Plateauing is the number one problem dancers face, according to my recent survey.
You feel so alone when you’re in a plateau, nitpicking every little thing you’re doing wrong. No one judges you more harshly than you. And you know that how you deal with this plateau will determine your progress as a dancer.
via Ma Gali
The problem of the dance plateau is almost heartbreaking for me. I nearly quit after eight months of lindy hop because I thought I was so bad at it. No one told me this then, so I’m telling you now. These are the things I found out as I’ve worked through my many plateaus:
It gets better. Don’t commit dance suicide because it seems so hard right now.
It’s good to take a break. You can go home early on nights you’re not feeling it. You can take up another hobby for several months. The brain still works on absorbing information even when you’re not actively trying. You’ll return to dancing more refreshed and with a more balanced perspective. After seven years of dancing, this still works for me.
Don’t mainly dance with people who are more advanced than you. It makes you focus on all the stuff you’re doing wrong. When you get in your head like that, it can take years to get out (ask me how I know this). There will be many wild swings in how you feel about your dancing. Dancing with people who are more advanced amplifies those feelings. And on a good night, you’ll feel fantastic. On a mediocre night, you’ll think you’re rotten. Which leads me to my next point…
Discover your deeper connection to dance. Don’t go chasing the good feelings. If you make it past a couple years, you’ll find out it’s about so much more than the euphoria of the fabulous dance night. It’s about music, self expression, creativity, growth, and connecting with others in a unique way.
Plateaus come in many varieties and feel a lot of different ways.
Talk about it, if you can. Anyone striving to learn any skill will be able to identify with you. Knowing you are not alone can be such a huge relief. And it’s likely that friends at your dance level are going through it at the same time.
Of course, people will give you lots of advice, most of it unhelpful. Who knows what you actually need to do? It’s a confounding mystery until you find out. In the end, there are only two eternal truths about fixing this dance plateau you’re in.
Number One: You have to get comfortable making mistakes.
Become friends with all the moments of fail you’re noticing, big and small. Mistakes are allies, not enemies. When you try to avoid them, you cannot learn from them. In fact, the harder you try to avoid mistakes, the harder you will fail. Your inability to accept your mistakes will become an increasingly crushing burden until it finally makes you quit. Be willing to make mistakes, and you open the door for learning.
Number Two: You have to do something differently.
Dancing with the same people at the same places, taking the same classes—it’s not going to work. You can’t simply “fix what you’re doing wrong.” That’s not the point. Your brain needs new input, new stimuli. You can only get that by switching up your surroundings so that your brain has to adapt. It could be as subtle as changing how you dress. It could be as major as traveling to exotic places to dance. Try something, anything. If it doesn’t work after a fair chance, try something else.
Lastly, be patient and have tenacity. Everyone who really cares about dancing goes through this. Not one person is exempt from the terrible frustrations of the dance plateau. Keep all of your thoughts in perspective, and don’t let them crush your love for this dance. You’ll have to work hard, and the effort is truly worth it.
Are you going through a dance plateau right now? What’s it like, and what are you learning?
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
I was on a plateau after I had danced for a few years. I decided that maybe I wouldn’t get any better since I was in my 50s.
So in order to help out the dance community I decided that I would make a point to dance with beginners as much as possible. I had no idea that it would help myself more than I was helping the beginners.
My lead has improved so much since then thanks to the beginners who did not share classes with me. With beginners I really have to do a good job at leading. I can’t just hint at a move and make them guess at what I intended.
I’ve found this incredibly valuable as well. Sure it can be frustrating (for totally different reasons than dancing with really high-level folks) but it can be very very helpful as well. I’ve had some really wonderful experiences dancing with new folks and they’ve made me think about clarity of lead in a different way than dancing with the masters does.
I totally agree with this sentiment (though the experience can be different for each person). I once watched Naomi Uyama at DCLX dancing with several beginners in a row, looking absolutely amazing. And then I knew I had to do that, too. Because I sure as hell didn’t look that amazing.
Actually, I don’t believe in dance plateaus.
Your improvement can stagnate for a while if all you do is dance 1-2 times a week in your home city, sure, but I travel to major events ~10 time per year and every time I do that I feel my dancing changes. Not necessarily in a good way, some changes were bad, but changes nonetheless.
You are absolutely right though – not being afraid to fail is an essential part of any progress, dancing included. I am never of experimenting, never try to avoid fails. Alternatively, I’m not at the level yet when people reach plateaus, I don’t know :)
Well-posted. When you were doing a call for submissions a little ways back, I was considering writing something up that ties strongly into this,pretty much along the lines of what I say below.
