No matter what platform you are teaching on, you most likely have run into issues at one time or another with trying to find the right lighting for teaching dance, yoga, or other movement online. Any number of these common complaints sound familiar?​

• this feels good, but it's too dim
• the camera can't focus properly
• the video is too grainy
• I'm blinded! 
• it's too hot in here with all these bulbs
• the scene is too busy with all these lamps behind/around me

Trying to get control of your light in your live streaming videos--and do it within a reasonable budget--is definitely familiar to me! I've done some amateur photography in the past, but even with that experience under my belt, trying to properly light my dance classes for teaching in Zoom or on Facebook Live was another animal.

The joke among my students and me is "New Week; New Tweak!" It's like a game of spot the differences from a newspaper or magazine, now coming to you LIVE in your living room. LOL If it's not some new piece of tech--like a new camera, upgrading the WiFi, or an improved lavalier mic--it's a new way we're setting up the space to make it easier for students to see us on whatever device which they are trying to study with us.

In this slideshow, look at the evolution of backdrops in our teaching. From a bland beige we blend in with too easily, to vibrant colors, and even a move to a new studio space. You can see how the different colors and textures of a background, in combination with what we choose to wear each week, can make a big difference.

What tweaks have YOU introduced to your online classroom since you began? I'd love to hear other ideas and inspirations!

Everywhere you look right now there is some dance teacher experiencing an issue or complaint with Zoom and their audio. If I had a dime for every time I ran across a post about these frustrations, our studio would be set up for the rest of the pandemic, let me tell you! If you are one of these teachers, I thought I'd break it down into some simple concepts so you can at least understand the issue, and maybe you can start to find the solution that is right for you. In a future blog post, we can look at answers (or perhaps you will be empowered to employ better Google-fu than you felt able to before!) Here we go...

In short: Zoom doesn't like processing sound from multiple sources. In fact, it is specifically designed NOT to. It was optimized for office environments, where it wants to prioritize sound from a single source at a time, and actively suppress or de-prioritize sound from any other source. Think of all those clickety-clackety keyboards, or conference rooms with squeaky chairs. Zoom was offering a solution to certain problems. Unfortunately, they created problems for us dancers when we tried to use it for our unique use-case.​