EP 51: The 3 Shifts That Happen Inside RM Live (That You Can't Get Online)

Why do some breakthroughs only happen in person? Discover the three transformational shifts that help dance teachers build confidence, strengthen technique, and become more impactful educators at RM Live.

In Episode 51 of It's All Relative, Cara Dixon explores why in-person dance teacher training creates breakthroughs that simply can't be replicated through online learning. While online education offers convenience and flexibility, Cara shares why RM Live provides something even more valuable: real-time coaching, hands-on learning, meaningful community, and renewed confidence as a dance educator.

Through years of teaching, certifications, and working with dance studios across the country, Cara reveals the three internal shifts that consistently happen inside RM Live. If you're a dance teacher, studio owner, or dance educator looking to improve your teaching, strengthen your dance technique instruction, and gain confidence in the classroom, this episode will show you why learning in person can completely transform the way you teach.

Cara talked about:

• Why in-person dance teacher training creates breakthroughs that online learning cannot replicate
• The three transformational shifts teachers experience inside RM Live
• How hands-on coaching helps teachers move from understanding dance technique to truly feeling and teaching it
• Why community, collaboration, and shared experiences accelerate growth for dance educators
• How confidence in your teaching voice directly impacts dancer confidence, technique, and long-term success

3 Transformational Shifts from RM Live:

1. From knowing to feeling by experiencing dance technique firsthand instead of only understanding it intellectually.
2. From isolation to community by connecting with dance teachers who share similar challenges, goals, and experiences.
3. From self-doubt to teaching with confidence through personalized coaching, real-time feedback, and practical curriculum development.

RM Live is more than a dance teacher conference. It's an immersive experience designed to help educators grow in confidence, refine their teaching, and create lasting change in their studios. When teachers experience technique, receive personal feedback, and build meaningful relationships with other educators, they return home equipped to inspire stronger, more confident dancers.

Ready to experience these three transformational shifts for yourself? Learn more about RM Live 2026 and reserve your spot at www.therelativemotionexperience.com/rmlive2026.