For me and many folks that I know, the big leap happened as a result of exploring another related dance style – usually Blues or, for me, Balboa. These dances share a lot of similar patterns but have rather different ground rules for connection and quality of movement (pulse, etc).
I hit my first big Lindy plateau (or wall as I thought of it) at about 8 months and was stuck there for over a year. I’d hoped that just dancing more would fix it so I took 3-4 classes at a time and was out dancing 4+ nights a week. It didn’t help at all. Then I started digging seriously into Balboa, both because I liked it and because Lindy was just getting too frustrating. When I began to understand how the partner connection in Balboa differs from that of Lindy (thank you David Rehm and Camp Balboa Seattle) I started to pay closer attention to how I connected with my partner in Lindy. We make a lot of unconscious assumptions about aspects of the dance when we first learn it and, for me at least, exploring familiar patterns in the context of another dance forced me to re-evaluate (both consciously and unconsciously) how I do these things in Lindy. After a few months of working with this, suddenly I broke through the wall and my Lindy became much more fun, dynamic and creative. I know of many folks who’ve had this experience with Blues dancing as well – particularly in terms of musicality.
Another option (next on my short list) is digging heavily into solo jazz dance. In a class at this year’s Camp Jitterbug, Juan and Sharon stated over and over that, even if you will never do solo jazz in front of anyone, it’s worth learning the movements and working with choreographies on your own and really ingraining the movements, thus making them available to you on the Lindy floor. I’ve never been a fan of choreographed solo routines, both because I have no desire to perform them and because, honestly, I have an abysmal memory for extended sequences of movements. But there’s some real wisdom here and it’s something that I aim to pursue. Just this weekend at Killer Diller we spent a session incorporating jazz steps from the Shim-Sham into partner dancing. I think this is hugely valuable just for expanding one’s repertoire of movements and styling options. Once some of this material is in muscle memory it’s a lot easier for it to inform your dancing.
Your point about not being afraid to make mistakes is also oh so very key. The SIlliosity class a couple of years back at Killer Diller was focussed mainly on being willing to take chances and risk looking like a fool because if you don’t take chances and experiment you can’t grow. After all, this was a street dance that evolved from people experimenting and playing with what they could find, adding their own personal touches to it and, most importantly, having fun with it.
Your last point reminded me of some the best advice I got when I first started dancing. “When you stop apologizing, that’s when you start dancing.”
Great article. I’m very impressed by the voice and views you express on here.
Thanks Adam, that means a lot to me.
Another thing I’ve found helpful is taking a stab at the other dance role. As a lead, learning to follow has taught me quite a bit by making me much more aware of and familiar with the sorts of things that my dance partners experience. It’s definitely helped me clean some of the noise out of my lead but, more generally, I think that having some familiarity with what your partners experience in the dance can only help. As a side benefit, there’s a lot of fun to be had swapping roles back and forth through a song when dancing with someone who also has experience with both roles.
I’ve learned that changing your perspective of the dance can help you get through the rough times. By changing your perspective I mean try looking at the dance in a different way. For example if you are a leader, you could try following. Or you could learn a new skill and then discover how it applies to swing dancing. Example, taking a tap or belly dancing class. Even something as crazy as taking a course about communication or psychology can give you ideas for how to be more successful at communicating on the dance floor or in your community.
Something I believe strongly is that our personal struggles are reflected in the way we dance. Often, taking the time to work on personal struggles will change your dancing. For example, I struggled with maintaining control in my life and therefore it was very difficult for me to give up control and follow the lead. Once I worked on the control in my non-dance life, I was able to dance with much more ease and confidence. I’m pretty sure all of these things fit in the “do something differently” category. Just some more food for thought :)
“…our personal struggles are reflected in the way we dance. Often, taking the time to work on personal struggles will change your dancing.”
That’s a very creative way of looking at it Amanda. And it takes a lot of honesty and perseverance, too. Props to you.
I believe in the dance plateau that we dancers experience. I like your suggestion on how to overcome this problem. A couple of years ago, when I went through a dance plateau (I did not know that there is a term to describe this stage in life > It occurred to me that in order to improve my dancing technique in a given dance, I should try to learn a completely new dance. I did and to my amazement it helped me to improve in the dance I was familiar with. Also I changed roles, from being a Leader I asked a lady friend to swap roles. She would do the male part and I will do the female part. It helped us both.
