I tried this exercise a while ago and I recommend it to anyone who takes teaching seriously. It's very easy to set up and I guarantee, if you haven't tried it before and you give it a real go, it will open your eyes and challenge your perception of what teaching really is.

       All you have to do to get started is  switch your drum kit around. Right-handers put your bass drum and floor tom on your left and your hihats over to your right. There you go.... now your kit is as cool as Phil Collins' kit. Sit yourself down and start to play a regular 4 leading with your left hand on the hi hat and left footed bass drum. Are you coping ok? Now add an open hi-hat off beat. Confused yet? I hope so. That is the idea. Have a really good think about how it feels. Nervous, excited, confused, grumpy; feeling suddenly incompetent or embarrassed even? That is how it felt when you started all those years ago and that is how your students feel a lot of the time. You'd forgotten hadn't you?

     Now keep playing until things start to go completely wrong and then figure out exactly what the problem is. When you can define that clearly and specifically, and  you have figured out how to rectify the problem, you now know how to teach it to your students.          Repeat this exercise at least once a month and you'll never forget what your students are up against and you'll develop some effective approaches to explaining how to overcome any problems that your students might face. Essentially, I believe that to become a great teacher you need to get right back to learning again.