Hands-On Approach

A particularly cringeworthy pun involving clubs and holes-in-one was carefully avoided here.

"Okay, any time a man shows a woman how to do something from behind, it's just an excuse for him to get really close and breathe on her neck. Watch any sports movie."

— Nick Miller, New Girl

Alice is helping Bob practice something like a sport or playing a musical instrument. Alice needs to help walk Bob through some motions. So Alice takes his arm or shoulder to put them in the proper position. Why is Bob blushing like crazy? And why does it take him forever to get it right?

A common Ship Tease situation that can be as awkward as it is sweet. Because one character has a secret crush on the other, or because they are two adamant Just Friends, or because they're arch enemies, the necessary physical contact takes on much more significance than intended for one or both.

Expect any bystanders to comment, "It's getting a little hot in here." See also Zip Me Up and I Didn't Mean to Turn You On.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In Long Long Man, the Long Long Man holds Chi-chan's hands to show her how to tear the long Sakeru Gummy, but she quickly pulls away in embarrassment.

Anime & Manga

• In chapter 63 of Black Butler Sebastian does this to Ciel.
• In Bleach, Yoruichi demonstrates proper kendo form to Soi Fon... by doing the standing equivalent of spooning. Oh, and they're both girls in case you were wondering.
• Marlene does this to Yuji in Blue Gender. Yuji promptly blushes when Marlene's breasts press up against his back, and she makes an annoyed comment along the lines of "Get used to it."
• In A Certain Magical Index, Mikoto Misaka teaches Uiharu Kazari the violin this way. Mikoto is completely oblivious to the implications, while Uiharu gets embarrassed and flustered.
• In The Cherry Project, Chieri gets really embarassed when Tsuzuki tries to show her how to do a certain figure skating movie and thinks to herself that he must be trying to pull this trope.
• Fate/stay night: In the 2006 anime adaptation of the Fate route, Shirou teaches Saber how to cook this way.
  • In Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel, Taiga Fujimura did this when she was helping Shirou practice kendo, which made him blush.
• Haruko in FLCL showing Naota how to "swing the bat" in episode 4. A baseball bat, that is, but with the show's love of Double Entendre, you can be sure that's not all she's talking about....
  Haruko: Ka King.
• Non-Ship Tease and rather cruel example: In episode 3 of Fist of the North Star, a villager is being forced to shoot a can off the head of his son with a bow and arrow, William Tell-style. The villager, for obvious reasons, can't go through with it, so one of the bad guy's mooks takes it upon himself to "help" him by means of this trope, but he deliberately shakes up the poor guy's aim just to be a sadistic asshole. When the arrow finally does get launched, only Kenshiro's intervention keeps it from going into the boy's head.
• In Great Teacher Onizuka, Onizuka does this with Fuyutsuki when teaching her how to play video games.
• GTO: The Early Years has an extremely dark one without Ship Tease, when Ookubo forces Asakura to beat his friends with a wooden plank.
• Played with in Chapter 36 of Hitomi-chan Is Shy with Strangers. Yuu tries to show Hitomi how to cut cabbage, but he can't see anything since she's so tall. They switch places and she watches, though they're still intimately close.
• The iDOLM@STER: Ritsuko shows how to do a dancing routine the Ryuugu Komachi was rehearsing.
• I Want Your Mother To Be With Me!:
  • Yuzuki does this to help her 5-year-old son Asahi use his knife and fork.
  • Later on, she holds Ryo's hands to show him how to properly wash them.
• In Junjou Romantica, Usagi starts to teach Misaki how to tie a tie after seeing him fail miserably. Usagi notices Misaki's shirt is buttoned up incorrectly. The situation escalated.
• Tsubame does this while showing Ishigami how to use a cocktail shaker during her Christmas party in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War. It was probably deliberate, given that she knew about his crush on her and was planning on having Pity Sex with him when the party was over.
• In kiss×sis, Keita does this to help Ako and Riko with archery.
• Maison Ikkoku: In a scene, tennis teacher Mitaka is teaching Kyoko to improve her swing using this approach. When he notes Kyoko is reluctant to stay so close to him, he assures her that his behaviour in the court is downright professional and he would never try to hit on a woman while pretending training her. Kyoko is reassured by this, but Mrs. Ichinose exceptically notes that he still is keeping his hand on Kyoko's waist.
• In My Bride is a Mermaid, Masa teaches Nagasumi a dance this way. As expected, it looks really gay and Sun Seto even accuses Nagasumi of cheating on her with him.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi. A magically aged up Negi and Asuna go on a pretend date to the Mahora Festival so that she can prepare for a future date. While Asuna is playing the Goldfish Scooping Game, Kamo demands that Negi invoke this but even being ten, Negi knows that it's a bad idea. Eventually he caves, and awkwardness ensues on both sides.
• In episode 2 of Phantom: Requiem for Phantom, Emotionless Girl assassin Ein teaches Zwei the proper way to hold and aim a gun using this method.
• Happens in Revolutionary Girl Utena with Ruka teaching a stance to an anonymous female fencing student with a Luminescent Blush. Notably, actual practitioners have pointed out that the stance is wrong, and therefore he was doing it purely to feel her up.
• In When Marnie Was There, an intimate physical connection occurs Marnie shows Anna how to row the boat properly.
• In the X/1999 anime, Sorata does this to Arashi to teach her how to chop onions. Blushing ensues.

