KJ Mortimer on teaching Lîla classes online
Throughout lockdown I taught a mixture of things online, Dance, Yoga, Creative sessions and Rep. When teaching for Lîla I am always very proud to be a part of the Lîla family. When teaching online it was really lovely to connect with other dancers and friends though moving during a time when we couldn’t connect in person. I am grateful to the Lîla team for asking me to teach within a time when my income was not steady. Thank you!
I was especially happy to have a platform to share a practice I’ve been working on for a while… Yoga for dancers. I taught Yoga for dancers on Zoom which was exciting to have the ability to chat before and after and see the participants progressing through class.
Although when teaching online you are demonstrating all the time as a point of reference which doesn’t allow for much checking back in while moving. It was a really successful experience and a brilliant way to connect with dancers across the globe to get feedback on yoga sequencing.
Throughout lockdown I also taught Facebook Lila classes. This experience was a little more daunting as it feels like you are almost on your own, then you receive a comment back and I started to relax. Luckily the Lîla classes has a good amount of chat and questions which allows you to feel a little more connection and feedback from the people you are leading I class. I still found it challenging to teach and not be able to see the participants in front of me.
Points I’ll remember after this time…
Rights and lefts aren’t the same on everyone’s screen so the years of developing my mirroring skills flew out the window.
Projecting your voice (I’m always very energetic) only annoys the neighbours!
Feeling excited to curate a playlist feels less exciting when you are up at all hours scrolling through royalty free music!
Teaching is a part of my identity and I really miss it when it was less frequent. I LOVE seeing all the class members … preferably in person but zoom will do for the time being. The Lîla class members were full of energy and support, and were so committed, thank you!
That’s all from me, Enjoy the catalogue of Lîla classes!
KJX
Photo credit: Image 1 Nick Dare Dancer KJ Mortimer, Image 2 & 3 Carrie Whitaker, Dancers Zoom class participants Image 4 Dancer KJ Mortimer
