Living The Red Life - Dance Studio Owner on Turning Passion Into Discipline and Shaping Lifelong Confidence

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Robin Snyder, a dedicated dance educator and studio owner, to discuss the transformative power of dance and its role in shaping disciplined, creative individuals. The conversation delves into Robin's journey from high school dancer to passionate dance educator and studio owner. She shares candidly about her realization that while she loves dance, her true calling lies in nurturing others within that realm, emphasizing the importance of tradition, discipline, and ceremony in ballet education.Robin also explores the complexity of nurturing stars in the performing arts, identifying students who stand out due to their dedication, respect, and ability to absorb corrections. The episode touches on key themes such as the necessity of loving the process over the mere performance and the invaluable life skills acquired through dance training. Gutierrez and Robbins further discuss the challenges of instructing in contemporary times, noting the significance of supporting both students and parents in understanding the demands and rewards of the performing arts.Key Takeaways:Emphasizing tradition and discipline in dance education helps build character and life skills in students.Success in dance and life requires loving the process, not just the performance.Identifying 'stars' involves recognizing students who show eagerness, respect, and a capacity to internalize lessons.The arts provide invaluable experiences for dealing with rejection and persistence, crucial for life's challenges.Engaging parents in the process can enhance children's success and understanding in performing arts education.Notable Quotes:"I love dance, but I don't love to dance. And that's something I've realized is okay for me.""Our students need to learn the joy in the everyday doing of the thing, not just the performance.""The honor of ballet tradition offers something our children really benefit from in today's casual culture.""Students who show up eager to learn and respectfully interact are often those who succeed, in dance and in life.""Parents can play a vital part by resisting the urge to shield their kids from disappointment and instead coach them through it."Connect with Robin Snyder:WebsiteInstagramFacebookConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

When I was in high school and I realized that I didn't really have what it takes to spend all day in a dance studio. I didn't want that life. And I thought, well, what else is there? And I thought, it has to be dance. Maybe I'm going to be a teacher, but it has to be danced. Maybe I'm going to be a business owner, but it has to be dance. How do you find stars? How do you go, this person just gets it?

Wow. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life Podcast. and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life Edition. Joining me today is something that I hold dear to my heart is dance. I wish I was a dancer.

I'm a music video director, but maybe Miss Robbins herself, a legacy maker, can give me a hand. Ms. Robbins, how are you? Welcome to the show. I am great. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. Oh, I am ecstatic to have you on our show, especially for Red Life. You are literally, you literally just finished filming your episode for Legacy Makers. How do you feel? My biggest takeaway is I think I'm a better interviewer than I am an interviewee. Oh, right on. Why would you say that? Sitting in that chair and just talking into the camera and not having any human interaction and

feedback, that's a challenge. And it's by design. We don't be real. We don't say any of those fun secrets, unless you listen to this podcast now. Well, people must. I will have a new respect moving forward for people who can do that. That was a challenge for me. I am a podcast host, and I feel very comfortable being in the seat of the, I'm a hostess.

I'm trying to make my guest feel comfortable. I thrive on eye contact and, you know, nodding of the head. and, you know, encouragement and that type of thing. And I'll tell you, that was a challenge. And if your editing team can make something lovely of that, I will be singing your praises from here to high heaven. Well, Harry H. is literally our lead editor. He wears that name proudly.

He's quite the wizard. Aren't you, Harry? I hope so, Harry. Let me know if I can write you a little extra check. Yeah. And just for the ASMR, this man's got a beautiful voice, too. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, yeah.

wink, wink, or I know about age. All about you, my love. I mean about when I say I hold dance near my heart. Like when I shoot video and I direct, I think as a dancer. Really? Talk about the disciplines of dance. And it's not just about rolling out of that and counting the four and 16. It's far beyond that, isn't it?

It is. And I think that it all starts with ceremony and tradition. Oh, yeah. I, my heart of hearts is. with classical ballet. That was my, the training that was most meaningful for me. And what I loved about it was that ceremony and that tradition. You know, when I teach ballet, I, I always say, if my students learn nothing, they will learn how to stand up straight and to curtsy. They will learn to listen and they will learn the etiquette of a traditional classical ballet class. And I think

especially in today's culture, that's something that our children can really benefit from. Absolutely. There's such a casualness about our life in these days, isn't there? Like, people don't dress up to go to restaurants. Nope, not anymore. And there's something about that ceremony of ballet where, you know, you are regal and you are proper and there are manners and there are traditions. that to me is something that our children can really benefit from.