Thank you very much Rebecca
I hit that plateau hard a year or two ago. Almost quit dancing. What busted the rut was learning how to lead (like most girls, I started as a follow). Completely changed my outlook on dance in general, as well as busted through the glass ceiling for me. Not sure it’d work for everyone, but learning to be ambidanceterous has been my saving grace to break through the dreaded plateau :)
Nice piece!
I want to add some ideas too. When hitting the plateau you can try to make dancing more sociable by looking at it as a way to interact with people in stead of “showing of moves”. Or try to do fun things. Another good one is trying to be more musical. Actually for me those go together. No need to say you will mess up a lot in the beginning but have a good laugh about it!
It is, as mentioned before, dancing from another perspective.
And for those were switching roles doesn’t work anymore, you could try keeping your role and dance mirrored. So as a lead you would lead with the right i.s.o. the left hand etc. This will make you very conscious about what you are actually doing. But do find someone who is like minded for that;-)
Btw: role switching and mirroring are also good ways to breakdown moves you want to teach, as you have probably the same problems your students will face.
I’ve been reading a book recently by Gretchen Rubin called “The Happiness Project.” It’s fascinating how an otherwise ‘happy’ middle-aged, upper-middle class, accomplished woman felt she wasn’t actually enjoying her ‘happiness’ — so she resolved over the course of a year to find ways to squeeze every ounce of pleasure out of the charmed life she felt was passing her by.
I find that all too many of the lessons I take away from her book on happiness in life can be applied to dancing, and conversely, the lessons I discover in my dancing can be applied to patterns in life. I’ve heard many a seasoned lindy hopper elevate the dance to seemingly that of religion — such as when Stefan and Bethany said in the masters class at Killer Diller, “Practically any lesson we learn from lindy hop we feel is also true for life and the world in general.” Peter Flahiff once told me that he spent two full days visiting with a friend in California doing nothing but drawing comparisons from the lessons learned in dancing to that of practically every major religion and philosophy.
While this post has suddenly gotten awfully weighty in response to something as (seemingly) simple as a dance plateau, I swear I have a point. I feel my plateaus (plural — I’ve had several) have taught me more about the dance than sometimes my growth-periods have.
I went to Fairhaven College at WWU for two years (read: overabundance of body hair and patchouli, and hygiene habits that left something to be desired). Tenured staff and professors of the school loved to repeat the phrase, “If you’re uncomfortable, you’re growing.” Plateaus are anything but comfortable. They’re frustrating and disheartening; a pastime that once brought so much elation now brings feelings of discouragement and failure. But in these situations, I’ve found it most helpful to attempt to change how I approach the problem — change my mentality.
I had to realize (and still have to remind myself) that the fun in dancing — and in most pursuits in life, really — lies in just that: the process, the journey, the thrill of the hunt. I have to remind myself that the reason I dance at all is because I do, in fact, enjoy it. So despite the fact that it is natural to set to achieve goals in your lindy hop, it is equally as necessary to enjoy the scenery along the path to your destination; as Nietzsche once said, “the end of a melody is not its goal; nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.”
The Wired article Rebecca posted stresses the importance of acceptance of failure as a vital hurdle in the road to success; like Edison and the lightbulb, sometimes you have to find 10,000 ways that don’t work before you find one that does.
With that in mind, one of the most drastic ways I overcame my most recent plateau was practicing. Practicing always seemed like an oddly athletic custom to apply to dancing, but then again, I always regret when I don’t stretch before a dance either. I started asking both people who were better than me and at roughly my skill level to practice, and now I have a friend I practice with once a week. I can’t even begin to describe the satisfaction I felt when my partner and I were first able to identify problems in our dancing (both as a pair and as individuals) and prescribe solutions independently of a third party (workshop, private instructor, etc.). What’s more, when I had returned to a social floor, our diagnoses had proven accurate when I felt my following was better even from partner to partner — what a sense of accomplishment, and what a confidence-boost!
In addition to Rebecca’s Wired article on embracing failure as a learning technique, I’ve found the premise of this article also to be true:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/need-to-create-get-a-constraint/
I’ve always noticed a direct correlation between the inspiration I feel to be creative and the amount of constraints I’m under (perhaps another sorry explanation for my procrastination habits). For instance, when I worked at Starbucks, the work dress code was obnoxiously strict. My rebellion: find a loophole. Because the dress code was not specific enough to regulate hosiery outside of the necessity for neutral colors — I went nuts with crazy stockings (zebra patterned, harlequin-themed, you-name-it, I wore it and got away with it, too). Try applying this to your lindy — set rules for yourself on the floor to see what your body discovers to express itself. I once told myself one night that I was absolutely not allowed to swivel at the end of my swing-out *all night long*. I not only came up with some nifty footwork by the end of the night, but also furthered my appreciation of connection at the end of a swing out. (Psst — it also helps if you have a partner you can practice this with, too; over-thinking on a social floor can cause frustration and ultimately lead to plateaus as well.)
