EP 52: The Art of Showing Up

Great dance teachers don't just teach technique. They shape confidence, character, and lives. This episode explores the art of showing up and why your influence reaches far beyond the dance studio.

In Episode 52 of It's All Relative, Cara Dixon takes a break from teaching dance technique to celebrate something equally important: the art of being a great dance teacher. Through personal stories, teaching experiences, and practical classroom strategies, Cara reminds dance educators that their greatest impact often comes from the moments no one sees.

Whether you're a dance teacher, studio owner, or dance educator, this episode explores how effective dance teaching, dance teacher leadership, and student mentorship go beyond corrections and choreography. Learn how consistency, patience, encouragement, and intentional teaching create dancers who grow both technically and personally.

Cara talked about:

• Why teaching dance is a unique skill that goes far beyond being a talented dancer
• How great dance teachers study both movement and the individual behind the movement
• The often overlooked teaching skills that build trust, confidence, and long-term dancer growth
• Why consistency, patience, and positive correction have a lasting impact on dancers
• How intentional leadership shapes not only stronger dancers but stronger people

4 Practical Teaching Tips from Cara:

1. Reset the energy of the room by using simple activities or breathing exercises when dancers need to refocus.
2. Replace "no" with "let's try this" to make dance corrections more encouraging and solution-oriented.
3. End every class with a meaningful closing ritual that helps dancers reflect, connect, and leave with purpose.
4. Practice regular teacher self-reflection by celebrating your wins and identifying moments that made a difference in your students' growth.

If this episode encouraged you, take a moment to reflect on the teacher who changed your life and remember that, for many of your students, you're becoming that person too.