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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 newest episode, episode 51 of It's All Relative. So today we are going into the difference between online and in-person learning. I think this is such a valuable topic because at Relative Motion we offer both online options and we offer in-person teacher training options and in-person dance workshops. And so today I'm gonna dive into the three shifts between being online and being in-person because we are in a golden age of online learning. You can watch a tutorial at midnight, you can re-watch it four times, you can take screenshots, right? So why ever get on a plane and show up somewhere in person? That's what we're talking about today. And today we're pulling back the curtain on what actually happened inside RM Live. RM Live, it's not what you expect. It's not just more content, it's not more certifications. That is important, right? We are giving you tons of valuable content, but we also do that online. So it's like, okay, why are we traveling here? Why are we doing this? And so I'm gonna talk today about three specific internal shifts that we never see happen any other place but in person. You can't manufacture these shifts online. And honestly, we try. We try super hard to have that personal touch, to have that connection with teachers, even if it's our digital certification where every week we're in a call together. But I want to talk about three shifts that we see at RM Live that we actually do not see in some of our other trainings, because I think it's important to recognize, especially when you look at coming in person, you're looking at, you know, the flights, maybe the hotels, the food, traveling, all the extra little things that we have to consider and plan for and the time it takes and all that stuff. So we are talking about RM Live. This event is July 17th through 19th in Orlando. We do have a few spots left. Honestly, we don't have a lot. It's five or less. And we will drop the link at the end. But first, I want to talk about why it matters. Let's talk about really why it matters to get in person. And the first shift we see from teachers that come to this event specifically is they go from knowing to feeling, right? They know it in their mind and now they're feeling it in their body. And that's a huge shift. When we watch stuff, and I'm a very visual learner, when I watch stuff, I'm like, yeah, okay, mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense totally. Like logically, the things I see and I'm learning make sense, right? But until I actually physically do it, until I try it, until I practice it, it's really just theory. And so the problem with online learning, a lot of times for dance educators, is it's easy to watch the technique break down endlessly. We can watch it, we're like, oh, logically, I'm seeing the technique breakdowns. They make sense. Yeah, easy. But when our nervous system hasn't really experienced the correction, going and teaching it feels like there's almost this gap between, okay, knowledge-wise, yes. And this happens for our dancers a lot, right? When we talk to them about the anatomy, knowledge-wise, they're nodding, they're like, okay, yeah, totally makes sense. When they go to do it in their body, there's this disconnect, which is also why our apparel is crucial and getting dancers to bridge that gap because a lot of times the experience level of dancers isn't somewhere that can get them from the knowledge to the action as easily. So our apparel really helps with that. But even for us as educators, we can watch these breakdowns of technique on the videos and, like, okay, yep, totally makes sense. That looks like an easy cue. We get in the classroom and our personal nervous system hasn't experienced the correction. So, understanding why it's not landing for a dancer, there's that gap. And there continues to be that gap. There's that gap between intellectual understanding and embodied understanding, right? We think it, we see it, we understand it, but to embody it is this separation. So, like all that kind of wraps into one thing. And I'm gonna say there were times when I started a yoga certification. It was 2020. Like we all know what 2020 ended up being, but I started my certification in January of 2020, it was supposed to end in September. And so our first certification weekend, this powerhouse weekend, we were in person, we were in the studio, it was so good. Everything landed. I was like, oh, they give me a small note on something I should change in my alignment or something I should change in my queuing. And instantly it was like, oh yeah, that is so much better. That is so much stronger. Month two, we're now, you know, not in person. And we are doing everything online, and all of the weekends that are these powerhouse, like in-person weekends are now virtual. We're just jumping into Zoom for these three, eight-hour days back to back. And it was just like, okay, hypothetically, like, yes, I see, you know, what I'm doing in the practice. I'm moving my body, I'm virtual, like all the things. And so I was still like moving, right? I'm still going through the classes, but not having the teacher right there telling me, okay, it's just honestly, it's like an inch difference here, and having me really click and feel it in that moment, it was a massive difference. And so month after month after month, we're doing these Zoom sessions. And then mid-summer, we had the option to go back in and be in person. And the difference when I came back and did these intense weekends in person, the difference in what my body and what my mind was connecting was so crazy. And honestly, a lot of that is when we started doing our online certifications and we thought, okay, let's try an in-person event. That's where this stemmed from. It's like there's something in person that we receive