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This is the podcast for us dance teachers balancing our teaching job with other jobs, commitments, and just life in general! We don't need to know how to run the whole studio, work with students 20+ hours a week, or win big at competitions; we just want practical advice and real conversations about how to be the best dance teachers we can be with the little time we have with our students. Join Maia on the casual dance teacher's podcast and in the casual dance teacher's network on Facebook.
Maia
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.
Let's talk about it. Hey there, everyone. Welcome back.
I am so happy to have you here for what is actually the last episode of 2025. If you've been listening throughout the year, thank you so much. This has been such a fun year.
My first full year of producing the podcast, and we are going out with a really, really great episode, really, really great topic and guest today. Just a quick heads up, I am going to take a couple weeks off of publishing new episodes for the holidays, give everyone a break from any sort of information overload related to dance. I think we should all kind of give our minds a little break from that, hopefully.
And we'll hop back in in the new year with a lot of really fun and fresh new things coming to the podcast. So make sure to subscribe so that when we do start doing those new episodes, you will know and can jump back in right away for a great continuation of the season in 2026. Now let's introduce today's guest, Kathryn Bisland.
Kathryn has been immersed in dance her entire life as a recreational student, a college dance major, and a teacher for over 30 years. She's the founder of Jazztapclass.com, which is a done-for-you jazz and tap syllabus that helps teachers deliver results to once-a-week recreational dancers without the overwhelm. She also leads the school community Dance Teacher, which offers resources and live calls throughout the month for dance teachers.
And her newest venture, Dance with Miss Kathryn on YouTube, brings ballet, jazz and tap classes to kids ages two to six with the same technique-first foundation. Here's Kathryn's mission, which just really warms my heart and I think will tell you exactly why I chose her to be on the show and to be the last guest of the 2025 year, because this aligns so much with what we do here on the Casual Dance Teachers podcast. Kathryn's mission is simple.
Recreational dancers deserve just as much structure, love, and success as any dancer, and she's here to help like-minded teachers make that happen. So without further ado, let's give a big warm welcome to Kathryn for joining us on the show. Kathryn, thank you so much for being here.
Kathryn
I'm so excited to talk to you. I'm really happy today to be able to talk to you and talk to your audience and just hopefully bring some part-time rec dance teachers some insights.
Maia
Yay! Yes, I'm so excited that that's like the overlap that we share with what we both do.
And I just want to start by hearing a little bit about your dance journey and what it was specifically within that that made you decide to focus your curriculum on the rec students that often don't get the love.
Kathryn
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think first and foremost, it's because I was the rec dancer. So I love dance, but I was in a bunch of activities. And when I was growing up, it was the 80s. So the idea of the way kids are trained now with highly competitive, it wasn't really a thing so much in the 80s.
So I did dance once a week starting when I was seven and loved it. And then I added on like my teacher was like, oh, would you love to do like a tap solo in the recital, right? And I was like, yes. So then on Thursdays, I dance twice a week.
I did my tap solo on Thursdays and my classes on Saturdays. So I really was a recreational dancer for the majority of my career. It wasn't until high school, grade 11, that my friend said, let's take some summer classes.
And of course, my studio was closed in the summer. She danced with me. And she's like, oh, no, my friends go to this studio.
And it was the big competitive studio. And we walked in and it was very shocking. Like we were doing stag jumps because now it's like the early 90s, mid 90s, we were doing this.
That was our thing. But they were doing like Baryshnikovs to the floor, like, you know, Cheney turn, Grand Jete, back attitude to the floor, roll, stand up. And we're like, what? You know what I mean? Like I was shocked.
It was great. Yes. So it opened up my eyes to a new way.
And I obviously started dancing competitively. But at that point, I was a little bit behind and I got into a dance program. So I actually started at York University in the dance department there, which was my second choice.