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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. Alright, friends, before we even say hello, I want you to think of one teacher. Not a famous one, and not the one with the most followers. Just one teacher who did something for you that you still carry into your own classes, into your own teaching methods, into your own studio to this day. And I want you to hold them in your head because this whole episode is going to be for them. And honestly, it's for you too, because if you are listening to this, you're probably that teacher for someone else. So, hi everyone, and welcome back to It's All Relative. This is episode number 52. Okay, so we are literally a year into this podcast. I'm so excited to share this with you every week and just to spend this time together. And this episode today is gonna be a little bit different because instead of diving into a technical concept or a training breakdown or a teaching method, today it's gonna be more like a hype episode for my dance teacher friends because the thing is, teaching can often be invisible work. We show up all the time. Some days there's highs, but often there's very strenuous times, it's very emotional. It can be those moments where you're trying to figure out the right words to say to a kid to really get them to understand a technique concept, or maybe kids are coming in with the weight of the world on their shoulders, and not only are we trying to guide them technically to the next level, but we're also trying to nurture them as humans. We're trying to be there for them on the good days and the bad. And a lot of times we've said this before where outside of their family, they're most likely spending the most time with their dance teacher. Because if this is a dancer that's dancing seriously, they're probably gonna switch school teachers every class and at the least every year. But dance teachers, we have them from the first day of class all the way through when they graduate. So outside of being with their parents and being with their family, you can easily be the next closest influence to them. So the thing is, teaching can often feel like invisible work. Nobody's clapping when you're figuring out the right words to help a kid finally understand it. Nobody posts about the class where you held space for a kid that's having a hard time or the worst day of their life. But that work, that's where the real magic happens. That's the whole game. That's the whole point, is that yes, we're trying to mold them into these really beautiful, incredible, amazing dancers, but we're also working with their human spirit. And can we guide them and lead them and encourage them in ways down the line, if they decide that they don't want to dance, that we've given them these life skills to really take on the world, believe in themselves, set goals and reach them, all the things that are going to give them the foundation of success, whether or not they become dancers or not. So today we're talking about why teaching is its own art form, why the skills that they're developing are the skills that sometimes you're not gonna get credit for as the teacher, the skills of discipline, the skills of setting a goal and getting there. And actually, sometimes the skills of discipline you could get pushback on. Wearing this certain theme to class, having your hair a certain way, showing up on time, thinking your teacher before you leave class. These are often things that today, sometimes culturally, we're gonna get pushback on, where they're really the things that are gonna take the dancers to that next level. And so today I want to give you fun practical tips you can take into your next class and ways to really step up those elements of teaching for yourself. And as that trickles down, it'll be for your dancers too. So let's get into it. We're gonna start here. Teaching as its own art form. So we talk a lot about this. Dancing and teaching are not the same skill. And I think that sometimes that can be a great area because we're looking at these incredible dancers, and a lot of times studios will hire them as a master teacher. Just because you're a great dancer doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna be an incredible teacher. It looks like a great dancer should be a great teacher, but when you're performing, you're translating an idea through your own body, and you already know what it's supposed to feel like. But when you're teaching, you have to translate that idea into someone else's body. And that's where the trick happens. Sometimes somebody can be an incredible dancer, but they really struggle to translate that into teaching. Teaching, you're taking this idea of something that works in your body and you're trying to put it onto somebody else's body, a body that doesn't move like yours, it doesn't think like yours, and it doesn't have the same years of muscle memory. And so when someone's this incredible dancer, this incredible mover, and they aren't able to translate it into teaching, that just takes experience. And so when we're looking at someone who is 18, they're a beautiful mover, and everyone's like, they're a master teacher, there's an issue there because the master part of teaching comes from the years and years of experience, the years of trial and error. This works for my body. Why won't it translate over to that dancer's body? When I first started teaching, there would be times when I would look at a dancer, I'm like, yeah, you just do this. I'm thinking about okay, how does this work for my body and explaining it really quickly? It's almost like giving a class versus teaching a class, right? And I think that that happens a lot in today's society where someone comes in with an amazing combo and they just give a class. And the combo is great, but the teaching isn't happening. We're not teaching a class, we're just handing this information over to the dancers and being like, okay, if you're already great, you're gonna crush this class, but if you're not, maybe another class is for you. And we just let it go there. And that happens a lot with these quote unquote masterclasses. And so I remember as a younger teacher just being like, Yeah, why isn't this dancer getting it? Okay, here's the information. Why isn't that dancer getting it? And it came to me as I was going through this and I was in college and my younger sister, so she's years younger than me, and my mom was in one of her privates, and later she was talking to me about it was with Denise Wall, who was one of our most amazing dance teachers when we were growing up, but also such a mentor as a teacher throughout the years after, whether it was when I was working contracts or whether I was back in her studio actually teaching for her. But I remember this moment with my mom, and she was talking about one of my sisters' private lessons, and she said it was so incredible to watch Denise break down the technique. And so in my mind, I was like, okay, great, great, great. Well, tell me about that. What did you notice as a parent that was so incredible? And she would look at something, like say a pirouette, and it wouldn't just be a correction, she would just study my sister as she's doing this pirouette, and she said, Yeah. So for instance, say she was doing a pirouette, and on the second rotation, she lifted her big toe up and then she started falling towards the outside, falling towards that pinky toe and away from the passe. She would stop her and be like, All right, on your second rotation, you shifted your weight from the middle of your foot over to the outside of the foot, which caused you to fall this way. Let's do these exercises to build the technique up for getting you back in the center of the