Audio Play

• One of the bonus drama tracks for Shinsengumi Mokuhiroku Wasurenagusa has Hijikata Toshizou teach the illiterate heroine how to write. He does this with a kanji that contains all of the eight main brush strokes used in symbol writing, but also uses the opportunity to flirt with the heroine and put his hands on her while she's trying not to get distracted.

Arts

• This one is at least Older Than Feudalism, as this statue◊ from ca.100 BC depicts a lascivious Pan teaching his eromenos to play the Pan pipes (the potential for Double Entendre is just staggering...)
• There are many pictures of a man teaching a young woman to play a keyboard or stringed instrument. A harpsichord/piano, a violin, and a cello are the three most common subjects.

Comic Books

• In Cavewoman: Rescue Party, Muggs gives Carrie some hands on training when showing her how to use a LAW. When he tells her to ensure that the weapon is fully extended while pressing against her, she archly comments that it feels like his weapon is already fully extended.
• Briefly shows up in Double Happiness, when Ji Lian shows Tom how to use chopsticks.
• Empowered recalls a moment where Major Havoc tried to do this when instructing her in the use of her powers. "Spread those legs! Give me the power stance!" This does not go over well.
• In Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony, Silkrose attempts to help Peony during Enchantment Class by standing behind her, holding her hands in the correct position, and murmuring right in her ear. Peony— who had been struggling to create a few sparks— ends up shooting a massive beam of magic straight through the roof of the ballroom that bursts into a firework.
• Subverted in Justice League Elite, when Manitou Raven insists on intervening when he notices that his wife Dawn is mixing a spell incorrectly. When she teases him that he doesn't need to make excuses to touch her, he's appalled that she thinks he would ever lie about his intentions.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye has Drift giving Rodimus sword lessons complete with this.

Comic Strips

• In Beetle Bailey, General Halftrack observes that a tennis instructor can get away with a lot of touching, and it's okay because he's just giving lessons. Dirty Old Man that he is, the next panel shows him with an arm on either side of his Sexy Secretary Miss Buxley and his hands on her hands, saying, "Let me show you a little typing trick." However, the difference between what the tennis instructor is doing with her, is that the hands-on approach that the tennis instructor uses on Miss Buxley during her lessons is actually a form of foreplay for them.
• Blind FoxTrot character Denise used this trope to her advantage while courting Peter: she lets him "help" her through the crowded high school hallways by wrapping his arm around her waist instead of using her cane.

Fan Works

• Alien/Species Crossover: Return to LV-426: When Pike teaches Lise to fire a Pulse Rifle. Though in an inversion of how the trope normally goes, Pike intends nothing by it, he's just legitimately showing her proper firing stance and technique. She's the one who gets all charged up with him being so close to her, his hands on her body and his scent in her nostrils.
• Chell in Blue Sky (Waffles) while attempting to teach Wheatley of all people how to fire a shotgun. It ended in Wheatley hitting himself in the face with the recoil and knocking both parties to the ground. Several times.
• Child of the Storm has Betsy Braddock a.k.a. Psylocke take this approach to teaching Harry (a Hormone-Addled Teenager with a crush on her) how to use his Psychic Powers, and help build some psychic defences. However, she quite clearly doesn't intend for the contact (primarily just finger-tips to temples, though they're both in close proximity, and her breasts are pressed against his back) to have this effect, and is gently amused, while Harry is utterly mortified.
• Fate/Harem Antics: At the Archery Club, Shirou puts his arms around a girl to correct her archery technique. She blushes while he is completely oblivious.
• In A.A. Pessimal's Discworld novella The Graduation Class, teaching Assassin Miss Alice Band (depicted as a rather gay blade) enjoys giving this sort of tuition to an attractive Watchwoman.
  She also paid particular attention to one Watch recruit, a lance-constable with long flowing dark hair, taking the girl in hand, moulding her body into Alice's to demonstrate best posture, using physical closeness to mirror the Watch girl's body to Alice's.
  Be careful, Alice. You're not on the pull, you're teaching her how to use a bow and nothing more, she reminded herself, noting to her pleasure how the Watch girl didn't pull away and seemed to like the body contact. (At the end of the day, however, Alice was pleased to leave with a name and address, ostensibly for private lessons at some unspecified future time).
• This trope occurs a lot in Harry Potter fanfiction, as it's mentioned in the early books and at least twice in the movies that Hermione cannot fly and is afraid of heights. This somehow changes in the later books, but doesn't deter fanfic authors of any ship from writing quite a few flying lessons.
• In the Alice, Girl from the Future fanfic The Impassable Jungle, Rat shows Alice how to use the machete when they try to at least partly cut their way through the eponymous jungle. He does it by wrapping his arm around her and placing his hand over hers to guide it, and she feels oddly lightheaded and happy at the contact (though both are still in denial of their feelings for each other).
• Discussed and Defied in the Miraculous Ladybug fanfic lord Martiya's Lilanette Week 2020: when giving Marinette a boxing lesson Lila, contrary to Marinette's expectations reduces physical contact at the bare minimum and uses a workout stick to correct the legs' position. Lila then admits she had thought of this trope... And she'll only grope Marinette when she's comfortable with it, and without excuses.
• In The Secret Life of Dolls, Éowyn finagles an "archery lesson" out of Faramir.
• In Solar Winds, Blaine teaches Kurt a breathing technique to help him improve his Firebending. Kurt finds that this makes it rather more difficult to control his breathing.