I didn't get into my first choice because my training, which was a school in Toronto called Ryerson. But then in second year, I had the opportunity to meet a woman when I was getting my BATD, British Association of Teachers of Dance qualifications for teaching. She was friends with the chair of a university at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo, the dance department there.
And she was like, would you like to audition? And so I said, yes. And I got into that program, which was amazing. But again, it was never the star, right? I took what I learned in those two years at York and I really presented it.
But when I got out and started teaching, I was like every 20 year old, because I realized quickly that I didn't have the skill set or the foundation to be a performer that I wanted to be. So I focused my attention on teaching. And initially, I was just like, yes, we're going to do this and this because I hadn't personally danced it, but I had seen it.
I had been exposed to it and it wasn't working and it was a mess because I was being given as a new teacher, these recreational dancers. And then when I opened up my own studio, I had my own studio called Bisland Dance Centre from 2008 to 2019 COVID. When I was there, because I opened it, I taught everything.
And we started as a strictly recreational dance studio. And it was the kids coming to me saying we would like to do something extra that then created this competition stream in it. But while we were doing that, it was always about technique, foundation, right? I'm like, everybody can dance.
Everybody has the potential to dance. It's just within their own personal potential, right? So everybody can do retiré. Some people will be amazing, but everybody can get their foot up to their knee if they're given the chance and everybody can have moments where their ankle's fully stretched, right? And so I was doing all these other syllabi and I found this reoccurring problem that my kids that trained more, that had more experience, my competitive kids, they could do it, but then my recreational dancers would get tapped out, right? They become overwhelming and too much.
And it started to make me feel frustrated, right? And then the syllabi that was available to them, it was not current, right? It was outdated. It was 80s jazz, right? So I felt like I was in this, between this rock and this hard place. And I wanted, as I started to expand, I wanted to bring new teachers in and I wanted to codify it.
So really that frustration with these, the syllabi that were actually good, only catering to that more elite level dancer caused me to like have something sort of like click and decide to create my own jazz and tap syllabus for that recreational dancer, as well as the company dancer. And I mean, I was in my early thirties and I didn't have any kids, so I was like such a dance nerd. I did the two streams, right? I had both streams, a competitive stream and a recreational stream.
Because I also noticed that I had sort of like a natural skill of breaking things down. How do you do? I asked my dance teacher in 1997 when I walked into that competitive class and they were doing switch splits. And I said, oh, how do you do a switch split? And she went, you just do it, go, just do it.
And I was like, what? So under like extreme duress, I did just do it. But that always stuck with me. I'm like, well, how do you do a switch split? How do you break this down? And I started to become, I think that moment like stayed with me and triggered this obsession with how do I break these things down? Like even when I was like in my twenties, I said, okay, a fish flop, wonderful.
That's cool. Like it was like mid 2000s. I'm like, how do you do that? He's like, oh, it was at a training seminar.
He's like, like this, go do the fish flop. And I'm like, that's great. I see it.
But how would I teach that? How would I break that down? And he couldn't answer. And this was like a dance master. And I'm like, this is crazy.
Like, how were we expected, especially as young teachers to come in and teach these elements when there's nothing that breaks it down. So fast forward many, many years, I closed my studio with COVID and had my first daughter and didn't do any dance. And my, Matt was always like, my partner was always like, your dance syllabus is really good.
You should do something with it. But I just kind of left it by the wayside. And then she at around like two and a half, three started showing talent for dance.
And I was like, oh my God. And suddenly as I got her back involved in dance and I actually ended up teaching again because of her, where I brought her, we live in sort of a small city. So it's not a town, but it's a small city.
So not, not a lot of dance options. The owner was building her studio. She's a Romanian ballerina.
And she identified just by, I guess, looking at me that I was a dancer. And then she got teaching from there. We brought into her this ballet school, jazz and tap.
But suddenly I had this little person whom I wasn't sure that I wanted to get involved in the competitive world, but she clearly loved to dance. So I had her and all these other little kids with her, this little group of kids that I was like, oh, I can take this syllabus. And now I can really customize it for these once a week recreational dancers.
