“Am I ready for teaching CI?” & things to consider for all of us when teaching
from Joerg Hassmann 12.10.2026
I am grateful for anyone who asks me if they are ready to teach CI. It feels like a healthy question and it shows respect to this dance form where no-one is entitled to define what it is and who is allowed to teach it.
I observed that the gender stereo types, which our western societies produce are very present. Women who approach me with that question usually have been practicing CI for a long time and taken lots of workshops. My gut response in most cases is „yes, of course. Go for it. You’ll learn a lot. It would be great to have your knowledge, passion and curiosity support the community. It seems to be more about finding good frames to start offering your approach to CI.“
Men ar much more often still very new to CI when they have the impulse to start teaching. Often I feel a lack of doubt. I imagine that it is mainly two things: As men we are raised into the expectation of being a leader, that’s what we see everywhere around us, that’s what we unconsciously assume we are supposed to do, when we happen to get to this planet in a male body. I see these stereotypical patterns repeating in a surprising consistency. So, being approached by a man if he is ready to teach I find myself often responding with a more critical tone. (I like to at least acknowledge that the variety of genders is not represented in my generalisation here. It’s a big topic, that I am not an expert in.)
I guess the more practical thoughts below have a bit more of the critical flavour.
I also noticed that surprisingly often „should s , shouldn’t s and don’t s“ appear in this text, which I full-heartedly avoid in my teaching. I take it as a sign that this topic of “when is someone ready to teach CI?” touches something essential in me.
So, here are some thoughts and questions for you in case you are wondering if you are ready to teach. I hope they are also supportive for all us teachers to reflect on our teaching practice.
If there is no other teacher around then you have to teach
If there is no one else around your area who teaches CI and you want to practice CI then the question if you are ready or not is in a way the wrong question. There is no real alternative. You will have too jump directly to the questions of how to teach. Or maybe more accurately phrased, you have to start wondering which formats are possible for you to hold; like Jams with a longer intro. A small research group. Short pre-classes for a jam.
We need to know well enough what we know and what we don’t know. And we need the bravery to be honest about it.
If you can honestly say „yes“ to the above – knowing what you know and what you don’t know and being honest about it – then I’d say you are pretty safe to teach CI without creating any harm. Be courageous, give it a go, get it wrong, ask for forgiveness from yourself and others and go again. You’ll be likely to go on a humbling journey of growth and inspiration, becoming a gift for the CI community.
Especially for the beginning but hopefully throughout our whole teaching „career“ there is the option to „teach our questions“. What do you want to learn? What is your own inquiry? How can you use the frame of teaching to get closer to an answer? You’ll fail and learn a lot. And as a gift you’ll receive lots of new questions as fresh food for further teachings.
On the other hand: If we are not aware and maybe not even interested in what we don’t know about CI, or we feel people should at least think that we have it all figured out, so that they are in safe hands with us … then we’ll be very likely causing harm for the people and the community.
Being honest and transparent with what we don’t know is not easy. Students want to push us into the role of a teacher who knows. That’s what most of us soaked up in others learning environments. It is very tempting to pretend to know. It feels good to be seen and admired as the one who knows. But in my experience it is not the solution.
If we give in to the pressure and pretend to know, where we are actually unsure, our students will probably not notice. They trust us and think that we are great.
But somewhere in them they notice that ‘what we say and what we do’ or ‘what we say and what they experience’ doesn’t match. There are conflicting information that cause an unconscious confusion in them. „Double bind“ is the term for this. Since we as the teacher are „the one’s who know“ our students will highly likely end up believing that they are stupid.
If we pretend to know as teachers we sacrifice our student’s growth and self confidence for our own ego. Even though that happens all the time and no one will complain about it or die I wish for the awareness that the double bind messages are harming people and this dance form.
How can we actually notice what we don’t know? Sometimes students put us right on the spot by asking questions where we don’t know the answer. For me it is not so much about filling the gap by finding the right answer. More important seems to me to celebrate a good question and acknowledge that I don’t have the answer. We can all try to find out more.
