TED 01 | Becoming A Teacher with Pierre Henry - Part 1

Episode 1 – Pierre Henry Part 1

 Pierre is a dancer, teacher, and DJ based in London, and he has been DJing and teaching since 2004,  both salsa and bachata. He was a musician before he started dancing, and this gives his approach to teaching a very dance music flavor, um, where music is as much a part of the dance as the dancers themselves are.

Um, I'm thrilled to not only have a seasoned teacher and DJ here with me, but also a teacher who uses his voice to engage others in conversations that are important to him in the social dancing. Thank you so much and welcome, Pierre. Fabulous. Pleased to be here.  Fantastic. Um, could you, could you start by telling us a little bit about how you got into salsa?

You've been in the salsa and bachata world for a long time. 25 years now.  How did that start? What sparked the interest? Um, as, as many stories do, the story begins with a girl.  So I was going out with someone at the time and she, um, literally dragged me along to a salsa class with her. Um, And we started taking a few lessons, found out I actually enjoyed it.

Um, and then to cut a long story short, we split up, uh, and I carried on going to South's classes. Um, and  after a year or so, I actually met  who is the girl who is now my wife, um, at South's class. And we've been together ever since. She's my wife, mother of my children. Um, and all certain way. Dance partner as well.

Oh, fantastic.  Oh, I've heard so many wonderful love stories from salsa.  No, um, yeah, but before I actually got into salsa, I was a musician. Um, my, my sister was always the dancer in the family. Um,  and I was always hiding behind a guitar or a microphone or a keyboard. Um, and  Yeah, it's just, it took someone to actually drag me along to a dance class to actually get me into moving rather than playing.

So, yeah. And thank goodness they did, because you're, you're everywhere now.  Yeah, too many places to go.  Yeah, you're such a household name for UK salsa bachata. Well, yeah, I don't know if that should be a good thing or a bad thing. What? I'm not sure. Um, and then you started teaching about five years later? 

Um, yeah, well, again, my wife, she actually, um, coaxed me into it, uh, because she, she's actually a proper dancer. She's trained in tap ballet, modern jazz, um, and she was learning salsa, uh, in order to teach it. So, um, she was already  a well established teacher in her own right.  And for the first couple of years of teaching together, I was basically her assistant, so she was the  main voice in the class and I sort of learned how to teach by assisting her as a teacher. 

Uh, um, that's how I got into the teaching, but I was already a DJ,  not for Salsa Rambachata, but for DJ weddings. I used to DJ, uh, cause I used to be in a band as well. So I used to DJ while I was between the sets in the band. Um, so yeah, I've been DJing since I was about 15. Um, And I didn't get into dancing until the sort of mid twenties.

So yeah, I already had sort of 10 years experience as a DJ. And then,  um, after taking up the dancing and started teaching with my wife, um, I was also doing the DJing as well.  That's really cool. So you started teaching by being an assistant first, and that's, that's quite a, a cool way to become a teacher.

So I've done quite a similar thing. I was assisting before I was teaching, teaching. Um, what do you think How has that helped you be the Well, I haven't been in your lessons yet, but I've heard wonderful things about your lessons. So, what do you think is, how do you think that has helped shape you to be such a good, rounded teacher? 

Well, I think with anything, especially when it comes to, well, with teaching, the most important thing is to get experience and build up that experience of teaching, um,  In a smaller sort of focused, closed environment under the tutelage of someone else with more experience. And I think that's how a lot of  the best teachers sort of emerged, if you like.

Um, because like at the time when I was learning, um,  There were nowhere near as many schools as there are now, so like, they were always looking to take on people to sort of  mentor them, to build them up, to become teachers, so they'd become part of the team, they'd start helping out in the classes, and then they'd start shadowing other teachers, um, and then, They'd sort of  eventually be given control of a class, but  you'd sort of build up that that experience locally within your local clubs.

Um, and then hopefully your experience grows, your reputation as a teacher grows, then you start getting invited to sort of more  local events, regional events, national events. international events. I mean, it took me a good sort of five, six years of teaching  in my local clubs before I was invited to my first national event.

And then another sort of three or four years after that to get invited to my first international event.  Um,  just seems to me today that everyone seems to be in a bit of a rush to be that international teacher. I mean, I see some teachers, sort of international teachers who've literally been dancing for two years, let alone teaching.

