Pointes and Perspective #52 Master The Movement, Not The Monopoly

Master The Movement, Not The Monopoly

There is a certain kind of class that should be your favorite. They’re the ones with energy. The ones where the dancers know each other well enough to laugh, connect, and feel comfortable in the room.

And yet… somewhere along the way, something shifts.

You find yourself stopping more than you’re teaching. Redirecting more than you’re building. Waiting, constantly, for the room to come back to you. It’s not one big moment. It’s a hundred small ones. A comment here. A reaction there. A side conversation that wasn’t meant to derail anything, but does.

It’s not intentional most of the time. I don’t think they walk in thinking, “I’m going to take over today.” But little by little, certain voices begin to stretch beyond their place in the room. They fill the pauses and turn every opening into an opportunity to be seen. And before you know it, the class isn’t flowing anymore.

I hear from teachers all the time, from different studios, and at different levels, about the same experience. Classes that should feel alive, but instead feel constantly interrupted by the same pattern. One or two students who unknowingly begin to dominate the space.

It’s not usually malicious. It rarely is. More often, it reads as confidence, humor, leadership, or connection that hasn’t yet learned its boundaries in a shared space.

But underneath it, more often than not, is something simpler. A need to be noticed.

And that’s not a flaw. It’s human. We all want to feel seen, valued, important in the space we’re in. But when that need takes up more space than the work itself, something important gets lost.

Because dance class, real dance class, isn’t just about doing. It’s about watching, listening, absorbing, and taking in corrections that weren’t meant for you and letting them change you anyway. It requires awareness. And awareness is something we have to learn.

So when one person dominates the space, even unintentionally, the entire room shifts. Focus fractures. Timing breaks. Energy scatters. And the most exhausting part isn’t the behavior, it’s how much teaching time it quietly steals. You start the combination. You stop. You reset. You try again and again. Until the class that should feel expansive starts to feel smaller. Not because the dancers aren’t capable, but because the space isn’t being shared.

There’s a phrase we fall back on sometimes,“This is my class.” (The one the old-school teachers used to say, and the one that still shows up uninvited when patience starts to thin.)

But it IS their class. They showed up. They’re here to learn. They deserve the experience. (And let’s be honest, they paid for it. Or their parents did.)

The difference is in the role.

It is their class to RECEIVE, and my class to GIVE.

When that exchange is respected, and when students take in instead of constantly putting out, the room changes. It opens.

If class were a game of Monopoly, it would be tempting to think the goal is to own as much of the board as possible. To take up space. To claim attention. To make everything circle back to you. But a dance class doesn’t work that way.

The studio is not a board where one player gets to buy up all the properties. The teacher holds the real estate, shaping the structure, pacing, and flow. Within that, students are invited to move, grow, and build. But not to take it over.

When one dancer collects all the attention, drawing it in, holding it, redirecting it, the rest of the class loses access to something they came for. Not just time. Opportunity.

And here’s the part we don’t always say out loud, but dancers need to hear. Everyone notices.

Your teacher notices. Your classmates notice. In any space, people are aware of who contributes, AND who consumes. Over time, that becomes your identity.

Be known as the dancer your teacher (and classmates) can depend on. Not the one who makes noise just to be seen. Be the dancer who listens, applies corrections, and elevates the room, not redirects it.

Because the dancers who grow the most aren’t the loudest in the room, they’re the most present.

We all have ego, especially in dance. We want to matter. But there are different ways to get there. You can reach for attention in the moment, through commentary, reaction, and performance of presence. Or you can build something stronger.

If you need your ego fed, let it be fed by your work. Let it come from consistency, focus, and willingness to be corrected. Because that kind of recognition doesn’t just fill a moment, it builds a reputation.

The best classes aren’t silent. They laugh, connect, and have energy. But they also know when to reel it back in! To the work, to the listening, and to the shared understanding that no one needs to own the space in order to belong in it.

That the room works best when it’s respected by everyone in it.

If class were Monopoly, it wouldn’t be about owning the board. It would be about how you move across it.

Master The Movement, Not The Monopoly