that's not what we receive when it's just digital or virtual information. And so at RM Live, the relative motion technique, it's being done with you, but it's also being done by you and it's being done in real time with feedback in the moment. And so the difference between that and maybe getting feedback, but the teacher not really seeing virtually exactly what it is or exactly being able to feel with you which muscles are wanting to fire up, the difference is crazy, right? It's almost unmeasurable. It also is like that aha moment doesn't happen when we're watching, it happens when someone's cueing and something in your body unlocks in real time. And so even if you're doing something virtually, if a teacher is right there with you, like what are you feeling? Okay, I'm seeing this is off just a little bit. Where do you feel it? Okay, let's try feeling it here. And then watching your body transform and unlocking something that we haven't felt before in real time is really cool. And then also wearing the apparel and being immersed in it and having that visual connection. I think a lot of times teachers are like, I'm just gonna throw the apparel on my dancers and just watch these connections happen. But a lot of our teachers are literally like, as soon as I personally put on the apparel things that I'd been doing since I was a kid, I could see it and I was like, oh, that's really it, which is very cool. And so teachers at our events are consistently describing this moment as the moment they stopped analyzing the technique and started really, really understanding and feeling and trusting it. It was less about the analyzation and more about the trust and not the thought process, but the immersive process. So this is the shift we feel and hear the most in our post-event feedback is the teachers say, I thought I understood it, then I put the apparel on, and then I felt it. And I realized I hadn't really understood this at all. And that is the cool thing, not only about the tool, but about as a teacher getting immersed in it. And sometimes it's hard as teachers putting on the apparel and going into the classroom and feeling it with our dancers for the first time, versus being in the space with other teachers who are also experiencing this specific feeling for the first time with the apparel as a tool. You know, it's like this moment where we don't have to have the pride of being the teacher, but we are all in the studio together, like we're all feeling the tool for the first time. We're all having these unlocking breakthrough moments together for the first time. And so the community of it is so awesome and supportive and nurturing. So that's the first shift that we see at our RM Live events. The second shift is you go from being isolated to being rooted in community. So there's a huge loneliness problem in dance education. And we hear this with studios we work with where the teachers are like, yeah, we just come in, we teach our classes, we leave. Sometimes we'll have a faculty meeting where everybody at the studio gets together, but often we're planning classes on our own. We come, we teach, you're not in the room with other teachers. So it can be very isolating, right? It's more a solo act. And so when you're in the studio, you can easily be in your head and you can easily be trying to figure things out alone and curious, okay, are other teachers having these issues or other teachers having these problems? And so the cool thing about our own live is that not only if you come as a team, you're working individually and then you're combining with your team to be like, are we all having these issues? And it's really fun to watch teams kind of like light up and realize that what one teacher's saying sometimes in genres that feel unrelated, sometimes it'll be like a teacher saying this and ballet, another teacher saying this similar thing in a different way and tap. And you're like, oh, do these even? And they do, they overlap and they layer up to be similar things. But also another thing about the community is now you're hearing it from other teachers across the country that they're seeing and feeling this in their studios and their classrooms as well. So we've had teachers come from Florida, another teacher comes from Washington, another teacher comes from Toronto, and they're all like, Whoa, I thought this was just us in our space or me in my space. And I felt so alone in this because I'll go to competitions and I'll see other studios not having this issue. And they're all in the space and they're like, not only technical issues, but also, you know, if dancers are giving attitude or you're having issues with certain families, like it's a very open space for you to just feel seen and heard. And I feel like online communities help. We always try to do weekly calls with our online teachers that are going through Total Technique Academy. We do weekly calls, but it has a ceiling, right? Because you don't have the energy of being in person and really seeing and hearing next to each other on the lunch breaks, when you're just hanging out, you're hearing about the other person's kids, and then you switch into like how it feels to be in the studio or like how to do priorities and all those things you can't really dive into in a weekly call. And it's a particular kind of belonging that only happens when you're physically in the room with people that you're like, wow, I felt like we were so different, but you really get it. We're really actually the same here, and it's cool. So at RM Live, you're surrounded by teachers at different levels. Some are newer teachers, some are like, oh, I'm just getting into teaching. Some are RM alumni, and some are teachers that have been seasoned, they've owned studios for like 20 years, 30 years. And so it's really cool because you get a mixture of people that all seem very different when we get in the room together