mindset, when we're a little bit more willing to criticize than to uplift, or if mentally our mind goes to that negative thing first. And so today, we're not going to specifically talk about the cost of criticism. We're going to talk about amplifying our impact. So I think a lot of times we come into the room as teachers, and as we're talking about impact, we think, okay, so how much technique can we get these dancers? How can we give them the best correction? How can we get them to that next level? But it's often like, is the most influential thing we teach the pirouette or the flexibility or the leaps, or is the impact coming most from something as simple as the way we walk into a room? As teachers, we often focus on what we're teaching. We do our class planning, we make sure that it's going to get our dancers to the next level. We think of all the corrections we can give them and all the ways that we can get them there. But dancers are learning less from what we're teaching, physically thinking of teaching, and they're learning more about us and what they should do in their lives from who we are. They're learning more about life from who we are. And so they're watching, okay, what is their energy when they get to the studio? How do they handle stress? How are they talking about their bodies? How are we as teachers talking about other people? The dancers are taking that in. How do we react when things don't go our way? And what do we celebrate? You know, if something goes really great, or will we even stop and celebrate it? And I've talked about this on past podcasts as well. Is sometimes something really awesome will happen, and we're like, yes, we did it. And then we're on to the next thing. And how, and especially as adults, and if you own a business, it can really be that way where you maybe set a goal for something and you're on your way to get it and you're building and you know, all the things, and then you get to the goal and you're like, okay, what's tomorrow? And you just go on to the next thing. So long after the dancers forget the correction or the combination, they constantly remember how we as teachers made them feel. They're gonna remember the feeling. And think about that for us as adults, when we think back on teachers that were influential to us, do we remember what the combo was? Do we remember what the correction was? Or do we remember, okay, when I was in that teacher's class, I felt this way. Or when I looked at them, I really admired this about them. And I think that's super important. So I think the greatest misconception is that influence comes from instruction. What we're giving the dancers, the information is what's going to change them the most. But really, they're becoming what they're repeatedly observing. So when a dancer sees the way that we behave, when they see the way we talk about other people, when they see the way we handle, say you're a competitive team, the way you handle wins, but more importantly, the way you handle losses, that's what they're starting to take in. That is their foundation. They learn our behaviors, they learn our attitudes, they even learn our beliefs by observing. And so it's very important that things that could shift and mold them, and this, I'm gonna bring this even back to age compression. Things that they shouldn't know at a certain point, they shouldn't have access to knowing because we brought it into the classroom. Even our thoughts, even our opinions. And a lot of times, and we talked about this in the cost of criticism. A lot of times our perspective feels like our truth. Often it's our opinion. You see this with people being very polarized on their views. We have to remember that we feel strongly about what we feel strongly about. But again, everything that we think and feel is an opinion, and it might be based on our experiences and our beliefs, but it's not often the truth. And so, what are we bringing into the studio? And knowing that the behaviors and the thought patterns and the way we respond, what we bring into the studio, the dancers are gonna start adopting this. They spend a lot of time with their families, and then even over how much time they spend with each teacher at school, they spend with us. And so for dance teachers, it's like, what am I teaching? And this is something we should run through our mind constantly that I don't even realize I'm teaching. If I walk into the room and I'm constantly, oh, I'm exhausted every day. Oh my goodness, I really need to lose weight, really not looking at ourselves with a positive mindset, always putting our body down, always putting ourselves down. I'm so overwhelmed. I can't handle this. If that's what we're constantly saying or constantly putting out in our energy, the students learn that being an adult means being burnt out, that being an adult means being overwhelmed. They look at their bodies and they start to really critically like criticize, they're analyzing and criticizing their bodies, little things. And sometimes I look back on times when I was very critical of my body. And I look back on pictures of that and I was like, oh my gosh, why what was I talking about? You know, where did that come from? And what was I even talking about? And