Advice for Beginners Starting on their Dance Journeys
The beauty of dance is that you can be a beginner at any age just as long as you can place one foot in front of the other. Well, of course, there are dance forms like ballet, contemporary dance and hip hop that place restrictions on physical abilities in relation to age but there are dance forms like ballroom dances that allow for starting at any age.
Indeed, anybody can be a beginner in dance. The trick is in smoothly transitioning from beginner level to a more advanced level while making new friends, learning new words and moves, and loving dance like never before along the way. Here are tips for this purpose.
First and foremost, you have to increase your knowledge about the dance form chosen. Your exposure may be limited in many ways, which only emphasizes the point that you have to know more. You will be able to learn new things by reading up on books and online resources about the dance form, observing students perform the movements and even asking the teacher a few questions. Your main purpose is to lessen your trepidation about an unknown thing by using the adage about familiarity breeding, not contempt, but respect.
When in your first class, you should adopt the right attitude of accepting that there will always be someone superior and someone inferior than you are in terms of dance skills and techniques. Do not waste your time obsessing over something that you cannot control but instead focus on what you can control – yourself.
Now, when you do see a dancer more experienced than you are, try to be positioned beside him/her. You will not compete but instead you will try to learn everything possible from that person to further your own goals. Still, it is not your co-dancer that you must follow in dance class. You should mimic the movement and follow the instructions of the teacher, which is still the best way to learn dance techniques. The soul of dance must come from you.
Most beginners will also be concerned about their body shapes to the point of thinking that everybody is looking at him/her. Well, don’t be. You will soon observe that all the other dancers are only concerned about their posture, positions and movements with nary a thought towards your direction. You are well advised to adopt the same attitude – just focus on your body first. There will come a time when you have to think of your dance partner’s body movements but as a beginner, this is not the time.
In the same way that you are focusing on your body, you must also pour the right amount of focus on your advancement. Take note that, just like genius in invention, to become a dance master, you must possess 10 percent talent and pour 90 percent hard work into the goal. Dance masters like Balanchine and Tharp often narrate the hard work, discipline and practice that took them to their iconic status in the dance world.
As a final word, keep in mind that dancing as an art form is a constant endeavor. You have to be passionate about it so that even with the inevitable setbacks, you will still want to keep dancing.
