It's all fun & games, until someone loses...

Have you ever played a game and lost? I am so competitive that if I don't win, I have to give myself a pep talk. I have to remind myself that it's just a game, it's not that serious. But when I win, it's a whole different story and I'll own those bragging rights. Naturally, I assume this is the same case for most of us. I noticed it with my students, especially, when we play dance games in class. It's usually all fun and games until someone loses and then it's a whole other thing... one that I am not usually prepared for... Welcome to today's blog post dancer friends!

In one of my recent classes, we played a game, as we usually do, and the students were excited, as they usually are. At the end of the game, two of those who lost began crying. Normally I am used to one student crying, typically one of the young ones; however, this time the other student was much older. In that moment I was irritated, because I felt that they were disrupting the flow of the class. This wasn't a first occurrence, so I didn't understand their reaction, especially because had explained multiple times how games usually work. I tried to quickly comfort them and get them back in the game but to no avail this time. I eventually stopped insisting and let them sit it out as they experienced their emotions in real time. And then I felt convicted...

No one ever teaches you how to handle loss. With wins, you celebrate and move on. With losses, you kind of just sit with the sucky feeling, pretend to be okay in public, and hope for a better outcome next time. There's usually no space to feel sad about it. In the above scenario, I gave those two students space to feel sad, not because I was intentionally thinking about their emotions, but because I got tired of insisting they join back in. It got me wondering "If I, an adult, need a breather when I lose, how much more do these students who are still learning to grasp the concept of winning and losing?"

What if we begin to normalise embracing that discomfort without rushing to overcome it? What if we allowed ourselves and others to go through this very human experience? As teachers, we have the power to create safe spaces for learning, both physically and emotionally, and we have the privilege of nurturing not just the physical skills but emotional resilience as well. This was definitely a learning curve for me. Who knew a simple dance class could teach us so much about handling loss? And the learning continues...

Keep Creating & Sharing!

~your dancer friend