so we have to remember that we're looking at things with a perspective that's not just our perspective, but is actually going to start to sift into the young minds that we're trying to also bring up and encourage and build up and get into the world in a really healthy way. We need to promote that healthy mindset. We need to promote healthy awareness, even healthy ways that they go about their life. Are they eating healthy? Are they moving their body in a way that feels good to them? So, what we need to do constantly when we think about this is we need to model self-respect. Do we respect ourselves? We need to model healthy habits. Are we fueling our body well? Are we fueling our mind well? Are we speaking to other people well? Are we speaking to ourselves well? We need to model a growth mindset. Sometimes I think we look at things and it's easy to be like, I'm not really interested in learning that. You know, I know what I know. We've always done it this way. These are just things that pop up in the dance community in general, like, oh, we've always done things this way. And if we want our dancers to try something new, we have to model that. And so sometimes our dancers get to a certain point and they've gotten the muscle memory and these habits that they've built, and they're not necessarily serving them as far as their technique. And we have to, at a certain point, have them rework these technical habits, but it's a very uncomfortable process. And you almost look like you have to go back to the drawing board and build it up again. And it's really frustrating. It's a really frustrating process, especially if dancers have gotten, you know, their botma up to their face, and now we're asking them to use more turnout and the bat ma lowers to figure that out. And it's frustrating. And are we modeling a growth mindset? Or are we, as adults, willing to kind of turn it off and look the other way if it's not something we want to really deal with? We don't really want to learn it because that would make us shake things up a little bit, or are we always willing to be a little bit uncomfortable and grow a little bit more? And another thing that we model a lot of times is accountability. Are we taking accountability for our actions? Are we taking accountability for things we've said or choices we've made? If someone comes up to us, do we instantly get defensive? Or are we willing to say, you know what? All right, let me see. Can I see it from a different perspective? And I can I take accountability for my role in this event. So students learn that, and those are really important things. It's really important, it's outside of that technical realm of what we're teaching them. So, what we want to do is we want to remember dancers watch our lifestyle before they listen to our words. What does that say? Do what I say, not what I do. So, and a lot of times this happens as a parent where we're constantly modeling. So sometimes if my child does something, I look at them, I'm like, why in the world would you do that? I also at the same time am running through my head and I'm thinking, have I modeled this? Have they seen this through me? And one time, this is kind of a funny story, it's a parenting story. So we're gonna go off the topic of dance for a second. But one time my son was younger, he's nine now, but he was probably four years younger, so precious. And he was like, Can I help you set the table? So I was like, Oh yeah, absolutely, buddy. He's like, Can I can't reach the plates? Can you help me get the plates? So I reach up and I grab the plates and he goes, Oh, mommy, these are such nice plates. We could use these or we could use the white ones. And so he was basically saying, like, thank you for handing me these plates, but I would like the other color, please. But he was just like, We could use these plates or we could use the white ones. And I remember just laughing so hard. And I shared this story with my husband. I'm like, isn't that hysterical? Like, what where does he get that? And he goes, You do that. If we are doing something and you don't want us to feel bad about it, but you would rather us do something else, you'll put the option out there, and it's clear that we're doing that other option. And I just took a step back and I was like, Oh my goodness, I do do that. You know, if my kid picks out an outfit, I'm like, what a great outfit, buddy. I love it. Or we could wear this outfit over here, you know, like we kind of mold them to like, okay, yes, you did a great job. However, we're wearing this other outfit today. And so, and I had to look at myself and be like, oh, that's a nice way to do it, but it's still kind of manipulating the situation, right? And it was precious when he did it at five. And I was like, okay, I need to remember that everything I do, they're taking it. And the same way with dance, everything we do, they're taking in. So if they're talking about their peers a certain way, and there's a certain energy to that, are we talking about people in the dance community a certain way? And are they reading that? Are we talking about other teachers or some of our friends a certain way and they're hearing it and they're starting to talk about their friends a