Films — Animation

• In The Princess and the Frog, this is how Tiana teaches Naveen how to mince.

Films — Live-Action

• Aliens: Hicks (Michael Biehn) showing Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) how to use a pulse rifle. The intimacy of the situation is specifically mentioned in the novelization.
• Back to the Future Part III: Doc and Clara act out this trope when he helps her operate a telescope. Bonus points because Doc's dialogue about how "everything becomes clear" also doubles as romantic innuendo.
• Barbie (2023): Parodied and exploited. Because they're all now hypermasculine, the Kens cannot resist a Barbie who's ignorant about sports, so the Barbies plan to use this as a distraction — Barbies who have freed from their Kendom indoctrination ask for help with sports so the Kens will cuddle up to them to demonstrate, and only for another Barbie to be taken and deprogrammed while the Kens aren't looking. We then get a montage of this happening with different Ken/Barbie pairs for different activities, culminating in a crowd shot of the Kens dressed for various sports proudly proclaiming "Let us show you".
• Batman Begins: Bruce seduces the secretary at Wayne Enterprises with this technique under the pretense of showing her how to play golf. He managed to do this in only a few seconds.
• Batman Returns: When Lisa Guerrero's volunteer character tells The Penguin that he's "the coolest role model a young person could have", he replies "And you're the hottest young person a role model could have", then pins one of his mayoral campaign buttons to the chest of her sweater, taking additional time to cope a feel there.
• Benedetta: Benedetta teaches Bartolomea to write numbers by taking her hand and guiding it, which leads to things getting heated between them.
• Change of Habit: Carpenter teaches Michelle how to play guitar by standing behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist, and putting his hands on hers.
• The cello scene in Cruel Intentions.
• Ender's Game: Petra, the best shot in Salamander, takes a hands-on approach to showing Ender how to aim his gun for greater accuracy.
• The Belligerent Sexual Tension couple in the film Father Goose get into an intimate position when the male shows the female how to catch a fish from a stream. And suddenly neither of them can carry on a conversation. In fact they seem to have entirely forgotten why they got in that position....
• Jamaal Wallace does this ostensibly to teach a girl about basketball in Finding Forrester. Her dad comes onto the scene right when he's "teaching her to play defense".
• Flash Gordon (1980). Princess Aura instructs Flash how to pilot her aircraft and doesn't even try to hide her seductive intentions.
• Happens in the film Ghost (1990), in the famous pottery wheel scene. Sam sits behind Molly at the pottery wheel to help her stabilize a lump of clay, things get all wet and sticky, and intimacy ensues.
• Girl with a Pearl Earring: Johannes Vermeer attempts to teach Griet (Scarlett Johansson) to grind paints by placing his large manly Dutch Master hands over hers, totally obliterating the proper social barriers between them—-she gets pretty flustered. Johansson can't do anything in that movie without exuding sexual tension, though, so it was only to be expected.
• Dorothy and the games teacher doing football drills in Gregory's Girl.
• Chubs does this to Happy Gilmore ("It's all in the hips"), causing him to get embarrassed and pull away.
• Harry Potter:
  • The Film version of Order of the Phoenix gives Harry and Cho a moment like this. Harry helps Cho reposition her wand as she casts a Levitation Charm... And she promptly drops her subject to gaze awestruck at Harry.
    • Non-romantically: Another part of the training students scene has Neville unable to cast Stupefy, but Harry holds his hand and shows him the technique, blasting a student across the room.
  • A deleted scene in the first The Deathly Hallows movie has Ron teaching Hermione how to skip stones across a lake. According to what David Yates said in an interview, Hermione is pretending to be bad at it in order to get some physical contact.
• The golf scene from High School Musical 2. It ends with Sharpay executing a perfect swing after Troy has left, showing she was manipulating him into this trope the whole time. Lampshaded in a German parody of the movie with Troy saying: "You can press your butt tighter to my crotch."
• In Imagine Me & You, Luce teaches Rachel to project her voice by placing her hand over her diaphram. Though it's unclear whether Luce is aware of the sexual tension, Rachel initiates further physical contact by claiming she still doesn't understand.
• Keeping Mum: Lance stands behind Gloria to show her how to hold her golf club, as a very clear sign of their intimacy.
• In The Knight Before Christmas, when Cole is teaching Brooke how to make bread it complains that she's needing the dough to heavily and it won't rise "if you continue to wrest it like a dragon-slayer". Then the goes around her back and leans over her to show her how to need the dough which she's more than happy to participate in.
• In Lemon Tree Passage, Jordan gives Maya some hands-on advice while teaching her how to bat in cricket.
• In the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of Lolita, middle-aged widow Charlotte Haze tries to set this up by teaching a reluctant Humbert to dance the foxtrot. She is not pleased when events are interrupted by her daughter coming home early from a Slumber Party.
• Mr Malcolm's List: Jeremy gets very up close and personal with Selina when instructing her on how to make a particular croquet shot.
• Robin employs this while showing Marian how to shoot a bow in The Prince of Thieves. The scene ends with them kissing.
• In Summer Magic, Julia persuades Charles to show her how to play croquet.
• In the Disney film Swiss Family Robinson, Roberta invokes this by asking Ernst to teach her how to shoot a musket. When Ernst goes off to take care of some other business, Fritz offers to finish the lesson, only for Roberta to show that she already knows how to shoot.
• In Teen Wolf, Scott sidles up behind Pamela and guides her arm to teach her how to bowl. Pamela plays along with the Hands-On Method in order to get Mick jealous. It works.
• In Tin Cup, Roy does this with Molly until her fiancee shows up.
• The stone-skipping scene in The Wolfman (2010). Oops, is that a little blush we see on your face, Gwen?
• Silas does this when he shows Sam how to steer the boat in The Woman Hunt: standing close behind her and reaching round her waist to guide her hands.

