For over 40 years I worked as a consultant, coach, facilitator, trainer in many organisations.  One day I woke up and realised it was time to retire.  My clients were getting younger and younger and the age difference was starting to be counted in decades rather than years.  The problem was, no matter what I said or how I said it, the clients weren’t hearing me any more.  They were hearing a teacher – even their father – and down came the shutters.

A different story but the same problem:  There have been times when I have been having a great dance with a lovely partner.  Then, in the gap between dances, she asks if I was a teacher.  If I admitted that I was, in the next dance she would go to pieces convinced that she was being negatively judged.  I’ve now learned that lesson – don’t tell them, but there’s a common denominator – many people have irreversible brain damage when it comes to their attitudes to teachers, and, more fundamentally, their attitude to being a learner.

Prior to tango, my work experience covered a wide variety of clints who were highly skilled professionals, as individuals, in teams and whole organisations, from care workers to musicians, shop floor managers to chief executives, technical specialists to airline pilots. This work required me to have a high level of professional development in a variety of processes and disciplines, which have proved invaluable to me in work and in life. I have been very fortunate to have this background experience and it has heavily influenced the way we work today. It can best be described as Client Centred Coaching, which may sound a bit “New Agey” or even pompous, but it is intensely practical. And it necessarily includes everything the potential dancer brings with them, from hating teachers to “I have two left feet”.
We have further developed and refined our approach and it has proved highly successful over many years teaching Argentine Tango.

Jennifer and I are both active teaching partners, with different but compatible skills, giving equal attention to  Leaders and Followers, combining clear explanation with a variety of exercises tailored to specific needs.
We both coach in either role.   No-one is left partnerless, only giving one partner the attention and leaving the other trying to figure it out for themselves.  Rather than just “show & tell” to the whole group, we actively move around coaching everyone individually or as couples.
A couple dancing are a highly inter-dependent “system” where both partners influence to behaviour of the other. This point is invaluable in trying to unscramble what is really going on – or when blaming starts to creep in.
Additionally everyone has their own preferred ways of learning, we all have unique life experiences, and varying physical and psychological attributes.  “One size fits all” definitely does not work with Tango, and we adapt our coaching to each individual, all offered with our own blend of professionalism, fun and laughter.

If I had to reduce all of this to two simple ideas, this is what they would be.
Don’t focus on what you think they should be able to do. Start by observing what they actually do and say to find out as much as you can about how they actually function and adapt from there. Oh, and however passionate you are about Tango, always remember they think they are doing it for enjoyment.