And that's sort of where this big idea that I had created and then left came to be what is jazztopclass.com. And literally each level that I'm honing and redoing is through the lens of the once a week recreational dancer, right? So, you know, that competitive school is still there, but I don't care. I'm over here now. And how can I break this down so that, you know, the kids that can pick it up quickly can do it, but also the kids that need more time to pick it up can do it.
And it's been really cool to reevaluate the syllabus and hone it through the lens of my daughter and her friends. And so that started when they were four and a half and now they're like six and a half, right? And it's been this period and I've been teaching it in this new version in real time with real recreational once a week kids ages like five through four and a half through to 10, 11. Yeah.
Maia
Oh, that's so awesome. I love it because I think a lot of times and you and I have connected over this already and like we're so passionate about sharing resources for the recreational teacher because a lot of times if a studio does have, let's say, a competitive and a recreational program, the teachers that have less experience and maybe are not as good at breaking it down or don't have as much of that full understanding of the foundations of the steps and the technique are the ones that end up teaching the recreational dancers because they put the more experienced teachers with the competitive dancers. And so it's so important to have resources that are so super clear that walk those new teachers through the foundations.
And I love something else that you've said in our prior conversations about having a backwards is better approach. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how that's part of your curriculum?
Kathryn
Yeah. And I would definitely agree with just like the idea that everybody wants to teach the competitive dancers.
And it's just those senior dancers who have graduated from like company. They want to teach and then they're like, you're a rec kids. And so then they're like, all right, we're going to do a single pirouette.
So you've got to hit retiré and you've got to spot. And then they can't understand because they don't remember what it's like to be that little, why those kids have no clue what retiré is nor spotting. Barely can keep their hands on their hips, right? So it's an interesting place to be.
And so like, yeah, the system, this idea, the premise of backwards is better really helps support new teachers coming in. So the idea is to look at your class before you start and determine, okay, what is the big goal of any recreational dance class? And that is the year end recital. And I remember when I had my studio, once we started getting into competitions, they didn't care about the recital, but I was like, no, no, no, no.
The recital is the most important, especially for you company kids or competitive kids, because all these littles are looking up to you. So don't go in there and just like throw it away. Like we want to go in and do our best because you are role models to these other kids.
But that aside, recital is really is your end goal. But what usually happens at recital in recreational classes, you don't really have direction. You don't really have a plan.
You're spending all of your time being like, okay, stop talking. Yes, yes. You can go to the bathroom.
You can go to the bathroom after. Yes, yes. I'm excited that you lost your tooth.
I'm excited about your brother, you know, getting new shoes. Oh, yep. You can have a tissue, right? This is happening in class.
And if you don't have a plan, you can sort of get caught up like doing the same thing for weeks. So come spring, it's recital time and you're supposed to put this dance together for these kids. And you are creating a dance that they have no idea about the technique.
Right? So the backwards is better approach is to think for this age and this level, what elements, what technical elements would I like to see in the recital dance? So like if you have a jazz class and they're babies, do I want to see them like bouncing and clapping to the beat? Do I want to see them doing like halftime pivot turns? Would I like to see them do chassés? Are we going to try for step ball changes? Right? Are like, are we going to do chassé ball change side to side? So kind of thinking ahead of time based on their age, what is appropriate steps? And then once you get a list of like five to seven steps, you create your plan for the year from that. So it's like, okay, if I want them to do chassé ball change full time, which is step gallop, back front, step gallop, back front, right? Going side to side. If I want them to do that full time, we're going to break it down backwards.
So that means that if a recital is in May or June, in April, they need to be doing that full speed. So the month prior, we're doing it halftime. The month prior, we're doing it with pauses and explaining the three steps.