And if they don't go on to pursue professional careers in ballet, that's okay. I would hope that they would carry with them some of that, you know, honor for that old tradition. Oh, the honor, the cachet, the being trained. Like Lauren, which happened to be your host, General Lauren as, Lauren's one of my apprentices. And she picked that up far quickly faster because she's far more disciplined and comes as a dancer. Grab the camera started filming and started shooting. But understood our morning routine, our affirmations, the ceremony of flipping the light switch is turning on the lights, getting into character, feeling the romance of starting a production, getting into the game and going from nine to here, I'm in this philosophy because now I'm performing. Now I'm being something else for someone else.

Yes. You can't, see? Then when you eat that, yes, I'm not out of an instructor. You know you're on the right track. I always like to say, Rudy, you're going to find a lot of videographers out there. But when you find a cinematographer that understands the, this is how we're going to shoot today, you find that in dance. Yes. Talk about the frequency that only dancers can omit what they're truly feeling and seeing in their heart when they're performing through their body.

I think that it's about loving the process. It's not so much, let's hurry up and get to the performance. performance to be truly successful in the performing arts, I think one must love the process of doing the work. And so sometimes it's disheartening when we hear young students or their parents say, oh, my child just lives for the performance. And she's just holding, you know, she's saving it for the performance. And I'm like, that is not going to work. Like, you're not going to succeed in this industry if you do not find.

joy in the everyday doing of the thing, you can't only find joy in the performance because you'll be a miserable human, right? And there's so much more time spent in the preparation than there is in the actual execution of the art. But I think, again, that's something that our children need to learn and practice. We live in a society where there's instant gratification. where, you know, you look at a short video of someone nailing the pirouet combination, but you didn't see everything that went into that. And I want my students to understand that you have to be willing to put in the work. And it's based in scheduling.

Sticking to the schedule that's discipline when you, you know, you make a commitment to a certain schedule, and you show up and do the work even when you don't feel like it. Yep. Right? You do it anyway. Yep. You might have great days where you come out of class and you're like,

woo, I nailed it. You might have days where you're like, well, I... Get your picked on me. Or I just got through it. But at least you showed up and that counts. And all of that built upon itself day after day and time after time will eventually culminate in the fruits of your performance. And your genetic code, that is your body, will actually, will turn into it.

Well, you'll see the transformation happening. It's almost like you're dodging bullets. Like, you put it at the time and the work, it's not just the physical, it's the metaphysical. It's what's happening around the frequency where the universe says, this person deserves it. Yeah. It's just that black swan transformation. Okay. It's just like, that's where I foresee it.

It's just like when a star is born, it literally means a star is born, like the universe goes, there, that, that's. a light right there. Point all your energy, we bless you. Find, look, how do you find stars? How do you go, this person just gets it? Because it's, they're not, they train so easy. Wow. So at our studio, I would say the majority of the students aren't going on to pursue the performing arts, but they all are going on to pursue adulthood. And they're all going on to pursue being a human and being a member of our society. So when you say how do you, you know, identify a star, I'm not interpreting that question as how do I, you know, identify the next John Bon Jovi or, you know, classical ballerina or whatever. I'm looking at who's going to succeed in life, you know, and I'm looking at the kid

who shows up with bells on, like eager to learn. The kid who is respectful and kind to their classmates. The kid who hears the correction and processes it and then shows up at the next class retaining that and you can see that they're working toward a goal. You know, I think that those are the kids that are going to see them, that we're going to have the most success with.

And it also emanates into the families. You know, because when you're working with children, it's not just the child that you interact with. Stage moms and parents, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of these parents may have no experience in the performing arts at all. No. It's if I put my child in jujitsu, I know nothing about jujitsu. So I'm counting on the master or the culture or whatever, the teacher to educate me to this culture.

Well, as a studio owner and as a dance educator, my responsibility is also to the parents to help them navigate. understand what's happening through this process and to advocate for their child. Absolutely. You know, so when a parent comes to me and says, my child has worked so hard and they went to the audition and they're so disappointed that they didn't get the role that they wanted, well, this is a perfect opportunity for us to coach this child through this experience. Rejection is part of the process.

Yes, you will be rejected how many times before you hear the yes, and that makes you resilient. And that is what cultivates grit. Yes. Right. And so, Mom, let's not, let's resist the urge to protect and coddle our child and, you know, help. We don't want them to avoid this discomfort. We want to encourage, walk them through the discomfort so that they can be stronger at the other end, right?

And now the children have learned how to get through failure, fail forward, right? Oh, yeah. They've learned how to get through failure. through it and now they'll do better next time. Yeah, and now they're armed for every job interview. Now they're armed for X, Y, Z, even to the little tit for tat. Like those little movements, those little pivots go a long way when it comes to the golden path of one's life in the universe.

What is your day to day today? Are you coaching, you know, NFL players about to be more ballerina so they're lighter under her toes? How are you using your superpower for business? So I love that because over the last five years, my husband and I have become snowbirds, and we have a home in southwest Florida. Well, we were snowbirds. We've officially got our Florida driver's licenses, which I treasure. And I'm proud to splash it because I feel like we've made it.