weight. So in my mind, I was like, oh my goodness, that is the missing link. This was such a big moment for me, such a core memory, because it was like thinking, okay, you're right, that's so different from what other teachers have ever done or are doing. And so it changed something in me before Denise even became my teaching mentor. It changed something in me that I was like, oh, that's so interesting to really dissect it down to the smallest thing and be okay, if that's the pattern of the dancer, that they always in the middle of the turn shift their weight toward the outside of the foot, and they're always tending to fall in this direction. How can we train the dancer to want to feel something differently here and then to do something differently? And so this was such a turning point for me in my teaching because before it was like it works in my body, it should work in your body. And it was that kind of information system. Oh, yeah, this is how it works for me, this is how it should work for you. And it got me into the study and train position where you study the dancer, you figure out, okay, really, what is going wrong here? And then you train the dancer to fix that thing. And so a lot of what we do at relative motion is study, figure out the patterns, figure out what's really going on, and then train from there, which has been mind-blowing as far as really helping dancers get to that next level. And so, what I want to talk about here, great teachers aren't just reading the movement, they're reading the room. They're like, this is gonna take it even from that level of me translating the technique into translating the human. And so, what I talked about in my example is really seeing technically how to get the dancer from here studying them, studying the movement and getting them to the next level. But how can we really even up level that is reading the room, noticing when the student in the back is quietly just not getting a step, when they're just quietly giving up on themselves, noticing when the energy is low and know whether to push the kids through it or lean into it. Is this a week where the energy is low? But if I really hype these dancers up, we can get them up there and we can get those technique elements happening and we can get to a really awesome spot and really just shift the energy. Or is this something that I need to lean into? Is this a day where we're just a little bit low energy? Maybe they had comp all weekend, maybe they're physically exhausted, maybe it's exam week. Read it. Read the human part of the dancer, study the movement, and then also study the humanity of the person you're teaching. And then those elements together are going from good to great, from great to greater. Getting in there in that space and really noticing, like, okay, we're gonna learn something different than we would in a teacher manual. We're gonna learn something that's up-leveling our entire craft of teaching. So that's what we're gonna jump into as we're talking about the unsung skills of great teachers. Okay, so let's talk about skills that no one's really handing out awards for. In our community, in our industry, you get a platinum plus crystal extra, right? But what are the skills that no one's giving an award for as far as teaching? Because these are the skills that every dancer remembers. Now, in the beginning, we set our intention for a teacher. And as I already shared, one of my greatest mentors is Denise Wall. I trained underneath her and learned so much of my technique capacity from her and also my teaching. A lot of the ways I approach a classroom have to do with the way she always dissected technique, could look at it, could really hone in on it and get the dancer to understand the next level of it. So we already have that picture of a teacher that we're thinking about. And so there's something about that teacher that you are so moved by. And so what we're gonna do now is we're going to talk about some skills of great teachers that you most likely have or you're most likely developing. So some of us might be newer teachers on here, and some of us might be super skilled, some of us might have been teaching for two decades, three decades, four decades, five decades, and we're feeling a little burnt out. And so here are some amazing skills that we can bring into our teaching practice. One is patience when there's a plateau. So every student is gonna hit a wall. Every student at some point, and it's not a permanent wall, but every student's gonna hit a technique wall where we're feeling like, oh, okay, I've been working on this for so long. I don't feel like it's going anywhere, I don't feel like it's moving anywhere. A great teacher doesn't panic. And on top of that, a great teacher is not gonna let the student panic. We're not gonna worry about the plateau. Instead, we're gonna keep showing up with the same steady belief that the breakthrough is coming. Now, can we look at the technique and try to explain it differently to the dancer, try to get them to really have some moments? We say it differently, we show it differently, we feel it differently. Absolutely. But the thing that we don't ever want to shift is we constantly want to lead in that with belief. The dancer's not doing it yet, but we know their potential is there. We know that they can do it. We know it's coming. We know that if we keep working on it, it's gonna happen. So just having patience in that moment. We're not gonna get frustrated, even when our dancer is getting frustrated. Yeah, we understand it's frustrating and we can acknowledge, okay, this is so frustrating. I know you've been working on it for a really long time. It's not that you can't do it. We just haven't figured out how to make it connect quite yet, but we're getting there. The next thing is the art of correction. So we can all point out what's wrong. Okay, we can all go in the studio and be like, correction, correction, correction, correction. But our real skill as teachers is saying it in a way that builds the student up instead of breaking them down and making them shut down, right? And so instead of thinking, here's what's wrong, here's what's wrong, here's what's wrong, let's reframe it. Hey, it looks like we're struggling with turnout here, try this instead. Let's work on this and say, try this. So the difference is the student that's like, I'm a second away from quitting because everything I do is a no, and one that's like seeing the possibility instead of like, okay, you're not doing your turnout, okay, you're not doing this, okay, that's not happening. Be like, the turnouts are really frustrating. Try this. Because that, even that small shift in how we verbalize something changes it from you're not doing it to we're so close, try this. Now, the third thing is holding the standard without losing our students. And so we want to be able to tell as teachers when a dancer is having an off day. We still want to hold them to a certain standard. They can't come into the class late, not ready, disrespectful, all those things. But know when they're having a bad day and know how to hold that space without lowering what we're asking for. So, hey, I understand that you're having a bad day and we can accommodate for that in some ways, but you still need to come on time prepared with a good attitude. These are the bare minimums for being in the class. You need to be able to be in here with respect for your teachers and for the other dancers. You need to move through the class, you need to be prepared. And it's a really hard balance because we want to honor where the dancer's at, but we also have to uphold a standard for the whole class so that we're also honoring the other dancers that aren't having that bad day. And the class isn't just