The month prior, we're breaking down how to do a ball change and that weight transfer, right? So it's like you're going backwards. So you have your focus each month to build up to that element, right? And then that way, what happens is when you come to the recital, you're not putting anything new in that they don't know how to do. So instead of feeling stressed out and why aren't they remembering the choreography, you're simply putting these steps that you worked on all year together like a puzzle with a few like, you know, like wiggles in between, right? Yes.
Right? And it makes it a more streamlined experience because the kids know what the steps are. They've seen them before. They've been working on them since September and you're just like plugging and playing.
And then they are able to remember better because they're not trying to figure out, these rec kids aren't trying in this instance to figure out not only what the order of the step is, but how to do the step, right? They already know. They know the words and now you're just putting the words into a sentence. Yes. Right?
Maia
Yeah. Nothing gets me more excited than like figuring out how to break down stuff like that. I love hearing you talk about that.
That's exactly the way to do it. And I see so many teachers struggling that they're like, I don't understand why I keep telling my kids the same things over and over again in their recitals in two weeks and they haven't gotten it yet. It's like, because you didn't strategize, you know, you spent those four months doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results and it didn't come together. So that is great. I want to get super, super techie with you and maybe starting with like a ballet or jazz example. Can you name one step? I know you mentioned Retire.
We could use that or a different example you have of a step that is like you think maybe overlooked, not broken down enough. The kids are told just do this. And what's a different approach that you take in actually giving the foundation and building up to it?
Kathryn
Absolutely. Well, you can take something like a Tendu, right? Like Tendu to stretch. So you just slide your foot and put it out there and it's going to be and keep it turned out and it's going to keep your legs straight. And I feel like in ballet, that's like a really like, even when I teach it, I'm like, okay, we're going to teach Tendu.
It's going to be really messy before it gets anywhere. But like you forget, sometimes you overlook all the little pieces. If I were to teach like a Tendu, like a la seconde or devant, like right away, you have to actually just sit on the floor and get them to understand how to articulate their foot to point through the ankle and then through the toe and flex through the toe joints and the ankle.
They're not even aware, even like a 10-year-old wreck once a week beginner dancer is not aware that their feet bend talking about like Barbie feet or wearing high-heeled shoes to show that demi point, right? And like, you know, just doing it turned out, right? So moving it from parallel to turned out and you would start all that sitting. They're not even standing. They're not even doing a Tendu.
They're sitting. Then when you have them standing up before you're even doing a Tendu, you would want to talk about transfer of weight. That is such an overlooked, like having them stand.
You could do it in parallel or their feet in first. And just say, you know, your body is like a straight line. You can't bend from the waist or anything and can move your weight, shift your weight nose over this toe back to the center nose over this toe and just that feeling of transferring the weight because so often you see a Tendu.
They go to Tendu and their weights in their heel, right? It stays in that center position. Then they have pressure on their toe in the Tendu position. And then from there you're talking about like visuals.
So I love getting painter's tape. My studio owner is very supportive. We have a big painter's tape.
And I will take, I had like 12 primary ballet kids and I took the time to say, everyone stand in first. And when we were doing Tendus à la second, take a green painter's tape and put it across as per their natural turnout in the front of their toes so that they were lining their toes up in their natural turnout. So when they are pressing their direction, they know that they're staying with the tape line.
So they're not too far behind nor are they too far in front. And for Tendu devant to the front, what I actually do is I do that à la second tape. So the line in front of their toes, but then I take two pieces of tape and I started at the inside of their heel and I bring it forward in a straight line.
So you would have one piece of tape, a horizontal and two vertical coming out in front of them from their heel so that they know where they're drawing. Now they have a visual and they can see where they're aiming for. And then, you know, you're going to talk to them.
I use a lot of imagery. So, you know, you put stickers on the inside of their heels and their knees so that when they're pressing forward, they're showing their sticker. Right? So when they're in that Tendu devant, you can see the sticker on the inside of their heel.
