Lessons in the PRE CUE
- upbeatbarre
- 6d
- 3 min read
Ah the precue. Every great instructor uses some form of precueing to help participants be successful. Instructors who precue help participants get in more reps, feel prepared for the movement ahead, and earn trust from their crowd. Not only this, but precueing is a necessity if the instructor's goal (it is) is to focus energy outward rather than being in your own head trying to remember what comes next. Ok, breathe. We all forget what comes next sometimes! We're going to discuss strategies to help you get out of your head and into the energy for your class so this happens less.
We're talking barre precues today (we'll do a separate video for Pilates and Lift because the strategy changes a little).
As you prepare for class and review videos and notes, there are several ways to make your practice more effective. Once you have watched any given track's instructional video, try listening to the song and just look at the notes as you go through. Take mental notes of any fillers or oddities of the song that might not be intuitive. Highlight in your mind the number of reps for each move and if any round differs. Then, try listening again to the song without the aid of notes. Close your eyes and visualize yourself teaching. Say aloud the cues you will say (we give you them in the video so just steal ours if you want). Some find it helpful to get up and mark the track with their body to encourage muscle memory.
Now, here's possibly the most important step: are you ready? As you learn the song, do not finish the last rep of any move. Practice the song as if you are teaching. Do not practice the song as if you are taking the class! Build the precues into your brain as you go over the song.
You do not need to finish the last rep. Eliminate the word "one" from your countdown of reps in your brain. If you have set them up in a move appropriately and they are going, they will finish. Tell them how many more they have (this will save you), then move on in your mind in order to be ahead of them. They will finish--trust us, they will feel the music and finish the phrase. Participants naturally start to look up at you to get any clues as to what is gonna come next once they hear/feel that phrase ending. If you don't give them any, they feel behind, lost, and frustrated.
(If we are working through a phrase or doing a double round, the cue here would be to say, "keep going, you've still got 8 more," or, "it sounds like it's ending but it's not, let's go!" because they can hear a change coming.)
Back to the practicing: imagine yourself doing the next move one step ahead of the participant, but still on beat. This video shows how to do this. If the move does not lend itself to this (not all moves will), verbally (hello mic! ILYSM) tell participants what is coming WELL AHEAD OF TIME. This means, if you set them up in a move that is 8x singles, after 4x, say, "give me four more, then we are gonna go side and back, are you ready?" or even, "4 more, then side and back!" Try to make the cadence of your voice match the cadence of the movement. This is another tool to help them know how fast or slow the movement they are about to do will be without actually having to show them ahead of time.
Precueing takes time and practice, but if you do it while you learn each piece of choreography, it will get easier and more natural as you go! The better you know your choreography, the easier the precue becomes and the more successful your teaching will be!
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