| What folk dancing taught me about presentation skills: lessons from the dance floor to the centre stage | | Date Created: 22 Nov, 2007, 02:43 PM |
 Mention the word "psychologist" and many people immediately see patients lying on couches for years.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In 25 years of practice, I have only met one psychologist who practised this way, and he was a supervisor of mine when I was studying about 17 years ago for my clinical qualifications. He even looked like Freud (see picture, left, on his couch). |
Most clinical psychologists (the ones who practise therapy) are now trained using more evidence-based treatments, much like I use to train presenters in what works best to persuade and influence audiences.
But there is a world of psychologists who never appear in movies or on television, and these are organisational and social psychologists. The former work in industry and corporations, and are more focussed on a positive relationship between people and work. The latter spend time usually researching how people behave in groups, sometimes taking in the domain of organisational psychologists.
Occasionally, as a clinical psychologist I go into organisations to deliver training utilising my clinical skills, but deliver workshops on stress, communication, knowledge management and information "overload", technology's impact on work, and of course presentation skills. |
 Early in my student life, I became aware of the "names" - the leading figures - in my profession-to-be. One of those was a social psychologist, who also made immense contributions to organisations, the late Michael Argyle, a Scotsman. (right) |
 He was a psychologist well ahead of his time, something I occasionally think about with regard to myself! Twenty years ago, he turned his scientific methods to studying the psychology of happiness, way before it became a topic of much contemporary exploitation. It was he, having established a Chair in Social Psychology at Oxford who gave us the term "social skills", a term which has now passed into everyday usage. Argyle also offered a distintly non-American style of researching non-verbal communication and shyness.
Later in his life, he turned his attention to not just definitions of happiness but how to be happy. And he concluded it was not strongly associated with wealth. |
 Towards the end of his career, he engaged in what was really one of the first Reality TV shows on the BBC, looking at a multiweek program to help shy and depressed people once more find their mojo. He incorporated all he had learnt over his long distinguished career to help this mixed group find joy once more in their lives.
I strongly recall the final episode of the series where he took the "graduating" class to a Scottish Folk Dance class. There he was in his kilt dancing with his group, holding hands in a circle as they learnt basic steps. He communicated in the show the value of such social activities in normal human contact, and how they could be a bulwark against depression. |
| Two of the features of depression are a sense of isolation, and unworthiness. Thinking becomes difficult and distorted, and low mood and energy follows. Folk dancing, Scottish or otherwise, almost always places people in a social context, usually giving people permission to hold hands or touch each other in socially sanctioned ways. Movement is planned rather than random, and gently learning movements in synchrony with the emotional impact of music, energises the brain centres not usually associated with language, thus temporarily short-circuiting the vortex of negative thinking. |
| (In one of Argyle's many obituaries, I located the following: "Physically energetic and active, he was for years an enthusiastic and excellent Scottish dancer. He would rather mischievously explain dancing’s appeal by suggesting that it epitomised basic factors in human happiness: a skilled activity shared by aficionados, involving vigorous exercise, social interaction, and close bodily contact with the opposite sex.)" |
For the past 18 years or so, about the time I switched from educational to clinical psychology, I have been involved in Israeli folk dancing. My girlfriend at the time had taken it up (she was a former trained ballet dancer) and I formed the "if you can't beat them, join them" philosophy to spend more time with her.
This form of folk dancing is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, not restricted to Israelis or Jews. Many from Christian evangelical movements folk dance because a subset of dances have a biblical basis, others incorporate it into their International folk dance repertoire, others because it is a social event, still others because it is fun exercise (think Texas-line dancing, or better perhaps, think not), and so on. One can be secular or deeply orthodox and enjoy dance, although the latter do it only in single sex settings.
When I first started dancing, I found that I easily learnt the steps, and moved through the various levels from beginner through intermediate. Eventually, having amassed a reasonable repertoire (an average dancer will know a thousand or so dances), and with a "clean" dancing style (my steps were easily copied) I was approached to become a teacher, and I have been teaching for about ten years now. |
 I was also the first to take digital videos of dancing and using my Titanium Powerbook, Apple's iTools, iMovie, and Apple's .Mac homepage software, quite revolutionised the Israeli folk dance "movement" in 2001 by disintermediating the existing sources of dance distribution such that even very small groups in Taiwan, parts of Europe and the US, and New Zealand, can watch dances and maintain their connection to the dance community. |
On a parallel track, as my attention turned to better presentation skills, starting because of the appalling presentations I had to endure when I returned to study at the post-grad level in 2003, I began to see the relationship between how I taught dance and how I taught presentation skills.
Let me make a disclosure: Whatever I have learnt in both domains has not come from formal didactic teaching, but from my being exposed initially to others' teaching methods as a student, then my honing my talents when I became a teacher. With regard to my presentations, I continue to stay up to date with the vast body of academic research on the topic. With dancing, I speak often with professional teachers about their methods, and of course participate in their workshops.
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Naturally, over time, I have developed my own teaching style in both the dance and presentation domains. And I see an important crossover, joining these seemingly disparate ventures. But they have much in common.
Both require complex ideas or movements to be broken down into components - made simple - then reassembled seamlessly so they became memorable, engaging and persuasive. Both are usually performed in groups that are often diverse, with respect to prior knowledge and current skills. It is up to the leader/presenter to ascertain ahead of time some measure of the groups familiarity and skills level, and then continuously monitor in real time how the group is taking up the ideas or movements.
In each case, repetition is important - not too much lest you take too much time and dumb it down; not too fast so that important concepts are insufficiently linked, preventing appropriate take up of the next important concept or step sequence.