So, and you can hide the jewel and go parallel and show the jewel. But before that too, you've got to sit, you're sitting on the floor and in the point in the flex, you're explaining how they can open up their toes. Right? And turn out from the tops of their legs.
But for the Tendu itself, I think we forget and you get a lot of Tendus that are just lifting and placing and they're not pressing down. So not going right to like the big finish, the big point. Spend some time just sliding their foot flat.
So transfer their weight and just slide their foot flat and then come back. Slide their foot to the front flat and then come back. So it's only going out that tiny little bit so that they can feel.
And I say to them, we always talk about the heel presses to the front and then I say, now get your, I'm going to get my fishing rod and I'm going to cast my fishing rod and I'm going to catch your baby toe. So when you come back, I'm going to reel your baby toes getting reeled in. So that's closing back from the baby toe.
Imagery like that. But then once you get the slide and they feel confident just doing that flat slide, then taking it up to demi point and coming back in. Always emphasizing slide then demi point.
And then from there having, talking about their toes popping and pop to a full point. Right? And I think that piques are a great, great, great tool in tendus. I think that you should always have piques because then when they kiss the floor and do their piques, even though the emphasis is supposed to be up, it's okay I feel like if you let them kiss the floor.
Right? Then they have to suddenly pop that foot, bounce it off the floor and you can, they can see and feel right away if they still have their weight there. Yeah. So it's just all of those small moments and having the permission and feeling okay even with the parents watching on the TV out in the lobby to go slow and do it incrementally.
So like for the backwards is better if I wanted them to do tendus in September we would work on pointing and flexing and weight transfers. Right? And then for October we would explore like the turning out and pressing from the heel just to the flat position. Right? And then November we could add in the demi point and then December we could add in the full point.
Right? And have fun with piques and like have partner work and have them watching but it's a giving ourselves permission to go that slow. Even though you have parents maybe wanting them to be doing triple pirouettes. Right? Yeah.
Don't, don't sit into that pressure. Go back because I did that and like the standing up and the knees straight. Right? Talking about feeling it.
They're like my favorite. I can't see my knees. I don't know if they're straight and I'm like oh make your knees straight.
Do you see that it's straight in the mirror? Okay. Close your eyes and put your mind can you feel that in your knees? Do you feel that feel straight? So it doesn't matter that you can't see it. You feel it.
Same with that stretched ankle in that pointed position. Can you feel that in the front and go in and touch the front of their ankles? Can you feel that? Right? That, that feeling you have to put your mind on your knees and feel that feeling. Put your mind on the front of your ankle feel that feeling.
And even I have them touch because obviously with COVID we stopped touching and then like just for like you know kids nowadays like we were very much touched but now ask permission but saying okay we're going to put our hands on the bottom of our bum and you feel that when you're just relaxed and you're just a normal person it's very soft. Now I want you to squeeze your bum and can you feel underneath the softness there's something strong there. There's something almost hard there.
That's your turnout muscles. It's on the bottom of your bum or seat or however you want to word it. Right? But having them feel themselves right? And see oh yeah there is a muscle that's your dancer muscle.
Right? And little things like that. But that's how I would break down a tendu.
Maia
Oh my gosh. Yes. I love it so much because I was thinking about dancers that I've seen some of them my own students so I'm not ragging on anyone but like if you don't take the time with those foundational elements in tendu those grand battements turn ugly real fast and then you're yelling at a student that's been dancing for years turn your knee out you know lift from the inside of the knee point your toe point all the way through the foot don't arch your back don't bend your standing leg and those are things that they can't feel and identify in their grand battement because they never were able to feel and identify them in a tendu but they were just told to go on to the next thing because it looked okay. So yes I love it.
I also want to give some love to the tap teachers in our world because I don't speak to tap very much and you do so do you have a similar example you can give with tap?
