Which Zumba teacher do you like better?

Everyone is always talking about which Zumba teachers are good.  Which ones are good depends on what you are looking for.  Just because your best friend likes one, doesn't mean you will like the same one.  What I've noticed is that students don't realize why they like one teacher more than another.  They'll say they get a better workout from one, or one is more fun, but they can't exactly pinpoint what the difference is.

Some positive teacher attributes are obvious.  This teacher cues really clearly.  She always points which way she's going to go next or shows with her fingers how many steps we have left.  She even uses her eyes and her facial expressions to cue.

She smiles and yells out crazy motivational pep talk the whole class.  She gets us going in a conga line or divides the room into a battle; she's just fun!

Some teachers are the mother hen.  They make it around to everyone in class and memorize all the names and know something about each student and call out their names and encourage them.

Many teachers have lost their reputation because of where their eyes are pointing.  "That teacher always faces us.  She's too hard to follow; I wish she'd just face the mirror."  I can't tell you how many times I've heard that.  For us teachers it's hard to absorb because at Zumba certification we learned we're supposed to face our participants.

I've also heard, "She's so stuck up.  She's always staring at herself in the mirror.  She doesn't look at her students; she doesn't even notice that we can't follow her."

Before I started teaching, I went to a class with a very friendly, energetic, enthusiastic teacher.  She did very easy, repetitive choreography, so it was super easy to follow her class, too easy for me.  But she could move her body well and was fun to imitate.  But I went to her class three times, and each time she picked me out and asked me to come to the front and dance.  As a student, I had mixed feelings.  Of course, it was a compliment.  She liked my dancing and wanted me to serve as an example.  But I wasn't a teacher yet, so I didn't have that "let me teach the class myself" attitude yet.  I just wanted to be the student and observe and learn; I didn't want to be a role model.

Some students don't want to be in a battle or in the middle of a circle and feeling the pressure of having to come up with a cool move.  Some students don't want to be put in the front of the class for everyone to watch.  They just want to melt into the class without too much attention on them.

Here's the main reason that I think students like or don't like a teacher, even if I've never heard a student say this herself:  You'll like the teacher who feels the music the same way you feel or want to feel the music.

I'm a teacher, so when I take another teacher's class, I always think "What would I do to this part of the music if I were teaching?"  Sometimes I think, "Well I definitely wouldn't do this."  Then I'm wishing I were up front and taking over the class at the moment.  Other times I think, "wow I do this same song in my class but I use different moves, but this teacher's moves are fun and go with the music too."  Maybe I picked a move that went with the lyrics, but she is picking a move that goes with the rhythm or a particular instrument in the background.  Other times I think, "wow, I've never used this song, but I'm really getting into this and the moves the teacher has selected for this song just make the song feel so right.  I feel like I'm part of the music!"

As a Zumba teacher who sometimes plays the role of a Zumba student, that's what I love the most about being a student.   It's that moment in the middle of class when you say to yourself, "Wow!  I'm feeling the music and I'm so into this.  This move is so fun and goes with the music so well!  I am the music!"  When I'm teaching, that's my goal all the time.  I have control over the choreography.  I'm trying to make my students feel the music too!

Some teachers mix their music to make each section longer so s/he can repeat the same move longer.  That makes the choreography easier to follow because there aren't as many cues and changes to pay attention to.  But it can also make the workout more boring for the same reason.  Some students want the routine that's easy to follow.  Others want a challenging routine with more changes and shorter sections.  You may not know what you want till you've tried several different classes!

Some teachers do more aerobic moves and less dancey moves.  There can be multiple explanations for this.  First, aerobic moves are easier to learn than dance moves.  They're designed to be easy.  Second,  aerobic moves can get your heart beating faster because you're more likely to do them correctly.  But doing dance moves with oomph can be so much more rewarding.

I've heard students say that they won't take a Zumba class from a teacher who doesn't look good.  If the teacher's body doesn't look fit, then why should that class be able to make the student fit?  These students need visual motivation.  "The teacher's body looks good; so maybe this will make me look good."

I've heard other students say that they like a teacher because she has a real body and she's not all skinny perfect.  Those students are thinking, "Hey, her body looks a lot like mine and she looks good doing all these moves, so I can learn to do that too."

I've had other teachers give me advice, "You need to build an image- do something to make students like you- wear lip gloss or makeup or style your hair a certain way."  Maybe that works for some teachers, and maybe some students are attracted to an instructor for non-dance or leadership reasons.  just lip gloss or hair style!  But I believe students come to me because they like my dance style, my choice of dance moves and my choice of songs, the fact that I change songs frequently, and the time, location and cost of my class.