Yeah.  It all seems to have been sort of fast tracks.  It's that instant gratification age we're in where we've got Amazon Prime next day delivery. It's Almost feeding through to all parts of our life, where it's student today, teacher tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.  Uh, yeah. I mean, that's how I sort of got into it.

Um,  yeah, so I'd done about sort of four years of classes, I think.  Yeah, so four years. I started in 2001,  met my wife in 2003. We opened a club sort of mid 2004. So Yeah. About four years of classes, um, and then sort of teaching together  me as her assistant for two years before I started branching out.  Yeah.

That's a foundation to have to build up so thoroughly because foundations, foundations make you make everyone great. I feel  in the  beginning, I wasn't a great teacher. Um, well, no one's good at things when they first started, right? Like when you first start learning to tie your shoelace, you're not very good at it.

You have to practice.  Yeah, exactly. So, but you've got to go through that process of  learning your craft, learning what works, learning what to say, the learning how to reframe  things from different perspectives,  um, deal with different personalities. Some people prefer more, um, sort of  Physical learning, some people like to be spoken to, some people like jokes, some people don't like jokes, some people, all these different ways of  getting your point across.

Yeah. And that's, that's where the experience  is important. Yeah. Because when you go and teach at all of these different events, every crowd is different. You need to know how to adapt to your crowd. And I think that, that comes from that. That experience that you gain in your early days.  Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree.

I've come from the teaching world as well. I used to be a secondary school teacher. And it was very much like that as well. That we learn by doing, but in that kind of guided, structured way. And that adaptability was something we had to learn so that we could work with the different groups we were faced with on different days and things.

Yeah.  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've got a teaching background as well. I used to teach music. Um, I also used to teach IT,  um, in sort of, um,  further education colleges and stuff. So, yeah. Teaching just runs through everything you do. Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of skills that you can bring into teaching dance.

It's like, I also have a background in martial arts. I used to play sports as well. So all of those things feeding in. So the DJing,  the teaching, the martial arts, the instruments, the The music background, the DJing, that's all sort of fed into my approach to teaching. Yeah, yeah, because musicality is a huge part for you.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you had a very interesting Facebook post recently where you talked about musicality coming at the cost of a connection with another person showing a dance.  Yeah, um, it's just something that I've been experiencing Recently, because,  um, like,  I mean, there's, there's all sorts of posts on Facebook about like people not following the music and everything else.

But yeah,  musicality is actually really important. Um, and a lot of teachers have started teaching me to help you. And I think that's great. Cause it was really awesome. But what I'm experiencing on the dance floor now is that, um, It's a very selfish sort of musicality, it's  I hear the song in this way, and I'm going to dance it this way, regardless of who I'm dancing it with. 

So,  normally you think about leaders sort of enforcing their musicality on the follower, but I'm also experiencing it from the other side, where Like I'm dancing and the follower is doing completely her own thing. And I'm sort of just there, sort of holding her hand while she does it.  I'm not really involved in the dance so much. 

Yeah. Uh, and for me. That might be musicality on a personal level, but that's not what musicality is about. Musicality is about creating harmony. Yes. Um,  in a musical sense, but also in a dance sense as well. That harmony with the music, with your partner. And if, if, if your musicality is actually creating discord with your partner, then it's not, not a very musical form of musicality. 

Yeah, I would agree. 'cause you, you lose that. That conversation, that dialogue that you're having with each other. It kind of becomes just a one way monologue. Yeah, exactly. You might as well be dancing two dances separately in front of each other. Which is all well and good, there is a time and place for that.

And if your partner is up for that, cool. But many people on the social perhaps wouldn't be.  Exactly. Um, yeah.  Yeah, so the, the fact that people are teaching musicality is great, but again, the way that it's being taught is  it's being taught in a sort of very, this is how you do things rather than how you achieve musicality. 

in partner work.  Um, and there's a very, there's a very different mentality to it. It's, it's like  as a musician, if I'm playing as a soloist  versus me accompanying someone else,  me accompanying the singer,  It's two different mentalities, so it's the same when it comes to dancing. If you're a solo dancer,  you approach musicality in one way.

If you're dancing with a partner, you have to approach it in a different way.  It's that same  differentiation for me. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I like that analogy. That really works. You want to overshadow your singer, but you don't want to disappear on them. You need to kind of work in partnership.  Okay. So, um, in your experience as a teacher, you've also, because you've got a fantastic voice on Facebook, on social media, you really use your position to raise these conversations, which I love, I think is fantastic.