Kathryn
Yeah so there is a move called and I picked like a slightly more advanced move so like right now in my daughter she's six and she's in a class from like six to eight they're level one so they did primary one primary two and now they're in level one and so they're learning single drawbacks so single drawback is a backwards moving step is that familiar? Brush heel step so they're singles and doubles and triples so in that step you know you might be like okay I'm going to teach a single drawback and you're looking at the step as a whole but it's actually all these other small steps that they have to learn first right? So prior to them even working on single drawbacks they were working on weight transfers right?
The idea of that when you stamp your foot you don't stamp then pick up the other foot you stamp and pick up at the same time that idea of weight transfer at the same time right? So you're going to hone that skill first right? You're going to help them understand that there is a step which is on the ball of your foot versus a stamp which is your whole foot because if you try to do a single drawback and you stamp on the whole foot then you're not being efficient because you have to relift that heel to drop it down as opposed to just stepping back right? Then you're breaking down heel drops right? And how heel drops drive into the floor and how your knees are the volume buttons so the straighter your knees the quieter the tap step the more bent your knees are the louder your tap step right? And that it has to strike and each sound needs to be even and then the idea of the brush right?
So basically you're gonna teach first about weight transfer because to do a single drawback fast you need to step and pick up at the same time if you do step then pick up if it's not automatic you can't go fast so weight transfer you're gonna talk about brushes because they need to understand how to do a clear brush back right? And they need to understand how to strike that floor from a leg that's lifted and hit really strongly so that as they speed up they can rock back from their heel right? Without fully lifting the foot up but they just need to understand how to strike that floor from the knee not from the hip and then you have to explain the stepping so that they have the efficiency of being able to drop the heel without thinking about it right? So steps versus stamps so you're gonna go in you're gonna say I want to do single drawbacks but what I need to do is break down do my kids know how to do brushes backwards? Do they know how to move backwards? Right? Because this is a backwards moving step have they only moved forward? In which case you know we need to work on back flaps first just brush step brush step and like do I have bars that I can have them support themselves on because like don't get it twisted these level ones that are just learning it right now they're doing it at the bar but you could use a wall they're not doing it in the center because they need to go really really slow to be able to get all those sounds because tap very much is that neural pathway of I'm stepping like step foot foot says yes I'm stepping sends the message okay great now do the heel drop it's very slow and it's through repetition and doing it slowly cleanly that then it can speed up correctly so having that do I have that in place do I have a bar or a wall where they can support and go slow but getting to make sure that they understand all those individual components of it then you're going to give it in the order so you I would always teach back flaps and I do it on flat foot in that's just because going backwards and doing center brush stamp brush stamp so they can feel traveling backwards in the center just doing like bending our knees and doing heel drops lifting like I get a piece of paper and I say I drop when I drop this piece of paper does it bounce back up. Oh nope, it stays on the floor so heel drops going to stay down it's going to be loud and down and practicing doing it with straight knees and then doing it with bent knees and seeing which ones louder right like that's fun for them and then stepping and stamping so just on the balls of our feet holding hands in a circle stepping on the balls of our feet and then stamping with the flat foot and I always do like this because the steps are quieter I put my finger like a sound in front of my mouth because the steps are quieter and then covering the ears for the stamps because it's loud and then it's like a fun game for them but then they can differentiate between the two and you have those pieces once you have those pieces and then the weight transfer we stand and I'm like okay stamp and pick it up right away and we start to go faster and faster so that I become like almost like you can't understand what I'm saying pick it up pick it up right and saying things like you know if you want to do the floor is lava or the floor is hot and you got to pick it up right away right and tap you can never be on two feet at one time like when you're done you always have to be on one foot so making a game out of those little pieces then with support trying the move in full and always emphasizing for tap and I just talked about this I just talked about this in my rec tap class yesterday I said slow down guys because it's more important this is tap dancing so the clarity of our sounds is way more important than doing it fast.
Because yes, you're doing it fast, but I can't hear the brush, the heel, the step. It sounds like this.
