Disclaimer: I know and adore Sara, so my review might be slightly biased, but it’s not like I’m alone in thinking this is a good book!
Teaching Belly Dance by Sara Shrapnell is a book I went around recommending to people before I’d even sat down to read it. I knew it was good from reputation, and from reading excerpts on Sara’s blog, so whenever someone mentioned to me that they were thinking of teaching, I’d suggest that they pick up a copy of this book to help them plan.
Although I’m probably at least a year or two off from wanting to teach regular classes, I wanted to read this book because I figured it would help me do a better job of running Improv Roulette events. I wanted some ideas on how to structure my warm up and cool down, how to make participants feel welcome and comfortable, things like that. I also figured it would help me with running workshops, and give me some food for thought on what to work on in preparation for teaching classes someday. I got all of that and more!
Teaching Belly Dance covers almost everything a teacher of any style of belly dance needs to know. You’ll get tips on starting a business, tracking your expenses, choosing a location to teach in, deciding when your class should be and how long it should be, how to design a lesson plan, and so much more!
Of course this book doesn’t break down how to teach every basic belly dance move, for several reasons: That would take a lot of pages, text is not the best way to relay dance instruction, and if you need a book to tell you how to explain a move, that’s probably a good sign that you’re not ready to teach! Plus each teacher is going to have their own idea of what moves are a must for a beginner, and a different idea of how they should be done (for instance, I’m currently studying with two teachers, one of whom believes in doing mayas with feet flat on the floor, one of whom believes in raising and lowering the heels. Neither one is right or wrong, it’s a stylistic difference).
What this book does do is give a few examples of moves, and explains different ways to explain them, and the importance of being able to break down moves in different ways, for different “learning styles.” I think every dancer has had the experience of really struggling with a move for a long time, until you visit a new teacher or take a workshop, hear it explained in a new way, and suddenly you just GET IT. This book will help you learn to break a movement down by counts, by how it feels in the body, by what muscles you’re using, by using analogies, and more.
Sara provides a lot of information, but she delivers it all in a friendly, clear voice, mainly in pretty short chapters that will be easy to refer back to as you plan your classes. I found myself wanting to highlight or bookmark a lot of passages for later reference! There are also numerous “Practical Tips” scattered throughout, which serve as mini homework assignments that you can do to assess your ability to teach, or prepare for classes. It was awesome!
If this book sounds good to you, but you know you have no interest in teaching any time soon, you may be more interested in Sara’s forthcoming book, Becoming a Belly Dancer, co-authored with Dawn Divine, Alisha Westerfield, and Poppy Maya. It should be coming really soon and I am so excited to read it.
PS: This book also has the Topher stamp of approval.
PPS: Don’t forget that if you enjoy my blog, you can support me on Patreon and get at least two extra blog posts every month and my eternal gratitude! All for as little as $1/month.