I have been a part-time coach at a dance academy for 4 years now. Teaching and coaching dance students. I teach at the first certified hip hop academy in the Netherlands. It’s also the same academy I graduated from a couple of years ago. The students entering the academy are usually between the ages of 17-21 and from all sorts of backgrounds, because the Netherlands is a very multicultural country, which is also one of the things I really love about my country.
I’m not your typical teacher I don’t even fully understand how I ended up being in that position. Since I always was a troublemaker at school and have my doubts about the education system,so i had a rebellious nature. Well life can be unpredictable like that sometimes. And I am not going to lie, the pay is pretty good and has some nice perks like free training studio's in the evening time.
I started off, just teaching dance, but we noticed that something else was needed to help the students in their journey. Most of the kids I teach go through a lot of intense life circumstances. For some reason this style of dance draws to it a certain type of human, I think it has to do with the freedom of expression they find within the dance, it gives them a place to escape to, a place where they feel they can truly be themselves.
But needless to say these kids go through a lot. Some of it’s at home with their family some of it’s with their boyfriend/girlfriend, confidence issues and some have even more dramatic backgrounds. As easy it is to say that outside problems should be left out of school, it’s that easy to say that that won’t happen ever. If you pay close attention as a teacher you see them carrying around their life on their shoulders every day and it affects everything they do including their education.
So noticing that we set up coaching classes. In these classes we try to create awareness in the students. Awareness of self, their actions, consequences. We also spend a lot of time in figuring out their dreams, goals and aspirations. Teambuilding with their class, helping them create a support system with each other, building each other up and helping each other out. Also a lot of other focus points to help them along their journey, like creating a safe and secure learning environment.
A lot of beautiful things have happened during my classes, i've seen kids opening up or the first time to outsiders ever in their life, or just seeing them grow into their full potential and seeing in their eyes that they are starting to believe that they can accomplish anything.
Some of them go to very established dance educations after graduation some of them go abroad. Some of them even go on to do something completely different. But all of them will have grown a lot from their time at the academy. I think that is the most rewarding thing, to know that they have the mindset and foundation, to achieve all that they want to in life. And knowing that they will turn out all right.
Even though I am a teacher I don’t see myself as one. I feel myself to be merely a guide of sorts. Someone to help them along their path. So that means identifying who they are, what they want and what they need to grow as human beings. Because that will also reflect in their dance because dance is merely an expression of self.
I don’t plan to be a teacher there for long since i am venturing out into more entrepreneurial pursuits and time is gradually becoming more limited because of that. But until that time I’ll keep you guys updated about my adventures with them and my own dance life and being that these kids are, hilarious, interesting and completely nuts it will be great content. And of course spending time coaching these kids I am learning a lot every day as well. And i want to share that with you aswell.
So be on the lookout for that. Also i am learning how to use markup and stuff to improve the readability and quality of my posts. Also i will be taking more pictures to use in my posts, i'm not used to taking pictures a lot so be patient with me.
I will have a lot of other content on my page aswell so follow me
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Peace!!
Introduction post: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@avilio91/life-is-what-you-make-it-from-a-hoodlum-to-a-professional-dancer-to-a-coach-and-online-marketer-whilst-loving-anime-and
(I normally don't wear glasses, just trying to look smart here)