It needs to sound like this, right? So go slow, get those sounds loud, and then speed comes, because I find the kids in top want to go fast first. Yeah. I think in every style.
In every style. Yeah. But it's bringing them back and say, fast comes naturally if you do it slowly first.
So it's almost like giving the kids permission to go slow as well and feel excited. And that they will naturally speed up with clear sounds. And then you're, like you said, you're not going back and trying to fix it later when it's way harder to fix it.
You're doing it right from the start. But that's how I would break down. Hopefully that made sense.
But that's how what I would do if I was doing a single drawback, I would go back to the individual elements first.
Maia
Yeah. That's so good.
I'm going to say this, and it's going to sound like an ad for you. Hashtag not sponsored. But I just have to say it, because I think someone listening that has not tried your curriculum needs to know, I had the opportunity to try out your curriculum.
And everything that you're saying here on the podcast is obviously so helpful and so much value. If you actually get the curriculum, it's like this times 10. It's the videos and very in-depth descriptions of every single step of the process.
And it's all written out as well in PDFs. And I just want everyone to know that. And as a follow up question, I know you also have some other resources and things that you do besides just the curriculum.
So can you tell us a little bit about everything that you offer and how listeners can connect with you and get more?
Kathryn
Definitely. And thank you for that. I am a real teacher in the trenches teaching rec kids.
And I'm like, how can I make this as easy as possible? So the syllabus itself, it has demonstration videos for each exercise, but I also created the two visuals. One is, I call it a flow chart. So it's your class at a glance.
So it's like, here's your warm up steps just at a glance. Here is your bar step. Here's your across the floor.
Here's your center combo. Then with it, instead of just a master list of like elements in that level where you have to search and you can't search when you've got like 12 wild, it's the Halloween class before Halloween, like six year olds. So it's all I've made weekly written descriptions so that when you're looking at that flow chart, if you're like, oh, I don't know what the toe heel combo is.
You just flip the page and it's right there. You're not searching for anything. So I wanted it to be as user friendly as possible for teachers because we're in there real time.
But then also besides the syllabus, we have a school community. It's called Dance Teacher and it's a free community that anyone can join. And in there, we are like, I mean, it's under construction.
So we're in the process of like getting it together, but we invite everyone to come in because when you get in there, you can right away try two weeks free of the jazz syllabus and the tap syllabus at the primary one level, which is our beginner level. So you can see all the demo videos, like everything that you talked about, Maia, you can actually see that for two weeks. But then also the idea is to have resources, right? So like posts on like to help motivate us as teachers of recreational dancers and like tips for bringing out the best, like steps, like what are the steps we're having problems with this month? Or what are the questions? How can we make these steps better? Right? Like I have 30 years of experience of mainly teaching rec kids, right? So like it's, I want to help bring ease to people and answer questions.
We have monthly Q and A's and also the school community itself is super user friendly, right? It's a course and community platform, but it also lets us have different membership levels. So we have our free level, then there's opportunities, like if you wanted me to do things with your dancers or evaluate or help you with your classes, you can do that. And I think that we're actually going to be merging our syllabus onto it.
So like you can join the membership and just get everything right on school. I think that that is Matt, my partner's plan. And then I think Matt wanted me to say that once the teachers hop into dance teacher on school for free and check out some of our lesson plans, if they decide to sign up for our membership, they're actually going to get a 50% ongoing referral payment.
So if they sign up and then they have a studio that signs up, there's a sort of referral incentive through skool, right? So it's a great way for teachers to get help, but then also to benefit, right? I just want to create a community and we have our Instagram, jazztapclass.com. And then we have our YouTube. So on Instagram, I give like tips and whatnot, and we also have a new YouTube channel that's teach rec dance. And so I'm going on there and giving more like free tutorials because we want to give a lot of free information as well, because I just, we're so passionate about it.
