Well, that might have gone OKish...

In case you didn't know, I've been working with Kwame Brown in a kinda of apprenticeship to work toward becoming a certified animal trainer (Exuberant Animal, that is). It's been off to a bit of a rocky start, but I think things are progressing. Having taught dance for so many year, I have my stride with that down so that I barely have to think about it. I know well the safety points to hit, the kind of humor that I like to incorporate, the methods that I find effective, have ways to work with different abilities to get the desired results, and have a good feeling for class flow. I started teaching in '99, so it's now a LONG time ago and I don't at all remember what it was like when I started. This has made this learning to lead hard because the methods and skills and MO that I had developed for dance DOES NOT translate 1 to 1 into Exuberant Animal. It's unsettling, because I feel lost, but also fascinating because I am learning a whole bunch of new stuff, new ways to work with people, etc. It's a very good process to be going through. I'm also taking over someone else's class, rather than starting something essentially on my own (with dance, there were several teachers, but we were ALL new at it so there was no established class feel in the beginning). So I've an added challenge (probably mostly in my head) of trying to figure out how I should lead it since the participants are used to Kwame's style and sense of humor and let's face it... I am not him. He is not me. That's just the way things are, so I need to figure out how to get my own stride.

So, on and off, Kwame's been settling me small portions of the class to lead some warm ups or exercises to get my feet wet. It's been a bit awkward because of the issues mentioned above. Last week, he set me up to start the class: "pick 5 things that you want to do and we'll go with that" and then just never really took over again, so last week was my first whole class. It was awkward as hell, especially since I had not enough material picked out, was kinda winging it, trying to figure out how to challenge people but keep them comfortable and safe, and ADDITIONALLY try to come up with what we could do next. Egads! Let's just say that I'm pretty sure the awkwardness that I felt inside carried over. Oh well. This week, yesterday in fact, was my second full class. This time, I was fortunate enough to have a vague heads up about the fact that I'd get the whole class again and so I got some time to prepare, come up with a conceptual theme, and make a list. I felt much better, I think it went much better for the people playing, I know I still have a lot of work to do. I'm not nearly there yet, but it definitely seems like something I can work on, get better at, and actually be able to lead effectively. Yeah, that's the other weird thing about this certification - it seems like one must tread a very thin line between just leading by giving ideas, and teaching. You don't want to 'teach' too much because you want the participants to explore their full range of motion - as far as they're comfortable with, and explore their own creativity. Also, you don't want to leave it too loose because there are certain safety considerations to take into account. It's fascinating. Well, let's hope I keep growing and figuring it out! : )