PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Spin, twist and chasse; fancy dresses, realistic props and gorgeous hairstyle--- Students in the Chinese dancing club tried almost everything to head towards perfection in their new show, but something was still missing. I stood by the dancing floor, and was lost in my mind. Music is the trouble, and music is why I am here today, as their music tutor. Melody has been a part of me from my very early age: I can handle it so well that it has even become my own language. However, the problem today is bit different: traditional Chinese music seems powerless when used as background music, because we are trying to portray the combination of Western and Eastern culture which is the spirit we want to deliver through our show. I realized we were in desperate need for innovation and perfection if we wanted our dance to achieve success.

I watched their moves over and over again: elegant, emotional and mercurial. All of a sudden, a piece of melody ran into my mind, and we all agreed on my unique idea of using Jazz as background music of the dance as symbol of Western culture as soon as I put it on the table. But we quickly found it hard to realize. Rhythm of Jazz and movement of Chinese dance must be exactly matched. We searched the Internet and were disappointed to acknowledge that no one has ever tried this before. We, however, didn’t give up easily. I searched for almost every piece of Jazz I have listened to one by one, trying to get the right one. The dancers, then, followed the music and adjusted their moves. Facing an entirely new form of performance, we were trapped at the beginning. But through hard training, the situation is becoming increasingly better. During the teaching time，I added a piece of Chinese folk song in the middle of the show. The contrast was intense, and outcome was marvelous.

As I realized, nothing works better than innovative ideas and hard work. This is what I learned form the whole teaching period. Also, communication barriers with my students always made me worried at very beginning of the courses; however, I tired to be patient to communication with my students and overcame a lot of potential problems. From my perspective, It is a efficent way to enhance my communicative skills with others.Even this is a short process to be a jazz teacher, I gain numerous happiness from it. Hadn’t I paid much attention on the news of working as a jazz teacher, I would have had no opportunities to find my real interest and enthusiasm in my life; hadn’t I persist in my faith of keeping dancing, I would haven’t been a good teacher who is as professional as others; hadn’t I tried to overcome the difficulties when I teached, Atlas, how could I be ?