And I think we're such an underserved part of the population, rec dance teachers, right? And we're overlooked and a little bit taken for granted. So I want to be like, I see you guys and I have you, and let me make this easier for you. Yeah.
Maia
Yes. That's perfect. And for anyone that's not familiar with school, I'll just mention it's S-K-O-O-L.
So you can check that out. And I will put a link to the school community as well as the other resources in the show notes if you're listening to the podcast. So that's a little bit easier.
Kathryn
Yeah. Yeah. And then they can get in and check out the two weeks free.
And then you can sort of get an idea because you can do, you don't need to buy it. You can do the backwards is better on your own, right? You don't need my system to do it, but the system can sort of show you like two weeks into how I'm doing it and how it builds and the progressions, a little bit of insight into progressions and stuff like that. But yeah, that would be great.
Like, it's just nice to have a community for us. Like Matt and I are really excited to have this school community just be like a hub for rec dance teachers because it's such a unique experience for us. And you know, you really love teaching dance too when you teach the rec dancers because it's literally kids that can't balance on one leg or put their hands on their hips and realize their dream of becoming a dancer.
You know what I mean? It's such a special role. Every great dancer was a once a week recreational dancer at the start. Yeah.
Right. We hold that dream in their hands and like for us to feel supported so we can just get in there and teach them properly and nurture and facilitate that dream for them. Right.
Like I don't want to be I want to stop the rec teacher from feeling burnt out and alone. Yeah. It's sort of my goal.
Maia
No small feat. But thank you. Yeah. I love that. We hold their dream in their hands is such a good quote already. I could maybe end a future episode with that. But I also wanted to ask if you have another favorite quote about yes.
Kathryn
Yes. And I actually we had talked about it and I did because I didn't have any dance quotes. So I was like huh. So I looked up some dance got full transparency. I looked up some dance quotes and then I found one that I had heard which I love. And it's Martha Graham. The body says what words can't.
And I love that because we live in such a time of overstimulation whether you're like six or you're 46 and to be able to get on the dance floor and move is such a gift right.
Kids naturally dance before they can talk. You know it's such a form of expression and dance got me through so much in my life you know tumultuous teens and 20s right. It was such a form of expression.
So to be able to allow kids to dance and stay in dance even if they're not competitive that that quote really speaks to me. But then there was a quote that came up by Alvin Ailey and he said dance is for everybody. I believe dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people.
And when I saw that I was like oh that's my favorite quote and that's why I do what I do. That's why I'm so passionate about recreational dancers because this dance isn't just for the elite natural dancer. You know it is for literally everybody who has that desire to move or wants the dream of being a ballerina.
It's for everyone. Everyone. We don't I don't want anyone to be overlooked.
I want everyone to be included. And in doing this syllabus the Jazztapclass.com syllabus and the community I want to give it back. Like here dance has given me so much and here's what I learned and let me give it back to help you have ease and flow.
You know anything that I can do to help and just create a space for us all to be together because dance is for everybody. It really is. I really think that.
No we're not all going to be doing triple leg grab pirouettes or whatever that is. But we all deserve the space to have the opportunity to move and act on our dream and be treated with respect and be treated with care.
Maia
Hello there. This is Maia just hopping back on to do the final sign off of 2025. Huge thank you to Catherine. Absolutely love hearing all of her advice and expertise and I hope you all can dive into some of those additional resources that she's offering as well.
Thank you as always to GB mystical for the super fun theme music for our show. Thank you to everyone for listening. Be sure again to subscribe so that when we do start posting new episodes in the new year you will be alerted to that.
Make sure to leave a review if you haven't done that already. Make sure to join us in the casual dance teachers network Facebook group and follow us on Instagram at the casual dance teachers podcast and most of all make sure to have a beautiful wonderful next couple of weeks however you spend that or celebrate that. I hope you get some rest and relaxation and rejuvenation in and I will see you in 2026.