In the following lessons, I will often say “split your class into groups of four or five”, or “Split your group into pairs.”

There are basically two ways of splitting your groups; strategically or randomly.

As you prepare each lesson, you may find that you automatically know who will work best with each dancer. Which groups need a confident leader, and which need a creative soul. Don’t be afraid to set up groups in a way that will make the exercises more fun, or more worthwhile for your class.

However, sometimes you just want to roll the dice and see how they fall! There are some people who shine only when placed with someone they have never worked with before, and others who are just waiting to be teamed up with the younger group to show off their skills. On occasions when you want to randomly split your group consider these techniques:

• Draw names from a hat
• Line them up by first name
• Split them into odd birthdates and evens
• Pick teams by coin belt color
• Split them into oldest child, youngest child, middle and only
• Organise by height
• Split them into a team with painted nails and a team with natural nails
• Line them up by birthdays