and when we actually dive into some of the deeper concepts. We're all the same and we're all having the same struggles and we're all wanting the same wins. And it's just really, really special. And so, you know, you see the conversations happening over lunch, they're happening in the hallway when people are doing partner work, right? When we're working together, we're queuing together, we're feeling out what works, what doesn't. That's the kind of stuff that happens in person that you can't even manufacture in another environment. And it's cool because we see people leaving with actual relationships and not just, you know, a quick handshake or pat on the back. But people are leaving, they've exchanged information, they've spent the lunch breaks together, they've gone back and forth to the hotel together, right? And they end up supporting each other for forever afterwards. They end up just being really close, really tight. And so that's really special. And I remember at our first RM live event. So this year will be our fourth one, but I remember at our first one, it was so crazy because everyone came in just like a little timid, and everyone just kind of sat with their studio or had their own moment in their own space. And by the end, we took a group photo, and our team looked at it right after the event was over, and it was so crazy because people that didn't know each other literally two days before were like hugging. They weren't even standing with the people they came with anymore. They're standing with these brand new friends. They're hugging. It looked like they had been friends for years. And it was just so mind-blowing. And that moment sticks out for me as a core memory because it's like that is real, you know? That level of commitment and that level of friendship and that level of trust in another person after such a short period of time is so special and it's so real. And it's why we do RM life and it's also why we keep our event really small. And so when I'm like, oh, we only have three spots left, like we're not, this isn't some gimmick. We're just kidding, we have a million spots left. We keep our events small when it gets to a certain point. We're like, that's as many as we take because it is a very one-on-one individualized process. We want to hear what you as a studio owner or you as a teacher are dealing with, and we want to really give you genuine help to get you to that next level. So it's a very tight, intimate group of teachers. It's not a huge conference. And I always want to stress that because I don't want people to come and think there's gonna be a hundred teachers at this event. That's not our event. So it's cool because this ripple effect occurs in this community setup, right? When you feel less alone in your development and your learning and you're teaching, you also show up differently for your students. So the community is just this bonus feature, right? So the training you will get and the things you'll unlock. But it's part of what makes this learning stick. And that support you get long after the event is what makes this stick. So we've had teachers tell us that this was the first time they felt like they were part of something bigger, right? That they looked at teachers outside of that studio that they were in, or if you're an independent contractor, the studios that you're in and thought, man, what I'm feeling everyone else feels. And I remember moments with teachers at each of these events where maybe they'd open up and they'd get a little emotional, and other teachers are just nodding their head, and you can just feel that everyone is going through what you're going through. And you feel until this moment like it's an isolated thing, like I'm struggling with technique, or my dancers are plateauing, or my families are pushing back, or whatever it happens to be. Dancers have changed, dances change. This feels really heavy. I don't know if I can still do it. And as all the teachers are gathering around and celebrating and supporting, it becomes this really empowering moment. And we just love that. That's really the icing on the cake of this event. So I want to talk about our third shift. Shift number three goes from self-doubt to trusting your teaching voice. And sometimes I feel like, you know, we all have this imposter syndrome, especially if we're trying to get our dancers to the next level or we're trying to keep up with everything that's happening technique-wise in the dance world, right? We can have imposter syndrome, we can have this quiet fear. Am I actually good at this? Am I giving my students what they need? Can I get them to the next level? You know, am I capable of getting them where I see other dancers getting? And this is even experienced, accomplished teachers, even studio owners of 30 years can feel like, okay, actually, I've been in this a long time. Am I still giving them the cutting edge technique, the on-trend skills? Am I still getting them to the next level? Am I still there with them? And new teachers definitely feel this, you know. Can I do this? Am I capable? Can I keep up? And so that's one thing that we feel. Even we're talking about teachers of 40, 50 years can carry this feeling, can feel this exact same way of imposter syndrome. It shows up differently, but it still is what it is. And then online learning can sometimes reinforce it. You consume more content and you compare more and you second guess more and you wonder, oh my gosh, there's so much more I don't know. And so when you get in the room, you're being seen by our team in real time. You're getting actual feedback, you're getting real encouragement that's based on what you're doing. And so this isn't just content, it's confidence. And you get this confirmation that what you feel is the technique working, what you can do is trust yourself to teach it. When you feel on your body in real time the technique