Considerations For Students Who Don't Practice

I was chatting with some voice friends last night and I was asked, "what do you do when students come back and haven't practiced?" I shared several ideas that are important to me and realized it would be a good theory blog post to expand on here. So here are a few key considerations I have when interacting with a "student who didn't practice":

Strategies to deal with students who didn't practice:

• It's essential to lay the ground work for good practice habits from the very first meeting on wards. This means being controlled, focused, whilst having a lot of fun. Allowing small breaks to occur. Not chasing successes and instead allowing them to be celebrated. Not harshly judging perceived "bad" attempts and instead channeling those bad attempts into positive self reflection to learn from mistakes as opposed to being horrified by mistakes.

• If a student returns without practicing or identifying they "practiced less than they wanted to" it's absolutely essential to absolve the student of burden or guilt surrounding it. If a student allows guilt or shame to fester in the behavior space around voice, it will create negative inputs which form the self defeating negative feedback loop of: feel bad > practice less > develop less > feel worse > practice less > develop less > cycling. Instructors should always try to sense if a student who self reports practicing less or not at all is harboring any internal guilt and make an active point to absolve it as the evaporation of shame or guilt is a positive action which can provide some initial push back against the inertia of negativity.

• Try to understand why the student didn’t practice. Is it a failing of the instructor? was the material unclear? were expectations unclear? Were their goals or suggested actions to take framed poorly? Is there an environmental problem such as conflicts in their home life? Are they in a safe environment? Are they harboring a lot of internalized transphobia or too embarrassed to work on voice? Is there simply some underlying depression or mental health issues that go deeper than what an instructor could try to wrestle with within the context of the lesson or material? Understanding WHY someone didn't practice is extremely important! There are massive clues lurking behind avoidance of practice that an instructor can learn a lot from and improve from. 

• Motivational speaking // empathetic dialogue. This can often be the most powerful and most useful tool in cases where someone is discouraged or disappointed with themselves. Empathy is so valuable. There isn't really a way to teach this. I feel over the years of teaching thousands and thousands of lessons, this is just a natural thing for me. It's important to guide someone to a genuine belief their goals are truly obtainable for them (it's true!). Otherwise, if disbelief or self-doubt festers in the behavior space, everything becomes far less fluid.

• Throwing softballs of mimicry or behavior to generate some positive feedbacks to help build the positive feedback loop inertia. Sometimes people just need to see they ARE completely capable of positive action. Often just a few easy mimicries can be used to prove to someone directly that they are in control of their voice, they are capable of exercising intent and will on the voice, and this helps add positive victories against the negative energy formed from "not practicing" (see absolving guilt)

• In the worst cases where a student is not well in that moment -- is it more ethical to cut the lesson short in order to preserve their investment and the instructors time? How do we draw the line where a session has the capacity to be effective vs an individual is suffering too much in that given moment?

• Is a student struggling from a parasitic fixation? A parasitic fixation is like a behavioral black hole. When a student tries to take an action they just get sucked into this black hole of behavior and end up doing the same thing over and over despite their genuine attempts to try something new. Parasitic fixations quickly get FRUSTRATING for students and really need to be crushed and pointed out in order for practice to return to a productive and enjoyable process.

• Disruption and pivoting. Quickly jumping between different sound qualities or behaviors can be very useful for individuals who need to experience some positive feedback inputs. It's both fun, engaging, and disarms one from being too neurotic about what is going on. Neuroticism is the enemy! This behavioral disruption and pivoting can also help break outside of parasitic fixations.