But usually the unknown appears in less obvious ways. Unclarity, confusion, insecurity or a sense of wonder might be a sign that a lack of knowledge is hovering in the underground. As improvisation teachers it is our job to help our students to befriend the notion of the unknown. Staying at ease, becoming curious about the options that might unfold. We could set a great example if this was true in the way we teach. It would give life to the idea that CI is a research based dance form. Our ability to put out questions and to share our curiosity are our main gifts. Our desire to see our students researching, wondering and trying to figure things out should be tangible.
A brief thought on the counter side: Even though it is about improvisation it is not all about the unknown. Being aware of what we know is great. We don’t need to hold back our knowledge. It is a great gift and worth developing ways how to make our students soak up this knowledge efficiently.
Acknowledging the ego: Teaching is not about us teachers. As a teacher we are at service
The food or reward for us teachers is the awe of being in a space where people drop into learning and connecting through the body, where we support and witness their growth.
If the applause at the end of the class, the praise and admiration of our students is our main driving force, I’d say we are on the wrong track. Teaching is not about the teacher. As teachers we are at service for this beautiful dance form and the humans who decide to learn with us.
And still: We all have egos that want to be fed. We need to acknowledge that. We want to be seen and loved as everyone else does.
And then we bring our attention back to the beauty of the dance and our students.
When your learning is slowing down it might be a sign that teaching could become your next main teacher.
If you feel like your learning is slowing down or plateauing even though you practice regularly and learn from good teachers, teaching might be the teacher you need.
You can teach the things that you think you know well. When you try to teach them you’ll probably have lot’s of experiences that your students don’t get it. That is an amazing feedback. In the „wondering why?“ you might get ideas about “what’s the missing link?” Maybe there is something you took for granted or that you were not aware of. You have your next class for a next try. Teaching is research. And as mentioned above: teaching your questions might be the most rewarding gift for yourself and your students.
If you are not interested in your own learning as a teacher, don’t teach CI.
And on the other hand: If you are not interested in your own learning as a teacher you are probably on the wrong path. In my understanding teaching needs to be driven by the desire to learn. How can you honestly inspire others to learn if you aren’t inspired to learn yourself? It would set a weird message or direction, like: „At some point you know everything. Then you don’t need to be curious any more. You might be an admired master … and bored … and stop dancing.“
In the beginning of teaching your learning might be more around improving your own dance. Later on the learning might be more in the field of how to teach. Both are great areas of learnings.
Find support:
Especially in the beginning it will be hugely beneficial if you find people who you trust and who are willing to give you honest feed back. My recommendation is to have one buddy in your classes who experiences your teaching regularly. You can get into a dialogue with them about the questions that arose during a class and asking how they experienced certain situations, how you phrased proposals, intervened…
And it can be very helpful to have someone around who is more experienced in teaching than you. When there are bigger topics coming up, when you notice patterns that you are not happy with, then someone with more knowledge might be able to point you into the “right” direction.
Check list – areas of knowledge for teaching CI
As mentioned above I am adding a little check list here around some important areas of knowledge for teaching CI. Maybe that’s helpful for you to become more clear about your strengths and also your blind spots that ask for some loving attention : )
CI technique around shared weight
I believe there is a common misunderstanding among intermediate contacters, that knowing all the classical CI moves, especially the lifts, means that you are an advanced Contact Improviser, having integrated enough knowledge to pass on your knowledge as a teacher. (Maybe the tendency for men to feel the call for teaching earlier than women is that people who live in a male body are in average physically stronger and can do lifts earlier. A lack of skill can be compensated by more muscular power and a stronger structure. The tendency to take more risks can also be helpful for quicker learning on one hand and cause injuries on the other hand.)
Being able to execute and potentially use the common CI moves in the dance is only one area of knowledge. For teaching CI it is potentially the least important. Being deeply invested in the universe of weight sharing with a passion for understanding the main principles and how we can sense them in our bodies is essential though.
What else?
Creating safe enough spaces where people’s nervous systems can self- and co-regulate
As teachers we are first of all space holders – if we want that or not. Our students can only efficiently learn and grow when they feel safe enough. As a CI teacher we need to be interested in understanding the subtle signals when people’s nervous systems are in flight & fight mode. And we need to be willing to find out what helps a group to down-regulate the nervous system to the safe & social mode. I find the poly-vagal theory tremendously insightful for that.
