What DWTS Can Teach Us About Coaching
I’m four years into retirement (the silly term us athletes use to describe ‘quitting’) and re-introducing myself to the sporting world in a way that I haven’t really done formally before – as a coach. At first, I wanted to coach to make some extra money during graduate school, knowing my stipend wasn’t going to cut it with my early 20s spending habits. I coached Learn to Skate in high school, taught a few private lessons during the pandemic, and assisted with baby synchro practices here and there – I was confident that I was qualified for the role.
But as our team comes up on their first competition, I’m realizing this role comes with a ton more responsibility than I realized when I just needed to fund my caffeine addiction.
The other day, I was watching the first episode of the new season of Dancing With The Stars and couldn’t help but notice how wholesome the competition was. Now that I’m a kinesiology (the study of movement) student, I’m extra appreciative of people gaining more than exercise when moving their bodies. Especially in such an expressive mode, like ballroom dance, with gleams of pride on their faces.
Dancing With The Stars is a particularly interesting space. All the contestants are “great” in their own right. Whether they’re elite athletes, reality stars, or award-winning actors, they’ve all been put on a pedestal by the people (and institutions) around them. We recognize them as having some kind of value in our society, like entertainment value or athletic value.
But almost none of them are dancers. They’re being thrown into a space that most of them are entirely unfamiliar to. Dance is a movement but also an emotional expression – which means it’s vulnerable. The contestants are moving their bodies in ways they’ve never had to before – live in front of the ENTIRE nation. That’s scary!
However, it was clear that the aim of the first episode wasn’t to encourage contestant-vs-contestant competition. The judges explicitly named that they were judging on potential – it’s not “who can dance ballroom the best according to these strict parameters,” as traditional sport would demand. Instead, it’s “who can adapt ballroom dance in a way that showcases their strength, performance, and overall confidence and mastery of the form they’re trying to achieve?” Each dance was clearly catered to the skill level of the contestant.
In other words, “How can I embody joy and confidence as I learn ballroom dance?”
The judges were especially attentive to this purpose of the first episode, with special attention given to the contestants’ life experiences and how they may impact the way they dance. Like Ilona Maher, for instance: she isn’t a dancer, she’s a rugby player. The judges knew this and considered it when they gave here feedback. “More confidence! Loosen up!” In this context, ballroom dance is framed as a way to move one’s body in a new way, reach outside one’s comfort zone, and “find oneself” or “return to a different version of oneself.” It’s a form of entertainment and health promotion (mental, emotional, and physical!).
The first episode taught me a lot about how I can approach my students with more kindness in my coaching practice. What is the potential of my athletes? What do they want to gain from skating? How can I empower them and teach them to tap into their confidence, pride, and joy through an expressive movement like skating?
DWTS is a particularly public platform to jump right into if it’s your first time dancing or performing – it can seriously teach us something about the strength of vulnerability, stepping outside your comfort zone, embracing the learning process, and the importance of connecting with your body in new and joy-inducing ways. It can be incredibly intimidating to perform and be immediately critiqued by judges (a dynamic that is core to sport in many ways!). And teaching someone to dance is particularly tricky – you’re literally telling someone to throw everything they know about their natural posture and movement and learn an entirely new set of skills (again, a core aspect of most sport).
But, because the judges were so attentive to the potential of each performer, focusing on their individual contexts and the ways they impact their dance, the contestants seemed more empowered and proud than scared and anxious.
It was especially touching to see older folks and elite athletes of non-aesthetic sports, who are being challenged in brand new ways, develop a new relationship with their moving bodies. And seeing former dancers or athletes in aesthetic-based sports reconnect with their bodies in healing ways demonstrated the importance of joy in expressive movement.
And to see who they joined the show for was even more heartwarming. Many joined for themselves (again, reconnecting with their bodies and the joy it can bring), but others joined for loved ones in their lives. Like Dwight Howard, who said, “this is for my son. You can put anything you put your mind to.” To hear that from an NBA All Star about ballroom dance?! That’s healthy masculinity.
These certainly weren’t the takeaways I was expecting when I decided to put on that first episode. Who knew ABC’s hit dance reality show could teach us something about healthy sport?
I hope that we can bring some of DWTS’s potential-based expectations to sport on a larger scale. Who says we must always compete to win? Shouldn’t we compete to learn something about ourselves, our bodies, and the values we hope to embody?
I’ll close with a quote from a reading I did from my Sport and Society class, which I think sums up what DWTS represents for me:
“Instead, Paul Willis (1982) suggests, sport should be developed which emphasize “[h]uman similarity and not dissimilarity, a form of activity which isn’t competitive and measured, a form of activity which expresses values which are indeed measurable, a form of activity which is concerned with individual well-being and satisfaction rather than comparison’ (p. 128)”
(Emphasis added) (Carrington 2020:58)
I think we should all bring a little DWTS joy and satisfaction to our (and our students’) sporting lives :)
Carrington, Ben. 2022. “Sport, Ideology, and Power.” in The Oxford handbook of sport and society, Oxford handbooks series, edited by L. A. Wenner. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.