In both cases, learning is enhanced if the teacher/leader conveys passion and enthusiasm, frequently checking with the group as to their assimilating the new material, reviewing progress so as to appeal to the widest possible number of group members so none are left behind and the quickest learners don't feel held back.
This requires mastering a challenging set of skills on the part of the presenter.
Not just do you have to know your material (the dance) back, front, and upside down, you have to know how to teach or convey the concepts, not just what to convey. Too much detail, and the audience is bored and confused, too little and the concepts ask too much of a leap of logic or physical prowess for the average group member to absorb.
Moreover, it requires considerable rehearsal before your present to a live audience to know how to teach or present. For both presenting and dancing, I'll rehearse sequences over and over to learn my own weak points. If i can't do the steps or convey the concepts, the audience won't get it either. One doesn't do the presentation or dance in one's head, you stand up, find some space and do it aloud, practising timing and movement. I can't emphasise this similarity enough, and their absolute importance if you're going to nail it when you perform the real thing. |
Presentation giving and dance teaching also require not just a fundamental understanding of the central ideas or step sequence, well rehearsed, but they also demand the teacher/leader take a very educated guess as to the parts of the dance/talk where the audience is most vulnerable to not "getting it". This is often perceived during practice runs.
For beginners, this can be where the dance sequence causes them to face away from the teacher who usually teaches in an inner circle. Facing outwards, they must now rely on audible commands, rather than watching and emulating the teacher. In presentations, there is also a curious mix between what is said and what is seen, and better presenters know when to emphasise each. They know when to highlight aspects of a slide, not by relying on a wavering laser pointer, but being a step ahead and guiding the audience to look at a part of the slide, perhaps by circling it in red, or keeping that area sharp, while diffusing the surrounding area.
Even when dancers are looking at the teacher, he or she can improve the likely take up of the dance steps by verbalising the steps, just like a presenter verbalises a concept then shows the word after (so the presenter doesn't read the slide to you, the number one enemy of good presenting - unless it's a quote). You use a language that does not contain jargon, unless it's a technical term that best summarises a step sequence. Shifting weight from one foot to the other is called a "sway", which may need to be verbalised to beginners, but is an assumed term for more advanced dancers, a short-cut or "chunk" if you like. One "builds" a dance by helping people "chunk" sequences. It's no wonder Keynote refers to "builds" on a slide.
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My whole presentation and teaching style can be summed up this way:
I know what the whole thing will look like at the end of my time in the centre/in the limelight. I also know I have to build up a story-like set of sequences, each with its own integrity, to be assembled into a consistent, reliable "whole" eventually. I know or seek to know where the weak links are, where the group has to make a leap - a new concept or unfamiliar step sequence - and choose the right way to connect "new" to "familiar". These are called transitions, and they are an important aspect of both presenting and dance teaching.
My task is to challenge the audience by taking familiar elements and presenting them in consistent ways (all folk dances contain a majority of familiar elements or sequences put together uniquely for each piece of music or song); or take unfamiliar ideas and simplify them by breaking them down into easily assimilated components.
In each talk I give, I take people out of their comfort zones ("Huh? Why is he talking about THIS?") and then bring them back onto a central idea or theme, where the audience goes "Aha!" when they get it. It's the same for dance. They go "Huh" when they see a complicated sequence, then go"Aha" when they get it. "Ahas" are very important means to make an emotional connection to the group/audience, and means they are coming with you on your story-telling journey to their enlightenment or enjoyment.
Both dances and presentation end up being filled with "Huh? - Aha!" sequences leading to mastery of new concepts.
For dancers, mastering a new dance is a real accomplishment especially if it looked challenging when the teacher first demonstrated it. For presenters, seeing your audience nod their heads, or laugh, or cry when they absorb your ideas, is the same thing and just as satisfying. |
And there is one more component of similarity. Both require the teacher/presenter to seamlessly integrate new technologies with old or new ideas. The presenter must use the technology and place it front and centre when needed, then get it out of the way when unnecessary to convey concepts.
For the dance teacher, he or she needs to understand how to speed up or slow down the music to assist the dancers, adjust the most appropriate volume, work with the wireless microphone to maintain clarity of expression, and not be fazed when the technology falls over, which happens on a too frequent basis to the best of us.
Just like forgetting a dance step, or momentarily getting lost in your talk, better presenters/teachers have an array of stories to tell while the equipment is being reset, or their brains re-adjust should they forget or become distracted. |
 Recall Steve Jobs at this year's Macworld keynote where his slide clicker wouldn't function, his back-up also failed, and so while the assistants were rebooting, he told a story of how he and Woz in their early days would use clicker-like devices (remotes) to play pranks on Woz's dorm mates.
Contrast that with Bill Gates on The Late Show with Conan O'Brien a few years back during CES, where Bill continually fiddled with a Window Media Centre remote which refused to do his bidding. Bill kept clicking with Asperger's-like frequency when it would have been best to joke with Conan on what is really his comedy show.
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Experienced presenters/teachers come equipped with funny little stories ready to launch in case of equipment or brain failure, which can happen because we're human, and Murphy has not left the building. Or if the group or audience is struggling to get the concepts, better presenters don't make fun of them, but of themselves to normalise the experience. Unhappy audience members do not learn easily, while happy engaged members have an easier time of it, and will stay the course when the concepts get difficult.
But mastering difficult concepts or steps produces much enjoyment and self-satisfaction which has two flow on effects: people come back for more, and they wish to share the fun and bring others back with them. |
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