Backstage · Chapter 3 · Learning to learn
Backstage
Over more than 25 years, my students are not the only ones who have changed
— Benito García —
Sometimes I see a student walk through the academy door who first arrived knowing almost nothing about flamenco.
More than twenty-five years have passed.
Now I see her walk through that same door, and I am no longer looking at that beginner.
I am looking at a wonderful flamenco dancer.
Something about that moment fills me with an affection that is very hard to put into words.
When I watch her dance today, I recognise things I spent many years trying to pass on.
Feeling.
Expression.
Truth.
I have never wanted a student to become a copy of me.
The point is not for her to do exactly the same thing.
What matters is that what I have tried to pass on eventually finds its way into her own dancing.
But over those more than twenty-five years, she is not the only one who has changed.
I have changed too.
And the way I teach has changed enormously.
— ◆ —
Teaching flamenco in Japan
When I began teaching, my approach was much closer to what I thought a student in Spain might need.
More steps.
More technique.
More knowledge related to the stage.
All of that still matters.
But after many years living and teaching in Japan, I understood that I needed a different approach here.
My Japanese students have grown up in a culture very different from the culture of Andalusia.
Besides, many of them do not want to become professionals.
And even when someone does want to pursue flamenco professionally, that cultural distance still exists.
Over time, I understood that increasing the amount of technique did not automatically make that distance disappear.
If I want to bring a student closer to the feeling of flamenco dancing more quickly, I also need to bring her closer to the culture it comes from.
That was where my work as a teacher began to change.
— ◆ —
Learning to learn
There is an idea that has become fundamental to me:
learning how to learn flamenco.
Often, I explain something in my usual way and a student does not understand it.
When that happens, I do not want simply to conclude that she cannot do it.
I look for another route.
Another explanation.
Another image.
Another way to help her feel what I am trying to convey.
Until we find a way in that allows her to understand.
But for me, the work does not end when she manages to do that exercise.
I want her to recognise for herself how she managed to learn it.
Because if she understands that process, perhaps she can use it later to overcome other difficulties.
After so many years here, I have understood that we do not all learn in the same way.
And that flamenco can be passed on in ways that cannot simply be reduced to copying a shape.
We need to learn what perspective to look from.
What to pay attention to.
How to observe.
What to listen for.
How to approach flamenco not only as technique, but as art and culture.
That is part of teaching too.
— ◆ —
Students shape the teacher too
If someone asks me what my Japanese students have taught me, my answer is very simple:
everything.
To me, a teacher cannot just dance in front of someone and say:
“Copy it.”
A teacher has to keep developing to find different ways of reaching different people.
A teacher needs to be able to teach someone with an extraordinary natural aptitude.
But also to find a path for someone who does not have that natural ease.
Every student has made me think.
Change my words.
Investigate.
Look for new ways to explain.
That is why I feel my students have taught me practically everything I now know about teaching.
And that experience has given me a great deal of confidence.
But it is not the confidence of thinking:
“Now I know. Now I am a teacher.”
It is something else.
— ◆ —
The doubt I feel every day
I was asked whether I had ever doubted myself as a teacher.
My answer was:
“That happens to me every day.”
When a student does not understand something, my first reaction is to ask myself what I can change.
How can I explain it differently?
What am I failing to convey?
Is there another way to make it visible?
I search.
I investigate.
I try things out.
That is why my confidence as a teacher today does not come from having eliminated doubt.
The doubt is still there.
Confidence and doubt coexist.
And often it is precisely that doubt that makes me keep looking for better ways to teach.
— ◆ —
One of the reasons I am still in Japan
When I look at the results after so many years, I think they are also one of the reasons I remain here.
If I had not seen those results throughout all this time, I probably would no longer be in Japan.
I have helped my students develop.
But they have also made me evolve as a teacher.
They have learned flamenco.
I have learned how to teach it.
And that relationship has grown over decades.
— ◆ —
Before copying, look
If a student arrived today knowing absolutely nothing about flamenco, I think I would say something to her that I might not have said in the same way twenty-five years ago:
Before trying to learn the choreography, observe the teacher.
Do not look only at the feet.
Do not look only at the arms.
Look at the face.
Look at the gesture.
Look at the expression.
Try to sense the feeling that accompanies the movement.
Every movement carries an intention and an expression.
When someone is still struggling to learn a step physically, it is very difficult to ask them to reproduce everything that step expresses at the same time.
That is why we need to look first.
Look a great deal.
Because expression is not something we add on top of the choreography once we know the steps.
It is part of the movement from the very beginning.
And when I see that student who first arrived more than twenty-five years ago walk through the academy door today, I understand that I am not seeing only her development as a flamenco dancer.
I am also seeing more than twenty-five years of my own development as a teacher.
I have tried to teach her flamenco.
And throughout all that time, I have been learning too.
— Benito García —
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