a wash because one or two students come into the room not feeling like they should be there. The last thing that we are gonna talk about, changing it from good to great, is consistency. Now, this one can be underrated. So we're gonna show up as teachers the same way every single class. We are not gonna come with our highs and lows, we're not gonna come. Oh, we've had a bad day, so I don't have much to give you. Or I'm in a high, everything's so awesome, but tomorrow it's really my low. So this is the type of class I'm giving on my bad days. Maybe I won't be on time today because I just didn't plan for it and I have other things going on in my life. We're gonna show up early, we're asking them to show up on time. We're asking them to show up maybe a couple minutes early. We're gonna show up really early, we're gonna be ready. If we're having a bad day, let's get our minds straight before we come into the studio. I know that's hard. Trust me, I've had these seasons where I'm like, man, what I would give just to stay in bed and not do this and give and give and give, like teachers have to do. But that's just part of it. And our consistency helps them, it helps them create their own consistency, it helps give them an example for really showing up even when they don't feel like it. And so, as teachers, gonna show up the same way every single class, even when we don't feel like it. This is stabilizing for the dancers, it's stabilizing for them to know. And they don't always know why they trust you. But it ends up being because you are the same person class after class after class, no matter what. The amount of trust you're building, the amount of rapport you're building there. And then when you go to tell the dancer something like, you're able to do this, I believe in you, they actually trust that and they believe in themselves. And so even those underlying things we're doing as a teacher are so, so, so, so, so powerful. So, let's jump into some fun practical tips that we can use in the class starting now. Let's get practical. So, first, a reset. If you notice the dancers come in and it's just like, oh, like the energy is low. Maybe it's the day after a comp weekend or it's their first day back from the long break, and just the energy is not where it's at. Try a reset. So if it's little kids, do something fun. Like, all right, everybody, sit down. On the count of three, we're gonna stand up and create this pose. Ready? One, two, three, scene up. Sit down. All right, one, two, three, seen up. And make it silly and make it fun. And they're little, they're starting to train themselves to listen, but it's just an engaging, fun little game, just a blip of a game. If they're older, have them lay down on the floor and have them just ground into the floor, taking these deep breaths. Lead a breath and mindset exercise. Have them think about each body part, just relaxing totally on the floor. And then after you get your dancers completely relaxed, take time to just bring energy back in each little element of their body. Start with their fingertips, start with their toes, just wiggling and finding movement, and then move it through their body and then make the movements bigger. Little things like that can reset the whole energy of the class, just not having to like jump right back into it. Just okay, let's reset. If they're little, have fun with it. If they're older, let them ground into it. Next, tip number two, we're gonna swap no for okay, let's try. Let's try this. Okay, let's do this. It's a small, small thing. And I know, like, if you're a parent, they say that this was parenting instead of like, don't jump on the couch. It's like make sure you have your feet on the floor, something like that. Now, sometimes it feels silly in parenting because you're dealing with toddlers and they're not like completely rational, as we all know. But this is great for dancers and swapping the no or the just flat correction. You're not doing this, you're not doing this. Four, hey, let's try this. You're so close. Try this one extra thing. It's the same information, but it's just a different impact on how it feels on the dancer. Then, tip number three: end class with something that feels like a wrap-up, something that feels like the dancers can plan for this. Maybe it's that we're all like in ballet when we all do a curtsy at the end of class and we're thanking the teachers with the curtsy at the end of class. Ballet has this really brief ritual in jazz or in contemporary or in lyrical, is there something really brief you can do that just really wraps up the class that the students will remember and it feels like it comes full circle at the end? And the last thing is do teacher self-check. Sometimes we're so busy giving and giving and giving to the dancers that we don't actually stop and reflect on ourselves. So, what about a question that you consistently ask yourself? What did I notice today that maybe I could have missed if I wasn't more present? Or where were my wins today? I think we're always to encourage dancers, we're always getting them to try to have wins on every class. Like, what are your big moments? What are you noticing about yourself? What did you learn? And so, as teachers, where were your wins? Was there a dancer that typically comes in and they're a little bit grumpy, but today they were super 100% invested? Is there a dancer that was working on their turnout, they've really been having struggles, and today you found this exercise that gave them major breakthrough? So, as a teacher, check in on yourself. You're important. You are so important to the livelihood of the class and how they're doing. So make sure that you're consistently checking in on how you're doing. Now I want us to go back to the teacher that we thought of at the beginning. The one who did something or taught a certain way that you still carry with you. That's what we're all doing, every single class. You in some way are imparting in your dancers something similar to what you carry that your teacher is imparting in you. So, whatever that important thing is, whatever that voice is, whatever those moments were, think about that. You're also carrying that with you, what your teacher carried to you and gave to you, you're carrying it to your dancers. So we might not always feel it in the moment, but somewhere down the line, a student is gonna think of you in the exact same way that you're still carrying your teacher. As we wrap up, thank you. Genuinely from all of us here at Relative Motion, thank you for showing up the way you do, week after week, day after day, year after year. For students that literally might not say thank you back for years and maybe not ever, right? That you are literally making a difference in their lives. Every time they show up, it's because you have invested something in them and they know that they're worth showing up for. So if this one landed for you, we'd love for you to share one of your stories with us. If you want to find us on Instagram, it's relative motion dance. But we would love to hear some of your special moments in the classroom, some of the things that were really impactful from your teacher to you or from you to your students, maybe even that one student that showed up later and said thank you. And pinpointed something that you didn't even know was as impactful as it is. You are doing the hard work, and we are so, so excited to share this space with you. So thank you for spending the time with us, and we look forward to seeing you here 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, 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 we 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 leaving, and keep dancing with other. Because remember, it's all relative.