Personally, when I was learning ballroom dance, my favorite teacher was the one whose body type was the closest to mine.  When I watched the teacher do the moves, I could more easily imagine what it was supposed to look like on me.  I'm a petite woman and 5'1".  It's a lot harder for me to imagine what a move should look like on me if I'm learning from a man or a tall, voluptuous woman.

One tall female student who came to my class once, asked me after class, if I knew any tall instructors.  I asked her why.  She said she thought that it would be easier for her to take a class from a tall instructor because "it's hard to move fast when you're tall."  She believed a tall instructor would do slower moves.  I explained to her that tall instructors would also use fast music and move fast.  Of course, she didn't believe me and still sought a tall instructor.  But I understood, what she really wanted, like me, was a body type she could identify with and imitate.

At the same time,  sometimes it's fun to take a lesson from an attractive person of the opposite sex.  Male Zumba teachers are extremely popular, and most of the participants are women!  My favorite hip hop teacher was a man.  My body couldn't imitate his exactly, but he was fun and entertaining to watch!  I can see how a woman whose husband doesn't dance would love to take Zumba with a male instructor.  A live man in front of you dancing and making eye contact with you!

Another student told me that she used to take class from a Zumba teacher who knew how to do all the moves but looked the same doing them all.  This student told me the teacher was so nice and friendly that everyone liked her anyway.  Now, it's hard for me to imagine a teacher who does all the moves but looks the same doing them all.  Perhaps she just did the same steps in cumbia and salsa and even in flamenco and merengue.  But I always listen to this type of input from my students because I'm trying to learn everyone's opinion about what makes a good Zumba teacher, so that I can become the best I can be.  If you have other ideas about why students favor one teacher over another, please share them in the comments!

How can I protect my knees while dancing?

Here are 10 tips for protecting your knees during dance:  See video at: http://youtu.be/1E96XUHlSCw

1) Reduce your body weight, so less weight will sit on top of your knees.  (easier to do if you can work out without hurting yourself!)
2) Don't wear really old workout shoes.  Shoes lose cushioning after a while.  Replace them!
3) During your warm up, be sure to bounce gently in your knees.  Don't totally straighten your legs and lock your knees.
4) Knee circles can strengthen knees and legs.  Start with your feet together.  Bend your knees till you're in a mild squat, keep your feet on the ground, and draw circles with your knees on a horizontal plane.  Try the same with your feet apart.  Do both directions.  Imagine you're circling a  hula hoop around your knees.  Include knee circles in your warmup, perhaps along with hip circles.
5) Many students tell me they can't do the hip rotator move that is common to hip hop or samba.  It looks like the knees are moving side to side rapidly.  But notice I called it a hip rotator movement.  Your knees are not moving at all; it's like an optical illusion.  It's all in the hip rotator.  The key is to align your knees with your toes.  Let your whole leg move as one unit, from hip rotator to toe, and the hip rotator does all the work.   Maintain muscle tone in your inner thigh to keep control over your leg so the knee stays aligned with the toes.  Also, if you press down into the floor with the ball of your foot, like you want to squish a cockroach, you will maintain pressure in your inner thigh and not let your knee flop around.  It's when you get lazy, do it sloppy, not put foot pressure into the floor and not engage your inner thighs, that you can lose control of your knee and let it wander and twist itself.  Always include a slow  hip rotator movement in your warmup and gradually pick up the speed.
6) If you want to do the chicken move, where your knees come apart and together again, make sure your feet are rocking side to side so that your knees stay in line with your feet.  If you attempt the chicken knees with feet flat on the floor, you will torque your knees and feel discomfort.
7) When doing lunges, don't let your knees go in front of your toes.  Even when you're taking giant steps forward, for example in ballroom waltz, don't let your knees pass your toes.
8) Absorb shock during landing steps.  After a jump or a hop or a big step, take up the landing in your knees by descending more after your foot touches the floor.  In other words, cushion your landing.  Don't let your foot noisily hit the floor: that would be crashing, not cushioning.  Crash landings are too much impact on your knees.  When you do knee raises and the knee is quickly coming up and the foot is quickly coming down and touching the floor again (common in Bollywood), don't think of it as stomping your foot.  Your thigh and abdominal muscles should be so engaged and tense that they stop your foot from crashing just as it's about to touch the floor.  If your muscles are stopping your foot, you shouldn't even hear your steps.  Now the impact on your knees is ever so subtle.
9) Don't jump till you feel really warmed up.  You may need to avoid jumping and stay low impact.  Or maybe you can half jump (let you heels leave the floor).  You can still have a lot of fun and get a great workout by staying low impact (keeping one foot on the floor at all times.)
10) If you have knee cartilage issues, try taking knox gelatin.  Mix it in your juice.  It's cheap and can strengthen your cartilage.
11) Use shoe gliders such as DanceSocks on your shoes if your are dancing on sticky floors.  Sticky floors will not let your twist freely and could injure your knees.