Jokes

• There is a joke where one boy cites this as the proper technique for teaching a girl how to swim when his friend asks him for advice. That is, until he learns the girl his friend is planning to teach is his sister. If you're teaching your sister, you just need to push her off the dock.

Literature

• Alluded to in the Ciaphas Cain ^note  HERO OF THE IMPERIUM novel Death or Glory. One of the signs that morale is going up among the refugees is that the men who know how to use guns are offering to teach any attractive women in the group; Cain considers this a good sign, since it means they're recovering from the horrific conditions of their prior imprisonment.
• Cradle Series: In Dreadgod, Lindon walks in on his sister Kelsa and Jai Long, with the latter embracing Kelsa from behind to help show her how to cycle her madra for her techniques. Note that madra cycling is a completely non-physical process, so there is absolutely no reason for physical contact to be necessary or even helpful. They jump away and blush when Lindon walks in.
• In the lesbian romance An Emergence Of Green, attraction becomes evident while one woman is teaching the other to swim.
• Done in Far from the Madding Crowd when Bathsheba, as a prelude to asking her employee and former suitor Gabriel Oak for advice about her love life, offers to help him sharpen his shears. She doesn't hold them right, though, so he takes both her hands in his as he shows her how to hold them against the whetstone, holding them longer than necessary until she tells him to let her go.
• The Locked Tomb: Gideon the Ninth: Near the end, Gideon gets up close and personal to Harrow to teach her how to grip her longsword. Except this is after Gideon is dead and Harrow has absorbed her soul, making this possibly the most heartbreaking and metaphysical use of this trope ever.
• In Heart of Steel, Alistair does this completely by accident when he is showing Julia how to hold and fire a plasma rifle. He gets a massive case of the nerves when he realizes what he's doing.
• The Hunger Games: Finnick uses this to show Katniss how to tie a difficult knot.
• In Jackdaws, a firearms instructor uses this approach when showing Ruby how to fire a rifle; their relationship gets physical soon after, and the two are married by the end of the book.
• Keeper of the Lost Cities: In book 1, Dex puts his arms around Sophie to help her adjust a stellarscope, making her blush.
• Zakaria from The Key to Charlotte likes giving Charlotte guitar lessons because they give him an excuse to touch her hands.
• Lolita. While Dolores is playing tennis with another underage girl, Humbert goes onto the court to show her partner how to hold the racket. Dolores doesn't hide her squick reaction, being perfectly aware why he's doing it.
• My Dark Vanessa: When Vanessa struggles to learn how to use a computer program, Mr. Strane puts his hand on hers to guide the mouse, and squeezes her hand.
• In On the Spectrum, Michel puts his hands on Clara's to show her how to knead dough.
• Used by William Crimsworth when leaning over Frances Evans' shoulder to correct mistakes on her papers in Charlotte Bronte's first novel The Professor.
• A Quantum Murder: Teenage heiress Julia Evans sets this up deliberately by hiring a handsome swimming champion to coach her, despite the fact that she can swim perfectly well.
• John Varley’s Red Lightning: “The best way to teach somebody how to shoot a long-barreled gun is to stand behind him or her—and in this case, very definitely her—and show how it’s done. (...) Luckily the gun went off before I did".
• In one of the earlier Runelords books, a knight is teaching Myrrima to use a bow and does this. She's aware of his intentions and tries to discourage him, but when he tries to push it further she has to physically fight off his assault.
• Siren Novels: In Dark Water, Vanessa flirts with suspected serial killer Colin in order to get information out of him. Colin takes her kayaking, and she deliberately sits incorrectly so he'll have to touch her back to correct her posture.
• Song at Dawn: Dragonetz' singing lessons include proper breathing, which includes placing his hand on her stomach to guide when to inhale or exhale.
• An interesting example in the Sword of Truth books is when Richard is teaching Kahlan how to shoot. In a demonstration he claims that nothing can break his concentration while he is shooting. Kahlan takes it as a challenge and starts stripping him.
• Tempest (2011): In Tempest Unleashed, Tempest's trainer Sabyn uses this as an excuse to sexually harass her while he teaches her to fight.
• The Vazula Chronicles: In A Kingdom Threatened, Heath gives archery lessons to Merletta that involve touching her to position her correctly and show her how to hold the bow. He thinks that it could have been quite romantic if not for August carefully watching them to make sure there's no impropriety.