Did you get the manatee license plate? We don't have the license plates on the cars, but we have the licenses in our wallet. Oh, right on, right on. I see what you mean. I see what you mean. Florida. So that's a big... I was born of that.

I was born here, so welcome. So I'm very proud of that. It took us a long time to actually get to that place. But my business is in Pennsylvania, and I still run it, and I'm still involved in the daily operations. But what I've learned over the last few years is that while I can't be the 6 o'clock on Monday night ballet teacher, because I don't live in Pennsylvania anymore, what I can do is I can help. influence our rising leaders and my student body. And when I say rising leaders, that's a term that we have coined recently to our more advanced dancers who are going through a teacher training process.

And they do teach some of our younger classes after much preparation. There's a whole process. It's not arbitrarily throwing some teenager into a dance class. We have the curriculum written. We train them little by little, starting in middle school to have more and more responsibility in the classroom. And what that is done for us is it has supplied us with a wonderful resource of young teachers who are either at the tail end of their high school years or once they go into college

or even after they have been in college for a while. My studio is in a very rural community And we don't have access to a whole lot of You know The people that might be in a more city environment So having our graduates come back and teach Has been such a blessing They know our culture

They remember what growing up at our studio has meant to them They want to be those role models for the next generation and they're all in. Oh, yeah. They're all in. Oh, yeah. For sure. It's like taking the cool kids club,

but the next level where it's inclusive, but it's like, it's a wave. It's like a Montessori, but for dancers, I completely get it. It's an academy. Would you say it's an institute? Sorry, that's how Lauren and I know each other because we have a colleague

that runs an institute out in Michigan, out of a barn. And it's like dancers, but it crosses all paths, hip-hop, jazz, mostly music video and live theater, but that's how Lauren and I are friends through our,

our mutual colleague. Well, when we're not on this podcast, I would love to learn more about that because the little tidbits I'm hearing are fascinating and piquing my interest. I come from music video as a casting director fresh out of high school. But I went back to my alma mater.

I didn't go to college self-taught, but I went back to my high school and taught mentored for four years. Okay. And taught everyone how to digitally edit and then use the kids out of high school to be on actual sets to do music videos. And it was, I just loved pop.

I loved dance. I loved, I'm a DJ now. Okay. The whole thing is like an ensemble of dancers. It has to be dance. It has to be dance. Like it has to come down to dance. You know, I'm so glad.

Music and dance. I'm so glad you said that because when I was in high school and I realized that I didn't really have what it takes to spend all day in a dance studio. I didn't want that life. And I thought, well, what else is there? And I thought it has to be dance. Maybe I'm going to be a teacher. but it has to be danced. Maybe I'm going to be a business owner,

but it has to be dance. I could not have this joy and this fulfillment from running a gas station or a restaurant or anything else. It has to be dance. And my mother told me just the other day, she said she had a memory of me telling her, Mom, I love dance, but I don't love to dance.

And I was like, really? I said that out loud and she said, yeah, you did. And that's something that I've thought in my head a lot. You know, you go to a wedding or you go out, you know, to a dinner and they've got dancing and people are like, dance, you're a dancer. And I'm like, I don't dance. I love dance. I love the world of dance.

I love the culture of dance. I love being an audience of dance. I don't physically dance. And that's okay. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I am pleased to be in the audience and to be. you know, in the position I am to maybe have an influence on the next generation of dancers. I think that there's a lot of old school.

Which is absolutely necessary. That is being lost a little bit now. Yeah. That I would like. The traditionalist. Yes. I would like, if I have any influence at all on generations of dancers moving forward, I hope that we can rekindle some of that.

old school, I fear that we're bubble wrapping our children. And I saw a video the other day, someone said, you know, the 12-year-old dance students of today would not have survived in my day. And she was talking about her day being the 2000s. My day was the 80s. So I call you on that.

Like, you know, I was even a little bit more hardcore, I think, in the 80s, where it was a more of a, tear you down to build you up. Sure. Oh, yeah. And I'm not advocating 100% for that. I'm not advocating for any kind of mental abuse of dancers. But I do think that the unfortunate alternative to that, the pendulum is swung so far in this

direction where our students are so bubble-wrapped that we can't speak to them in an honest, firm manner without fear of getting that email from that mom. What did you tell him? And the email of course is my daughter said that you yelled at her or my daughter came out

crying she's devastated and my so when I say that I also want to have an influence on parents is I want to help parents understand that it's okay for your child to hear firm words. I'm not saying abusive

words. I'm saying it's okay for teachers to be firm. It's okay for teachers to hold your child to a high standard. And we should be thankful for that and we should be backing up the coaches that you pay

to deliver these results. We're not going to get those results if we're bubble wrapping our children. Understand. Which comes to the stigma of the theater moms, the theater parents, which is why it's a completely different other parallel of vertical or even an upsell where it's like, hey, we've got your child in the academic,

but then we're going to also teach you how to handle your child when it gets rejected or success and how to upsend with your child. And the do's and don'ts of being a good and bad stage parent because it does happen. It actually slows down the process of said child's career. I'm probably going to get the wrap up from Lauren. No, I thought you're sneaking up behind that chair to get me. Yes, I'm glad you said that. For sure.

