"Salsa Bachata Class Accelerator" Lesson 11: Being Teacher’s Pet 

The video below is part of a paid program on one of our sister sites. We're giving the program away for free here at Movers and Shakers. 

This "Local Class Learning Accelerator" series is about learning how to learn.

The series will teach you to squeeze the absolute most benefit from your salsa and bachata classes.

The series is meant to be completed in order, so start from Lesson 1.

Audio Transcript: Below is the audio transcript of this lesson. Headers have been added.

Let's talk about asking questions during class. Please, please, please ask questions during class asking questions.

Why Asking Questions Matters

For one, it keeps you really engaged and really focused and we talked about this in other lessons, how it's really easy to lose your own engagement, have your mind drift away, focus on other things, and then you have to remind yourself, okay, focus on this, focus on that, whatever it needs to be at that moment but when you ask a question, that drives in your focus even 10 times.

It's really interesting how that works and when you're speaking with the instructor one-on-one, even in front of the class, of course you're going to give them your full, undivided attention and a lot of times, if you're asking in front of a class, your heart might start beating a little hard. Are they going to judge me? am I asking this stupid question? Depending on your personality, fine.

I know that happens to me a lot, you know, if I'm going to ask a question. I want to make sure I ask an intelligent question in front of the class and I know my, you know, heart will start beating a little faster so that I can actually not waste everybody's time and have it be a good use of people's time, or at least the instructors time and my time while I'm asking that question. 

So this is going to make you hyper-focused on whatever that thing is and keep you super engaged and then you know, whatever the instructor's answer to that one thing is for you, it's going to make that particular piece more meaningful to you and make it stick in your mind even more and that's really going to help you get it into your muscle memory.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Ask Questions in Class

So please, please, please be that student who asks the questions during class. Sometimes we have to overcome again; depending on your personality and your background, you might have to overcome some shyness to do that. But just do it, try it. Please ,please, please, try it and I want you to make it a goal to ask at least one question in every class.

If it's a huge class and they're not taking any questions, well, sometimes you can ask a question anyway. You know, you might have a class of 50 people in a nightclub and you can still raise your hand -  Hey, how does this work?  That's great if you do that.

I tend to do that class of 200 people, and I'll ask you a question, but if you want to start in a smaller group, you know, maybe in a studio with 10, 15, 20 students and ask a question there, that's great, but it sometimes it takes practice. Please, please, please make it your goal to ask at least one question per class moving forward.