Um, and it'd be great to see you inspiring more people to do that. We need more of it.  And in there,  that's what we're doing here. Um, in there as well. Um, you spoke about dodgy comments in lessons.  I think, I think you may have taken that post a little bit wrong. Okay. Just to say. Yeah. Because I was saying that sometimes dodgy comments can help, right?

But also sometimes dodgy comments can be offensive, right?  There's two sides to that coin. Sometimes you have to walk a very, a very fine line. Um, it's like sometimes, so I'll, I'll say to, um, my class, if I have a class where  All of the followers happen to be female, all the leaders happen to be male, right?

So, in that sort of environment, I always say to the ladies, don't drop your hands when you come out of a turn. Because they turn, they drop their hands down by their sides, and then the guy's trying to go for the hand. The light's dark, the music's fast, he's putting his hand out to take hand's not there, he's going to grab something else.

So that's a dirty comment. in their mind, and they don't drop their hands anymore. They always keep their hands up. So that's when a dodgy comment can help. Yeah.  Um, there's also like  inappropriate comments that you can make as well. Um, and I don't think that's helpful at all. And like. Even the language that we use nowadays, it has changed, rather than men and women, we're now saying leaders and followers,  recognising that men can be followers, women can be leaders,  men can dance with men, women can dance with women, all good.

It's great to hear you saying that, I come across some lessons where I hear it quite,  consistently leaders, followers, but still quite a lot. I'm hearing ladies, men, guys, girls. I mean, I have to admit, I still say ladies and men, but I make a conscious effort to say leaders and followers, especially when I know that there's,  if they're all, if all the leaders are male and all the followers are female,  I allow myself to relapse to male and female.

Right. Um, but if I, if I know that there are.  Like female leaders, I often get female aided leaders in my class, so I will adapt my language in that, in that sense.  I mean it's not about getting it right all the time, it's like you said with teaching, when you start out you, it's trial and error, you get things right sometimes, wrong other times.

It's the same with changing anything, so changing language in class or things like that. Yeah, it's not going to be perfect all the time, but as you say, it's the, it's the effort that counts.  But I mean, for me, this is nothing new. Um, like  I, I've danced with men for ages. One of my best friends, um, when I was learning to dance, um, was a guy called Lee, right?

Um, and he was a very young dancer, uh, amazing, amazing dancer, but he could follow. That's, uh, than many of the women that I knew at the time. And we always used to dance together. Um, I'm mentioning him in the past tense because unfortunately he passed away in our accident.  Um, but yeah, he, he was an amazing dancer.

There's videos of him dancing with super Mario on, on YouTube. You can go and look at them if you want to.  Um, but yeah, so, so for me, I've always been happy dancing with men. My wife. Being a teacher, she was always a female leader. So, yeah, this is nothing new for me. Um, the whole concept of non gender normative  roles in dancing.

Um, it seems to be quite a new thing for a lot of dancers. Um, but, yeah, I think it's great.  But yeah, we do have to be conscious of the language that we use in class and try not to offend people unnecessarily. Yeah. You're not always going to get it right, but as long as you acknowledge when you've got it wrong. 

This is it, acknowledging when you get it wrong. And I, I  tend to think that more as an inclusive, my aim is to be inclusive rather than not to offend. Um, mainly because I think in today's age, it's very difficult to not offend anyone ever. Exactly. Everyone's very different and we've got to be okay with being offended sometimes. 

Well, there's  a difference between being offensive and taking offense. So, yeah. So if I say something without the intention to offend, that someone takes offense at that, then there's got to be an acknowledgement on both parts. Certainly, yeah.  So, that's the way I look at it anyway. Yeah.  Thank you so much. 

Thank you again. This has been wonderful. I love it. Thank you. That's right. And it's, it's really cool. Um, cause doing this now with the podcast, I'm getting to speak to some people that I just haven't met before, and I've seen their faces or their names around for the last couple of years, but haven't put like a voice of the name, for instance, or sometimes a name to the face.

Yeah.  Yeah. So this has been fab. And yours is a face I've seen around on different posters and things. So it's fab to put a voice and a story to that face. So thank you so much. Oh, thanks for having me again. for listening to the Empowered Dancers podcast. If there's an aspect of the dancing you would like to hear about or a particular teacher you would like to hear from, drop me a message and I will try to make it happen.

Make sure you subscribe to get every episode as it comes out. Thank you so much for the comments and questions you are already sharing. I really really appreciate it and I look forward to serving you in next week's episode.