working, you know that if it works for you, you can get it to work for your dancers. You get this confidence, you get this encouragement, and you know, like, okay, the teens cued it like this. I felt it in my body like this. The change was this, it unlocked this. I'm gonna practice this cueing in this event, and I'm gonna see this happen on another teacher, and it's gonna unlock that in me. I can take it back to my dancers. And this is the cool thing is that not only do we do the certifications, we build out the curriculum. So now that you've felt it, you can build it. And so when you leave RM Live, you are ready to actually take curriculum that you build at the event, not cut and paste curriculum, not this should work for all level ones, but this is what my dancers are doing. This is the level that they are at. These are the goals that we do have, and this is the curriculum that we built based on that. And so teachers leave not just with new skills, but this renewed sense of authority, actually, right? So you aren't just like, I know it now. You're like, I know it, I can do it, I can cue it, and now my dancers can do it. And you know that leaving the event. So within three days, it's this turnaround in authority, is this turnaround in confidence. And looking at the bigger picture, this is the shift that affects your students the most directly. Because when you trust your teaching voice, when you trust the technique to work, you go in and you know, I can get my dancers to see this differently, understand this differently, feel this differently, and get them to the next level, your students feel it. And that's what builds their self-belief in class. And so the biggest thing we want to do is have the dancers believe that they can do it. Because if they don't believe they can do it, they're not gonna do it. There's gonna be a mental roadblock. So when we come in and we have that authority, we have that trust, we have that confidence walking in, we can more easily build our dancers' belief. If you look at your dancer, you're like, I don't know, I think if we try this, we can somehow get you there. But if you walk in and you say, hey, let's check your mobility. Wow, okay, you have access to this, this, and this. Let's get you there. Your dancers instantly feel that confidence you have in what you're about to do for them and your confidence in them. They now have the belief. They believe in themselves, they trust you. And so it's this huge shit. It's hard to even explain that because we didn't design RM Live to just give more tools. We didn't design it just to give more content and to overwhelm. We designed it to change the way you feel about what your dancers are capable of doing and what you're capable of doing with them, what you're capable of getting them to. And because when we can change ourselves as teachers, our mindset, what our capacity is, we can shift that downstream to our dancers, which is awesome. So three shifts. We're gonna bring it all together. So three shifts the technique, it's technique that moves from your head into your body. It's belonging that breaks through the isolation of teaching alone, and it's a confidence that doesn't come from consuming more information, it comes from being seen and knowing that you can trust yourself, you can trust the technique, and you can build your dancers to get there. And none of that really fits into a video. We have great digital trainings, we have great virtual online trainings, but these are the three shifts specifically that happen in person in the room. So we want you there, right? Over three days. This is what happens when you show up. So let me just share the details. RM Live 2026, it's July 17th through 19th. So it is coming up. It's in Orlando. We're hosting it at Performers Edge Dance Center in Davenport, Florida. So it's just right outside of Orlando, pretty close to the airport. We have everything to set you up. We are genuinely down to the last few spots. I said that earlier, but we really do keep our events small. So I just want to say if you want to get in the room, I believe we have three spots left as of recording this. It could be less by the time you hear, but three as of now. And if something in this episode resonated and you're like, I really want to get in that space, it's not an accident. Like you hear this, you know, like if it's meant for you, it's meant for you. If it's not, you just know it's a no, right? But if you're like, man, there's this tug, it probably is meant for you. So we're gonna put the link in the show notes. Go to it, check it out, see if it's for you. If you're on the fence, just send us a message. We're real people, right? We'll talk it through with you and we'll make sure that it is actually the right fit for you. Because if it's not the right fit for you, getting in the room is not a great idea. So email us Kara at Relative Motion Dance or DM us on Instagram, we're at relative motion dance, and we'll get back to you. Because honestly, if you have something you really want to talk through to make sure it's a good fit, we are here to really encourage you one way or the other and really make sure it's where you should be. Thank you guys for being here. Thanks for caring about your teaching the way you do. You know, it matters, and I know sometimes we wonder if we actually have that impact, but it matters more than you know the way you show up and the way you care about your dancers. And if you're listening to a podcast like this, I know you care about your dancers and your technique and how you show up as a teacher. And I'm so excited to have you here with us weekly listening. So we'll see you next week, and hopefully we'll see you in Orlando. Talk to you soon. 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 what's next. You can connect with us anytime at Relative Motion 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.