I do have a podcast. It's called In the Spotlight, Raising Leaders in the Performing Arts. And what I hope to accomplish with this podcast is to help educate parents who have chosen the performing arts as an extracurricular activity for their kids. And maybe they just need some coaching on how to navigate these waters. You know, for example, oh, my, you know, my daughter is, she's worked so hard and she's so disappointed. Okay, that's great. She worked hard. So did everyone else at that audition.

Yep. Or in her class. She's so disappointed. That is a normal way to feel. Yep. She doesn't understand why she didn't get the part. Well, there are various reasons. Maybe she didn't fit the costume.

Maybe she couldn't hit that note. Maybe she's just not as experienced and we don't have a lot of time. And this is, you know, honestly, when you're in a show. show, it's not the same as being in a class. Class is for learning, being in a show is for once you've got the skills and now you're putting them on stage. But, you know, no, no, not throwing any shade on parents, they don't know. No, they don't. No, but to your point, I completely agree where even into a sense here, like, if you can't coil cable, don't even touch a camera. Like, there's like a, there's certain standards that you need to abide by, like,

or even in a kitchen. If you don't know what you're cut or how to cut, like, you can't run the line. Like there's certain things that show that you're trained or you're just an amateur. Are you shooting content or are you shooting product? Like there is a distinction now, especially now with we've got AI around the corner just peering its head over and I'm having discussions with my fellow colleagues where it's like, do we invest in hiring the six person ensemble where we have to go through the choreography? We've got to go through the costume changes. We've got to feed people. We got to go through this. Or do we just type it up in a prompt? and export it.

And the four days of work and the $4,000 budget because we're running $1,000 a day, and now it's just four minutes and it's a dopamine hit. And I just created four pieces of video and four minutes as opposed to one piece of video in four months. Wow. Yeah.

That's the trajectory we were going in. I'm like, I see the world as a dancer, but I'm not quite a dancer, but guess what? I own this brand, then I can just type it in. Publish. And what have I done? I've completely just wiped out an entire generation of dancers

because all those poor dancers have spent 10 years filming themselves on YouTube doing choreography and guess what our AI bots have done. They've grabbed all those 10 years and fed themselves a prompt. Welcome to 2025. So what is the future for... My point

of that dark grim reality is folks like you are going to grab these train dancers and make them these human people that you see in person and just help them ascend and be like, this is the human an experience, a live dancer that was trained and coached by you. That you can't, AI can't mess with this.

Yeah. But now it's a completely different area, a tax bracket, of you will, where it's like, oh, this is fine dining now. You know what I mean? It's no longer dinner. It's an experience. We just got to be clever. We just got to package it differently.

We got to jump on podcast and we've got to start saying, yo, for the past 10 years, everyone's been lally dally and thinking this is right, this is wrong. No, it's all wrong. It's been wrong. This is how it's done. And here's how we start. Oh my gosh. Right?

You blew my mind. I'm new to the AI world. Clearly you're a little further along than I am. But even I can tell the difference between something that is generated by AI and something that's not. And I'm hoping that the humanity in us all wants this shock and awe of what chat GPT can do. I hope that when all of that dust settles, there'll be a swing back to what is real and what is authentic. The fear is that the pendulum won't swing back and it'll just destroy us all.

Then we'll just fall, just grind. I hear you. But there's got, I mean, even in my very limited experience with AI, I'm even craving that real authenticity. Absolutely. You know, during this whole experience, both. Ray and Lauren, who's behind the camera, both having dance backgrounds. You've been led to a totally different and maybe, you know, unpredictable destination in your careers. And here we are, you know, crossing paths again, I would always, always recommend to people hiring, you know, students who have come up through the performing art.

100%. Talk about pivoting, being able to improvise. Like we see. said the show must go on. You know, you don't just throw in the towel when things get tough, the perseverance. There's so many life lessons. Broken toes, all your mangled toes. I'm sorry. Absolutely.

If you want flu, I did a performance with the flu. Absolutely. I mean, I Soldiers. Yes, we are soldiers. Soldiers from the performing arts. And this has been a lovely experience.

And thank you for having me. And we're so thankful to have you. And we're honored. Robin, thank you so much for your time and energy. That concludes a very alarming Red Life, Living Your Legacy podcast. For Insight Success,

we are Regaturist. I'm just kidding. For Inside Success, this is Robin, and I'm Ray Gutierrez. Good night.