Live-Action TV

• Tristan from All Creatures Great And Small shows his date how to play the guitar.
• In season 3 of Angel, when Angel is teaching Cordelia how to fight, there are definitely a few moments of this, (mirroring the Tai Chi-type stuff he did earlier with Buffy) and amping up the UST between them. The funniest of these is when Angel doubts that Cordy's cheerleading experience allows her to remember the moves he's teaching her; she does a "cheerleading routine" with her sword and ends up about an inch away from him, holding the sword to his throat; whereupon he laughs nervously and says "Go Team!"
• Arrow:
  • Oliver Queen and Shado suddenly realise their UST while she's teaching him archery, resulting in a First Kiss. Slade is not impressed as Oliver has to be trained up fast for an attack tomorrow.
    Slade: I hope you're getting closer...to teaching him to be a better marksman. It's not as if our lives depend on it or anything!
  • Oliver instructs Helena Bertinelli in archery when trying to discourage her from using firearms for her vigilante work. By that stage they've already slept together and Helena is clearly enjoying the close contact. The lesson soon turns into Oliver showing off his skill with a bow to impress her.
  • Sara towards Felicity when trying to correct her stance. The former is canonically bisexual and called her cute a few minutes prior (later confirmed as Sara flirting), and the latter is wearing spandex at the time.
• In the 1984 BBC adaptation of The Body in the Library, when Raymond gives Adelaide a tennis lesson, he uses the opportunity to wrap his arm around her, allegedly to help her correct her aim.
• Black Mirror, "Beyond the Sea": The first hint that David is pushing his established boundaries in the arrangement with Cliff and Lana is that he offers to let Lana paint some leaves on the painting he's making, then leaning behind her to help her correct it.
• A creepy guy attempts to do this to Shawn in an episode of Boy Meets World under the guise of teaching him to play foosball. It makes sense in context as Shawn is dressed as a girl and on a date with the guy to help Cory write a story for the school paper.
• Bridgerton: One of the infamous scenes in season 2. In episode 4, when going on hunting together, Anthony insists on "teaching" Kate how to hold a gun correctly in British way by wrapping his hands over hers. He also uses this opportunity to lustfully inhale her lilies scent.
• Invoked by Gina on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. While fooling around at a firing range she's told to do it properly and tells Sergeant Jeffords to "Show me! Like wrap your thick, muscular arms around me and... [trails off]" He does, to correct her stance, and she's clearly loving it.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Angel doing Tai Chi with Buffy leads to some awkward tension, as they Can't Have Sex, Ever.
  • Xander showing Willow how to ballroom dance leads to them kissing, which freaks them out as they're both seeing other people.
  • In "Superstar", Riley Finn tries to apply this trope when showing Buffy how to throw a ball through the mini-basketball hoop in his room. However Buffy is still upset that Riley slept with Faith, so she just walks out the door the moment the sexual tension gets too high.
  • Buffy and Spike have a variation of this in Season 7, in that they're sparring to teach the Potentials how to fight off a vampire. This would be normal if it wasn't slightly sensual and didn't end with Buffy pinning Spike to the ground and straddling him, then worrying she's agitated his wounds and trying to rip off his shirt to check. One of the watching Potentials even comments that it's "hot", and another girl questions, "So, we're supposed to make out with the vampire?"
• In season one of Castle where Castle pretends that he doesn't know how to shoot a target so Beckett "teaches" him how. She stands behind him and moves his body around, completely missing the shit-eating grin on his face as this was his plan all along. However, it's less sleazy and more cute as he also wanted to cheer her up after they hit a dead end during an investigation. Plus, there's this line.
  Castle: [after firing before he could aim] Woah, shot too soon.
  Beckett: Well, we could always just cuddle, Castle.
  [Castle is shocked, but looks pleased]
• Played for creepy in Chase (NBC), where the fugitive, a pedophilic Corrupt Cop, shows a girl how to cut a tomato rose.
• The Cheers episode "Friends, Romans, Accountants" is a creepy example. Norm's boss offers to help Diane learn how to play pool. When the boss starts getting aggressively physical with Diane, Norm has to intervene. Norm loses his job.
• Cobra Kai:
  • In "All Valley", Samantha LaRusso and Miguel Diaz go to Golf 'n Stuff for their first date. Miguel brags that he's best in his class at karate, and tries to "prove it" by showing Sam some techniques...which involves putting his hands on her hips. She playfully calls him out on it, to which he protests "I'm correcting your stance!", then reveals she has a childhood's worth more experience than he does by hopping into his arms and executing a flawless leg throw takedown. Sam then roughly pins Miguel to the ground, straddles him, and gives him the ending he wanted.