certain way? And not that that's happening, but can we stop, sit back, and take that accountability? Is that coming from us? So they're gonna notice do we move our bodies? Do we take care of ourselves? If we're asking them to continue learning, do we also continue learning? Are we practicing what we preach? Are we speaking kindly of other people? Are we trying to consistently keep a positive mindset or is it easy for us to dive into the negative? And those are the patterns that they're gonna take it and they're gonna notice that. So if we're asking that of our dancers, are we also doing that ourselves? The next thing is the language we use. Words are gonna create culture. And we talked about this with that example with my children. Sometimes as teachers, we can underestimate how powerful comments become, especially when they're built up over the years. So when we're looking at a dancer and they're coming in and we're like, they're not really putting their full effort in, they're not doing this, and we talk about this in the caustic criticism. Is our mind saying that dancer's lazy? Because if our mind is saying, they're lazy, then I don't know what our mouth is gonna say. But our mouth is gonna say something that's gonna pull that energy and that perception and put it into words. Obviously, we wouldn't say you're lazy to a dancer, but what do we say that kind of parallels that and comes out of our mouth towards the dancer? What if in our mind and also in our words, we could say something like, your focus isn't matching your potential today? You're not focused, but you have so much potential. Let's get our focus in line with your potential. So we're not saying oh, you're lazy, but we could say, oh man, they're not focused today. Let's see how we can get them in a laser sharp, get them back. Instead of saying, and this is a positive, but instead of saying you're naturally talented, because sometimes that's just like you don't need to work for it. You've got this, you know. Instead of saying you're naturally talented, you can say you're really committed to your training. That dancer's if any of if you're talking to a dancer about another dancer, instead of saying, well, she's just naturally talented, you could say, she's incredibly committed to her training. She's just working really hard to get there. Now, obviously, you only say that if the dancer is working really hard to get there, but giving them the work behind it versus the it just happens for them. So the really great tweak in this is that one is creating that fixed identity. They're lazy, they're naturally talented. It's just it's in them. That's who they are, that's how it is. And the other one creates this ownership. You're playing a role in this. Hey, your focus doesn't match your potential. You're creating a role in the fact that you're not getting what you want out of your body today. You're not getting to that next goal. You're instead of saying you're naturally talented, you're really working hard for those goals. And so there's an ownership to that. There's an action that that person has to do that really brings the result versus they just are this person. That's the result that's gonna happen. And so we need to think about this language when we're talking about our bodies, our efforts, our mistakes, our success, even our failures. We're not a failure, you're not a loser, but we lost this competition. But that is not your identity. That's what happened today at this event. It's not about us, it's about okay, next time we put more effort in, but it's not a personal label now. We might have lost to this other team. We are not losers. So taking the identity and making it into no, this is just part of the process. Now we get back into the studio, we work really hard, we lost an event, that's all this is, and we work harder and we come back better next time. And then there's no identity when we go to competition. We might win, but that doesn't mean we're gonna win every time. And so, how do we also keep humility in those moments? Yeah, we did a great job with this competition. Other teams brought it, but we were really have worked hard up until this point, that type of energy and ownership. Because, you know, we want them to have an internal voice. We want them to have a soundtrack inside of their heads that, hey, when I win, I still have work to do. And when I still have work to do, I'm still humble. I won, but I'm still humble. I still admire the other people here. I'm still so grateful to be a part of this event. And I'm gonna be at another event that kicks my butt sometimes. And then when we fail, we don't meet the mark, we don't get to our mark. It's that inspiration that gets us going again. And so I think that's always just so important to keep in our mind that it's not an identity, but it's that influence, it's that inspiration to keep going to get to the next level. And then I want to say there's also that part that's like, we've heard it before, your life is the sum of the top five people you spend time with, right? You're the average of the top five people you spend the most time with. And so I don't know exactly where that statistic is, but it is true that who you immerse yourself and surround yourself