Additionally we need some interest and capacity for difficult situations, when people got hurt or triggered. We hopefully want to foster courage, especially the courage that is not visible to the outside eye, where people move beyond their limiting habits. We can only be courages, when we are allowed to make mistakes. So, as teachers we need to be interested to develop tools for when things „went wrong“. A willingness and ability for reflection is essential. We will get it wrong, that’s one of the few things we can be sure about.
Organisation of the solo body that supports CI
CI has no given technique for how we learn to organise our bodies so that they can cope long-term with sharing weight situations and moving between the floor and standing level. What informs your understanding of the moving body? How do you make sure that it works with your structure and not against it? Do your movement habits promote adaptability, openness, multi-directionality and responsiveness? Do they create physical joy?
CI technique around the communication through touch
A lot of the beauty, safety and depth of CI comes through the way we communicate through touch. How do we physically hear each other? What are the communication tools that help us hear what’s save or unsafe when moving together into the unknown? How do we communicate in a way that stays true to what’s actually there and doesn’t let us get stuck in assumptions what will happen next?
Understanding of the Jam in it’s complexity
The main setting for practicing CI is the jam. That’s where all the learnings come together and get applied. In my opinion that’s the trajectory for our teaching. It is not the lifts. We want to enable our students to survive and potentially enjoy their journey through a jam.
A Jam is a combination of the individual journeys of all dancers in the space and the journey of the group as a whole. For teaching CI we need some knowledge around both types of journeys.
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The individual journey through a jam: How familiar are you with navigating your way through a jam? How do you warm up? How do you find your curiosity, get into sensing your body as connected whole? How do you transition between self nourishing solo, committed duets, more complex constellations and witnessing? How do you end dances? How do you say no?
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The journey as a group through a jam: How much are you able to get glimpses of the diversity or homogeneity that’s in the space? Can you sense how the atmosphere and dynamic in the Jam is shifting? Do you have ideas what’s creating these changes?
The underscore is probably the most accessible and profound collection of knowledge of safe and satisfying Jamming. It is one of the few ingredients that support the global community to not drift apart too much. I’d say if you haven’t practiced the underscore or have no basic understanding of it you might want to wait a bit with starting to teach.
What is Contact Improvisation?
I think we need to have spent quite some time with the question „What is Contact Improvisation?“ before we teach it. Knowing that there is not and will never be a given definition of CI doesn’t mean that everyone can make it up themselves however they wish. There is a history and a global community. How are you connected to it? The lack of a definition is the request to not stop investing in chewing on the question what CI is.
The global CI community
As CI teachers we have the opportunity and I’d say the responsibility to give our students access to the global CI community. It is such an amazing gift. If you know the multilayered basics of CI so that you are able to navigate through Jams you can travel through many parts of this planet and find connection to very lovely people. CI is a ticket to the world, even though to only a very specific global niche. So, as teachers we should have some sense that CI is more than what is happening in our own classes and jams.
Why do you want to teach CI?
A friend and dear colleague of mine in Bali, Sima Darova, said that if someone asks her if they are ready to teach CI her first response is: “Why do you want to teach CI?”
A great starting point. What do you want to get from it? What is your contribution to this dance form and it’s communities? Does giving and taking feel balanced?
Maybe my thoughts have provided you with some inspiration to find your answer to this question.
A last thought
I didn’t want to put this last thought into the beginning when I mentioned the appearance of „shouldn’t s and don’t s“. I was surprised by it myself. I sounded quite judgemental or harsh. I think my driving force is the need to be clear and to protect what’s dear to me. Here comes the word, that I was scared to use in the beginning, to not trigger too many people. I guess teaching CI is something sacred to me. Sacred doesn’t mean super serious and dry. More like super serious and light, playful, curious, tender, powerful, ordinary. Something of importance is at steke here, something deeply human, alive. It is about meeting each other, being seen and heard. It is a vulnerable thing.
I want to leave it this raw for now.