  • In "Feel the Night", Sam and Miguel are at her dad's dojo for some alone time. Miguel notices the Okinawan hand-drum in the Miyagi-Do training room. Sam shows him that it's the inspiration for a Miyagi-Do fighting technique and demonstrates. Miguel then counters that he's got some secret moves of his own. He puts his hands on Sam's arms as if to correct her stance...then sweeps her off her feet, lays her on the mat, and they kiss...which is cut short when Daniel walks in, forcing them to pull apart rather hastily.
    Daniel: ...Is that my drum in your pocket?
• Mocked in Community, where the teacher of the school's pottery class has this banned. He's really sick of people using his class to make elaborate references to Ghost (1990), including "the hilarious guy-on-guy."
• Daredevil (2015)
  • The season 2 premiere "Bang" sees the Nelson & Murdock trio relaxing after work by playing pool at Josie's. While Foggy goes to the bathroom, Karen and Matt flirt, during which Karen ends up making a bad shot. She decides to "teach" Matt how to play. Matt lines up a shot that doesn't sink any balls, so Karen repositions him, tracing her hand along his sleeve. Matt can hear Karen's elevated heart rate, and knows she's feeling as hot-and-bothered as he is. He ends up scoring a trick shot that ricochets the eight-ball into a corner pocket just as Foggy returns from the bathroom.
    Foggy Nelson: NOOOOO!!!!!
    Matt Murdock: That good, huh?
    Karen Page: [giggling] Sunk the eight-ball.
    Matt Murdock: [grins] Well, something went in...
    Karen Page: I tell you what, you boys re-rack. I will, uh, buy rounds for the rematch. [Karen heads off to the counter; an annoyed Foggy turns to Matt]
    Foggy Nelson: I leave you two alone for ONE minute!
    Matt Murdock: She wanted to teach me! [Foggy smirks] What? [Matt takes a second shot, sinking two balls at once with a trickshot]
    Foggy Nelson: Showoff.....
  • In the first episode, Matt gets a hot-looking realtor to lead him around the office space they're planning to rent for Nelson & Murdock, and from the way Foggy rolls his eyes it's clearly a trick he's pulled before. Foggy later claims that Matt is always getting pretty girls to let him touch their face to get an idea of what they look like (though he can't understand how Matt always seems to know who the pretty ones are).
• A client of Kaczmarek does this in The Defenders when describing how she had to wrestle with a customer. It has more intentions than that: she's actually a petty thief, and wants to lust her way from Katcsmerek not taking her case.
• Desperate Housewives: In "Every Day a Little Death", Bree decides to teach George Williams how to shoot, using an antique Luger that his grandfather acquired while fighting in World War II. Bree walks George through the entire process, but just as she instructs him to take a deep breath before pulling the trigger, he abruptly attempts to kiss her. In the process, the gun goes off and he ends up blowing off the middle toe on his left foot.
  George Williams: I've always dreamed that before I died, I would get to kiss a truly beautiful woman. I finally get the chance, and I end up blowing off a toe.
• Parodied on Dog with a Blog when Tyler's crush is helping him make burgers, even with romantic music in the background. Then her mom walks in and tells her she's doing it wrong, she then proceeds to help him in the same way, complete with the same romantic music and Tyler's disgusted reaction.
• Downton Abbey: Thomas Barrow teaches new footman Jimmy how to wind the clocks.
• Farscape. At the start of "Look at the Princess", Aeryn Sun is cramped into John Crichton's one-man module and has to practically sit on John to teach him how to fly better, a fact that causes him to notice that the Raised by Wolves soldier has suddenly started wearing perfume.
• Subverted in an episode of Flight of the Conchords, where a woman teaches Bret to play pool in this manner. Neither blushes, though Bret is clearly uncomfortable. The woman is implied (and later clearly shown) to be interested in Bret only for sex.
• One episode of Frasier had Daphne teaching Niles how to dance. The tango was involved.
• Elle shows Sylar how to use his new lightning powers in this manner in Heroes. Not to mention that he's shirtless.
• Parodied on Full House when Joey does this to Jesse to teach him how to play golf. An uncomfortable Jesse ask, "Is this golf-related?", to which Joey snaps, "If it wasn't, would I be doing it?"
• Game of Thrones:
  • The episode "Dark Wings, Dark Words" has King Joffrey teaching Margery to use a crossbow; as Margery asks him to do this, it's clear she's using this trope to manipulate him.
  • Daario uses Daenerys' finger to point out the postern gate he means to use to infiltrate Yunkai.
• The 2006 adaptation of Jane Eyre involves Mr Rochester helping Jane on with a dressing gown in just this way.
