How to Take Feedback Without Letting It Knock You

You know the moment…

You're mid-step, your teacher stops the music, says your name, and before she's even finished the sentence, your stomach has already dropped through the floor.

Maybe it's a correction you've heard fifty times before. Maybe it's a brand new one you didn't see coming. Maybe it's not even that harsh, but something about the way it landed today has made your chest go tight and your eyes go hot.

Then you spend the rest of class dancing badly, because you're not really thinking about the dance any more. You're thinking about YOU.

If that's you, you're not soft, you're not dramatic, and you're definitely not the only one. Learning to take feedback without letting it knock you is one of the hardest skills in this sport, and almost nobody is ever actually taught it.

So let's talk about it properly…

Why Feedback Hits So Hard in Irish Dancing

It helps to understand why this is genuinely difficult before you start giving yourself a hard time for finding it difficult.

Irish dancing is not like being told you got question 4 wrong in a maths test. Your dancing isn't a piece of work you hand in and walk away from. It's your body. It's the thing you've spent years and thousands of hours on. It's the thing you get up early for and give up your weekends for.

So when someone critiques it, part of your brain does not hear "that turnout needs work." It hears "YOU are not good enough."

Add in the fact that you're often being corrected in front of your friends. That the feedback is usually about something you already know you struggle with. That you might be tired, or nervous, or coming off a disappointing result, and that this is a subjective sport where you're constantly being assessed by other people anyway.

Of course it stings. The sting isn't the problem. What matters is what happens next.

Feedback Is Information

Here is the single biggest shift, and if you take nothing else from this blog, take this one.

A correction is a description of a movement. It is not a summary of your worth as a dancer or as a person.

"Your arms are creeping up" is information. "I am terrible and everyone can see it" is a story you added on top.

The two feel identical in the moment. They are not the same thing.

The dancers who handle feedback well aren't the ones who don't feel anything. They're the ones who have got good at spotting the difference between what was actually said and the story their brain wrapped around it.

So try this. When a correction knocks you, ask yourself one question.

What were the actual words?

Not the tone. Not the look on her face. Not what you assume she thinks about you. The WORDS.

Nine times out of ten, the words were about a technique. Not about you.

Let Yourself Feel It…Just Not Forever.

There's a lot of advice out there that basically amounts to "don't take it personally!" which is a bit like telling someone not to be cold.

You're allowed to be gutted for a minute. Feedback that touches something you're already insecure about is going to hurt, and pretending otherwise just means you'll bottle it and it'll come out sideways later.

So feel it. Give it its moment.

But give it a time limit.

Whatever works for you, the point is that you decide in advance when you're putting it down, rather than letting it follow you around for a week. Feel it, then use it, and improve it. That's the order.

Whose Feedback Are You Actually Taking?

This one is important, because not all feedback deserves the same weight, and a lot of dancers are carrying comments around that they should have binned instantly.

Feedback worth taking seriously comes from people who know your dancing, who are qualified to judge it, and who want you to get better. Your teacher. An experienced older dancer. A judge's comment sheet.

Feedback that does NOT deserve to live rent free in your head includes: something another dancer's mum said at a feis, a throwaway comment in a group chat, a stranger under a video, or a dancer your own age offering unsolicited opinions.

You can be open to feedback and still be selective about whose feedback you let in. Those two things go together. In fact, being selective is what makes staying open possible, because if you take EVERYTHING on board you'll be pulled in fifteen directions and end up trusting nobody, least of all yourself.

What To Actually Do In The Moment

Right, practical bit. When you get a correction in class:

Breathe out. Genuinely. A long exhale tells your nervous system you're not in danger, and you cannot think clearly while your body thinks you're under attack.

Say thank you. It gets you out of your head and back into the room, and it stops the spiral before it starts. Plus it let’s your teacher know that you have listened.

Ask ONE question if you're not sure. "Is that on both feet or just the right?" Clarity is not weakness. Nodding along while having no idea what she meant is what actually holds you back.

Then let the rest of class be normal. One correction does not have to become the theme of the whole hour.

What To Do Afterwards

This is where feedback turns into progress, and it's the bit most dancers skip.

Write it down. 

At the end of class, jot down the single correction you want to carry into the next session. In your notes app, in a notebook, wherever. Then when you next dance, that's your focus.

One correction at a time is not slow. It's the fastest way there is, because a dancer working on one thing properly will beat a dancer half-working on six every single time.

Plus, keeping a record does something else too. In three months, you get to look back and see corrections you're no longer getting. That's the proof your brain refuses to give you otherwise.

When The Feedback Is Delivered Badly

Sometimes it is. Teachers are human, classes are busy, and not every correction comes wrapped nicely.

You're allowed to notice that the delivery was sharp. You're allowed to not love it.

But try to separate the message from the messenger. Take the useful part, leave the tone behind. That's not letting anyone off the hook, it's just refusing to lose a good piece of information because it arrived in a bad package.

If the way you're being spoken to is consistently making you dread going to class, that's not something to sit on quietly. Talk to a parent or another trusted adult about it. There's a big difference between feedback that stings and an environment that isn't right for you, and you shouldn't have to work out which is which on your own.

The Dancer Who Can Hear It

Here's what we notice, over and over, with the dancers who make the biggest jumps.

They're not the ones with the most natural ability. They're not the ones who never get corrected.

They're the ones who can HEAR it. Who can take a correction on Tuesday and have a plan to work on it by the Wednesday. They’re the ones who private message us in the Gold Club Community or ask in the Community for help with this correction and create a plan.

That skill is learnable. It's not a personality type you either have or you don't. Every single time you catch the story, breathe out, and go again, you're building it.

The beautiful bit is that the less feedback knocks you, the more of it you get. Teachers give more to dancers who can take it, which means the whole thing compounds 💚

Be the dancer who can hear it. Not because it doesn't hurt, but because you've decided what it's going to mean.

Inside the Gold Club, this is exactly the work we do. Our monthly Correction Clinic is a live session where you bring ONE main correction and we break down WHAT it is, WHY it's holding you back and HOW to fix it, with follow up classes and daily movements to actually make it stick.

No more collecting corrections you don't know what to do with.

Join us here - www.movewithmeg.co.uk/mwmgoldclub