with, you get really influenced by. As teachers, we're huge influences we've been talking about, but the dancers are surrounded by these other dancers constantly. Other than being with their family and being with their friends at school, these dancers are like a family to them. And so, as teachers, we have to also not just focus in on ourselves, but also focus in on the culture that we're creating. Because humans tend to normalize whatever surrounds them. So if dancers are surrounded by commitment, they're surrounded by discipline, they're surrounded by positivity, they're surrounded by accountability, this is normal. This is the norm for them. But if they're surrounded by things like gossip, if other dancers are constantly making excuses, they're gonna start to do that. If they're surrounded by negativity, that's gonna start to seep in. If they're surrounded by just not really pushing ourselves, not really trying to get to that next level, we're just kind of complacent. The dancers are gonna normalize that. And so we have to think, okay, our attitudes spread, our standards spread, the culture spreads. And we as teachers are the foundation of that. What are we putting out and what are we allowing in the studio culture? What are we allowing to persist? Because those toxic things tend to grow a lot faster. It's almost like a weed. The roots aren't as deep, but that spreads really fast. Whereas when you try to grow like a plant before it yields fruit, the roots have to go pretty deep. And so that takes longer. So the culture that we're trying to bring in of positivity, encouragement, goal setting, that's gonna take a little while. We have to build roots for that. But when something comes in and it's just kind of like toxic, it's gonna be surface level and it's gonna spread fast like a weed. It doesn't need deep roots because it's not trying to go that deep. It's just gonna spread fast. So we gotta, as teachers and as leaders, we gotta squash that fast and build up the positive culture really quickly. So we have to focus on our own influence. We're gonna circle back to that. We gotta focus on the influence of others. And we need to think that our dancers are strongly motivating and impacting the other dancers, also the environments we put them in. So if you're a competitive team and you take your dancers to environments that are really highly toxic, they're gonna see that as the norm for competition. If you find competitions that are encouraging, uplifting, the other dancers that come are very similar. They're encouraging your dancers. Your dancers are gonna learn from that culture. So not just what you build in the studio, but also the environments that you put your dancers and families in. So as we go into this, I want us to constantly ask ourselves, how are we acting? Who are the leaders that we're setting up? Who in the spaces are carrying the culture? Who is setting the tone, especially when you're not in the room? Who's setting the tone for the room? And is it gonna continue on in the energy that you're putting out? So as we're closing, the strongest studios were not built when the teacher is watching. They're built when the dancers are upholding the standards without us being present. So, how deep are those roots that we're building? How deep is the development that we're putting in that place? Because when we're not around, is there a standard? And this is when our culture becomes self-sustaining, when our culture can stand on its own. And then we're starting to leave a legacy. We're starting to impact in a greater way. We're just really, we're leading something that's worth it way beyond technique. And so every day our dancers are becoming something, not because of our corrections, not because of our technique, not because of this incredible class, but because of their repeated exposure to what we're putting in front of them. It's our habits, it's our standards, it's our words, it's our energy, it's to the other people in the room, is to the environments that we put them in. And so what we want to do is think, what are we teaching when we're not quote unquote teaching? What are we teaching when we're not teaching? Because our greatest impact isn't gonna be the technique. It's gonna be the person they become. It's gonna be who they are because they spent all this time with us. That's so important. And so when we talk about a long-lasting impact and really engaging a deeper level of impact, it's all about this. So whenever you're in the room and you're thinking technique, technique, technique, also remember what's my energy, what's my focus, what's my output, what's my legacy? Because that's gonna be so, so crucial. So I'm excited. I think that you guys are crushing it as teachers. I see the technique you're putting out there. I see the dancers that we get to often spend time with. They're just amazing people. And I hope this episode today impacts, I hope it inspires, and I'm excited to talk to you again next 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, lead, 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 what's next. 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 leading, and keep dancing with purpose. Because remember, it's all relative.