• Done with Eliot and the client of the week in Leverage - "The Studio Job". Slightly different in that she sits on his lap in front of him to show him the guitar chord progression.
• On Murdoch Mysteries, Inspector Brackenreid was taught how to shoot by a sexy female gunslinger in the episode "Mild Mild West".
• On Murphy Brown, when Miles and Corky's romance is first budding, she uses this technique to "teach him" how to bowl. Subverted when Jim obliviously walks in, points out the flaws in her technique, and takes over instruction himself.
• Referred to in the MythBusters episode "Baghdad Battery". When Kari and Scottie are throwing pots for the titular project, their pottery expert occasionally comes in to help them in this fashion (in a purely professional manner, of course). The narrator remarks that the expert gets asked about the memorable scene from Ghost (1990) all the time.
• Played absolutely straight in the NCIS episode "Grace Period" with Gibbs, Hollis Mann, and softball, except a) he was very definitely kissing her neck, and b) either she had a real natural talent, or she already knew how to hit. Possibly both.
  • This must be a standard Gibbs seduction technique. In "Doppelganger" he shows a redhead he fancies how to sand his boat, complete with Double Entendres.
    "Feel that wood? You won't get that sensation from a power tool."
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: Moze helpes Ned use some tools in Shop Class... in the episode when Ned has said She Is Not My Girlfriend and has begun to question how true that is. Perfect timing!
• Nevertheless: In the first episode Jae-eon teaches Na-bi to throw darts by wrapping his hands around her.
• Discussed on New Girl when the roommates' Cranky Landlord fixes Jess's closet door and comes behind her to help her close it. Nick insists that this is a sign that the landlord is into her and cites sports movies. When Jess insists that it's not like that, Nick them demonstrates by asking her to pick up a mug, and then coming behind her to "correct" her.
  Nick: Oh, no, you're doing it all wrong. Here, let me show you. No, no, no. I've been doing this for years. See, the way to pick up a mug is like that. You just got to relax into it.
  Jess: He wasn't doing that!
  Nick: That's exactly what he was doing.
• In Poirot, the episode based on Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Harry Lee is shown teaching his niece Pilar to play pool by embracing her, putting his hands over hers, and whispering in her ear. She is perfectly okay with it, because she is actually just impersonating his niece.
• Rizzoli & Isles: In "Gumshoe", Frankie deliberately flunks his firearms proficiency test so he can get some 'hands-on' instruction from the sexy new firearms instructor.
• Schitt's Creek: Parodied when Roland Schitt teaches already experienced golfer Johnny Rose proper golf swing, while a clearly amused Stevie looks on and films. Both Eugene Levy (Johnny) and Emily Hampshire (Stevie) cited this scene as one that they had a hard time filming because the actors were cracking up at Chris Elliott (Roland).
• Schmigadoon!: Danny teaches Melissa to fire a gun by wrapping his arms around her.
• Ricky from The Secret Life of the American Teenager likes using this. In a season one episode, he helped Grace with a baseball bat, and in a season three episode he helped Amy with a golf club. The second one is kind of a subversion though, since they were already together at that point.
• A comedic example in Seinfeld with Kramer showing Frank Costanza how to shoot pool while neither of them are wearing pants, both totally oblivious to how weird this looks.
• In Season 4 of Smallville, Clark and Chloe re-enact a scene where Lex and his murdered lover make out in an elevator, in order to find an earring. Suuuuuure, Chloe, we believe you. Although Clark was enjoying himself a bit as well, as he darted behind Chloe once they were interrupted to, erm, hide.
• A throwaway subplot in The Sopranos season 3 premiere "Mr. Ruggerio's Neighborhood" sees a lesbian tennis coach showing blatant favoritism towards Adriana when she and Carmela take up tennis. She also does the Hands-On Approach. The reason why is all but spelled out, but Adriana herself doesn't get it.
• Played with a creepy undertone in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles episode "Automatic for the People", where Cameron attracts the attention of several men who work at a nuclear power plant by visiting a bar they frequent and asking for "help" in playing pool. While one man gives her a hands-on approach in handling the pool cue, she takes the opportunity to scan his badge's bar code, and then proceeds to thoroughly school the whole group in the subsequent game of pool.
• The gun training scene between Gwen and Jack in Torchwood series one reeked of this.
• The X-Files uses the baseball variant, with Mulder coaching Scully, who has never played. This, of course, involves him having his arms around her and his hands over hers, some suggestive advice ("hips before hands" — who knew?) and some UST-filled banter.
  Mulder: It's not a bad piece of ash, huh?
  [Scully gives him a look]
  Mulder: The bat... I'm talking about the bat.

