A 13-Second Coaching Masterclass

What it looks like when someone sees you

I get a lot of dance videos in my feed, which I find so delightful. I don’t dance and never have, but I love the dance content. It’s the best kind of doom scrolling to watch people who can move their bodies the way dancers can.

So this video comes into my feed and I watch it and I am marveling at this instructor’s poise and her posture and her chic hair and the way she claims authority in the room. Also her hands…. And then she goes and grabs this kid in the yellow shirt.

He looks a little freaked out.

She drags him to the center of the room.

She says, “You’re coming up front because I think you know it more than you think you know it.”

He looks stunned — called out. Clearly nervous. He says, “Okay.”

And she says, “Good. You’re following in the back and you don’t need to follow. You know it. You’re good.”

He dances the dance — beaming — and she goes over to him and says, “See you knew it better than you thought you knew it. Good.”

I imagine that these 13 seconds changed this guy’s life. A master of the craft saw him and believed in him and asked him to rise up — and he did.

Let’s break down what happened here, because it describes exactly the power of coaching.

1.) Charlotte d’Amboise, a very accomplished Broadway star who has been nominated for two Tony Awards, and won numerous Fred Astaire awards, teaches a class for The Jimmy Awards. According to Google, “the Jimmy Awards, officially known as the National High School Musical Theatre Awards (NHSMTA), are a prestigious annual national competition that recognizes and celebrates outstanding student achievement in high school musical theatre across the United States. Often described by The New York Times as `The Tonys, for teenagers,’ the program highlights individual artistry in acting, singing, and dancing. So a very accomplished dancer steps up to teach some very accomplished students. Charlotte knows things. She wants to teach those things. She is purposeful, energetic, and authoritative in her role.

3.) She creates a container for excellence. She is in front of the best of the best, but she is watching the room, correcting, encouraging, giving feedback. She assumes they all want to get better and are capable of getting better. She speaks to the room with utter believe in that — total respect/

4.) She finds someone who she sees can shine. Not the kid who is already in the front, already taking up space, already wildly confident in themselves, but the kid in the back. Maybe this kid is great at acting. Maybe he is a phenomenal singer. Maybe dance is not his strong suit. Who knows, but you can feel his hesitation. If you look at the earlier parts of the video, he is there in the back, watching with a kind of grim determination. She must have felt him watching, must have felt him wanting to improve.

5.) She puts him on the spot in front of everyone. She knows he can take it, knows he wants it. She knows that sometimes people need to be dragged into their fullest expression, and that the discomfort of being dragged is temporary.

6.) She tells him he can do it.

7.) She praises him when he does.

8.) She reinforces the lesson, which is not about the steps, the movement, the music, or the dance. It’s about his belief in himself. “See you knew it better than you thought you knew it.”

9.) She revels in the moment. That last “Good” ? I think that was for her. Good. My work here is done. Because it feels so great to help someone step up, rise up, and perform better than they thought they could.

You can watch the video here. I have probably watched it ten times. I love it so much:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1091891104018112

And if you want to see Charlotte dance the big number in A Chorus Line, here she is:

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