5 Tips to Improve Your Dancing

I am a month out from my first dance completion in July and as I progress through these last few week of preparation I’m getting a little reflective.  I now know all five of the routines I will be dancing next month.  However, I don’t feel comfortable performing all of them and here is where practice and repetition takes place.  I’m the type of person who always wants to know what kind of drills and practices I can complete solo so that I can improve quickly.  So here are a few tips I learned from my instructor, Brian, that I would like to share.

1)      Posture is important- maybe the most important (and easiest) thing you can work on.  Whether you are in a ballroom pose for Waltz or dancing a West Coast Swing, posture matters.  Standing up tall and leaning slightly back into the lead’s connection will just make you look like a better dancer even if your footwork stays the same!

2)      Allow your arms and legs to stretch out.  Beautiful leg and arm lines (just like posture) can make you seem like a better dancer.  When you hold a beautiful pose for even few seconds people forget that you may have just screwed up your footwork for a Nightclub turn.  Dancing does not always feel natural so you may have to stretch your legs and arms in an unusual manner but it is worth it for those photo ops.

3)      Don’t look at the floor! Seems obvious, yeah, but we all do it all the time.  Even people just walking around tend to look down more often then up.  Looking down makes you, the dancer, look awkward and unsettled.  Don’t do it!

4)      Lean into all connections.  There is no dance where it is not important to lean back into the lead’s connection.  Strong connections make you and your partner look more connected but it also just translates into better dancing since you are working with, instead of against, the lead.

5)      Project confidence and smile! As a serious person I know how hard this can be.  In fact, I will probably be projecting a false sense of confidence and happiness during all my routines.  But remember, your pictures will look better if you smile! (And people will probably think you know how to dance too.)

I plan to incorporate these five tips into my own dancing.  They are all little things but getting better at anything means progressing one tiny step at a time.  So this is a good place to start!