Music

• Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" contains among other speculation about what her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend is doing, "Right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool stick / showing her how to shoot a combo."

Theatre

• In Assassins, Guiteau gets very handsy with Sara Jane Moore while giving her shooting tips. This backfires on him when he tries to go for a kiss and Moore fires her gun near his ear to make him back off.
• Parodied in the recent Broadway run of The Merchant of Venice, in which Launcelot Gobbo gives Jessica a dance lesson, seemingly as an excuse to lean in as close to her as possible. It doesn't get him anywhere, seeing as he spends the whole scene telling her that she's probably going to Hell for being a Jew. And he keeps dropping her in his attempts to dip her. Oh, and Jessica just got back from her elopement.
• The Most Happy Fella gives the Beta Couple an opportunity to get physically close and literally bond with each other when Herman teaches Cleo how to use "the ol' sticky stuff" to paste labels on boxes of grapes. When he asks her if she wants to try it alone now, she shakes her head "no."
• In The Taming of the Shrew, Hortensio tries this with Katherina while posing as her music tutor. She takes exception to this, smashes her lute over his head, and chases him off.

Video Games

• A scene that was cut from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask featured a Great Fairy using this method to teach Link how to perform a spin attack.

Visual Novels

• Amnesia: Memories: Spade World has Ikki lean over the heroine and show her how to create a dessert dish of the café. This leads to her first memory of him returning, which was this exact situation previously, and when she first looked into his eyes.
• C14 Dating:
  • If Melissa finds out about the atlatl training grounds early and joins the impromptu practice session offered by Hendrik, Chantal, who has called Hendrik "beau" (good-looking) in a previous scene, also joins. She gets quite deliberate about making mistakes after Hendrik demonstrates, making Melissa realize that Chantal is hoping for a physical correction of her posture. As Hendrik sticks to trying to correct her with verbal instructions, Deandre ends up being the one who physically corrects her posture.
  • For the festival, Hendrik is in charge of setting up an atlatl practice space and Melissa can choose to help him with it. Hendrik's demonstration of how to properly hold the atlatl during that event does get tactile. Helping with a love interest's festival preparations unlocks an image and Hendrik's is focused on the moment he shows Melissa how to hold the atlatl properly.
• Whenever the protagonist of Melody is showing the title character the correct posture or hand position for playing an instrument, he has the option of physically correcting her in addition to verbally doing so. This is always the better option, netting a point for each instance.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, Susan teaches Elliot how to use chopsticks by taking his hand. For a Neat Freak who Hates Being Touched like her, this is quite significant even though neither of them seem to realize it. The fact that she goes to wash her hands immediately afterward only slightly negates the moment.
• In chapter 29 of Madame Outlaw, Heath corrects Estelle's fencing form from behind, causing both of them to blush.
• Ménage à 3: The pose is adopted by Gary when teaching Sandra about video games here.
• An Oglaf strip about a samurai who refuses to save a village except for love has a Falling-in-Love Montage that includes him giving a woman archery lessons by holding her from behind as she practices.

• In Wapsi Square, the first meeting between Shelly and Justin occurred off-screen when he invoked this trope on the receiving instruction end in her kickboxing class. Eventually, she figured out that he wasn't as inept as he acted.

Web Original

• The College Humor Hardly Working sketch "Flirting" takes this to the logical extreme, with a dude flirting with a girl by pressing up against her and showing her how to, among other things: hit a golf ball properly, walk, and have sex with a different man.
• In the third book of Shadow of the Templar, Simon teaches Jeremy how to use a gun and ends up pressing against him quite a bit to adjust his posture. Considering that they are in a relationship (albeit a secret one), Jeremy is all too happy to encourage Simon to do so.
• Will and Shaima in Sherwood Forest: "She’d never been touched so gently by a man before. She hoped he wouldn’t take her response for attraction."

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Katara corrects Aang's stance while teaching him the Octopus move. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten so flustered if she weren't wearing her new Fanservice swimwear at the time, but it's also notable in that the only adjustment that he needed was his arm positioning.
• In Ben 10, Gwen teaches Ben how to slow dance, and they're both visibly nervous but also happy. Yes, this is an American children's cartoon. Yes, they are cousins. Why do you ask? (They may both agree "This is so gross," but their grandfather thinks, "Aww, isn't that sweet.") ^note Ben was only happy because he was finally learning. They were both disgusted at having physical contact, especially when their grandfather caught them.
• In Futurama, episode "Bendless Love", Bender falls for a fembot called Angleyne. They are both scab workers at a bending factory. Angleyne wants to prove to Bender that she's just as strong as he is, but she can't bend the traverse on her own. Bender steps right behind her and helps her with the task. Together they shape the traverse into a heart.
• Black Canary in Justice League needs Green Arrow's help at one point. In order to be sure she gets it, she does a small strip tease, some abjectly shameless flirting, and a sparring match deliberately mixed with this trope in order to rope him in. After seeing her in action (and seeing her pull a similar stunt on a former teacher) he realizes that it's part of her MO and tries to walk out of the mission, feeling played. By the end of the episode she makes it clear that even though she overdid the act, she really does have feelings for him.
• Parodied in an episode of The Simpsons, in which Homer and Marge bond by learning to curl. Marge uses the hands on approach to help Homer with his sweeping and Homer uses it to help her drink a beer.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "A War on Two Fronts", Lux Bonteri does this while showing Steela Gerrera how to master the trick of rolling a droid popper through a droideka's Deflector Shields, to Ahsoka Tano's dismay.
• In the Steven Universe episode "Hit the Diamond", Ruby does this with Sapphire while showing her how to swing a baseball bat; of course the two of them were already a couple, they were just flirting.

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