I suppose my final bit of advice is more of a reiteration: Give yourself a break. When Amir mentioned that, in an attempt to curb his plateau blues, he took “three to four classes at a time and was dancing four or more nights a week,” I’m not surprised he didn’t see much improvement or potentially felt burnt out (not that I didn’t have to learn that lesson the hard way, too). It’s easy to overwhelm your brain and your muscles with a lot of stimulus, so sometimes they feel like they’re not learning anything. In these times I think it’s best to try to gain some perspective and try to deliberately focus attention on all things not-lindy hop. Cut your dancing down to one night a week, or even less, if you can stand it. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder.
I’d even go so far as to say that one should give oneself a break even when not facing the span of Ayers Rock. Tonight for instance, Glenn was playing at Century. I, like any diligent lindy hopper, was of course planning on going. As much as I love the Syncopators/live jazz/flowing booze/dancing/seeing my friends: I needed a night for personal sanity. I’d had a hectic weekend, and while I would have liked to have had the energy to go out, I knew that if I ignored my inclination to nest tonight, I would not have a good time while I was at the Century. (Also of note: I would not consider myself plateau’d at the moment.) Sometimes doing a hobby out of habit takes the joy out of doing it. I find that I enjoy dancing more when I have to go through those painstaking (albeit relatively brief) dry spells of not-dancing, only to heighten my imagination, desire, and anticipation for my next dance; these feelings increase my sense of reward when I finally get back on the floor. Like much in life, it’s a balancing act; “All things in moderation — including moderation.” ~ Mark Twain
Jeez, I practically wrote a blog post of my own. Sorry for the lengthy response.
I loved this comment and had to tweet it. Thanks for the link, too.
I think you really nail it in this post, especially when you say: “Your brain needs new input, new stimuli”. Wow. This totally resonates with me.
I definitely described this “dance plateau” that you described, particularly with Lindy Hop, less so with other forms of dance. For me, I think that the plateau was not so much a function of actual ability or skill, so much as it was a mental block. Having watched other dancers reach this plateau, I suspect that at least some of them have a similar experience as me.
I think that the reason that people encounter this “plateau” has something to do with the fundamental nature of dance and movement.
When we start out, we are learning rapidly because we’re learning specific, concrete things that are easily taught and learned by rote. We learn steps, moves. We might reach a plateau at this point, or we might continue onward or break out of it, becoming more “advanced” as we pay more attention to proper technique and specific things to think about to improve our dancing in a general sense, learning how to use our body more effectively, etc. And then we start to master some of these things and then the real hard-core plateau hits.
I think that the reason for this is that we get to a point where we can’t learn things in the same way. We can’t absorb much more knowledge…when we do absorb it, it’s small. Instead, we need to start creating. It’s like going from learning the alphabet and learning grammar to learning how to be a writer. You can’t learn to be a writer in school, you have to go out into the world and live your life…and then you can become a writer. Sometimes you can become a brilliant writer without much formal training.
And I think that’s the key to break out of the plateau…stop thinking about where you are, stop thinking about how you’re dancing, how good you are, and start dancing. And maybe, if you are like some people, spending every free hour dancing, maybe start dancing a little bit less and start doing some other things with your life. Creativity is one of those things where you can draw inspiration from the most unexpected things. I watch birds, and when I’m watching birds I hear them singing songs and I see them moving their bodies and wings in different ways and I get crazy ideas. I cook a lot, and I also do statistics. Sometimes I’m thinking about some mathematical structure and I’m stumped, I don’t really know where to go with it. And then I’ll be making soup and I’m watching at how things are organized in the pot and I have an epiphany. So I’ve not just experience what you’re describing in dance, but in many other aspects of my life.
I think dance at its most fundamental level is about listening to music and feeling your body and feeling the connection with your partner and just being joyful. It’s not about being “good”. But when you feel joyful and you’re loving your life and you’re feeling the music, you just make stuff up, and it tends to look pretty freaking awesome. At least that’s been my experience. The key to break out of the plateau is to stop thinking about the plateau and start really loving the music and the dance and the people you’re dancing with and loving your life. And then you find yourself making up all this awesome new stuff effortlessly!
One aspect of plateaux in anything is when our judgement improves faster than our ability. Several of my music plateaux has been when my brain has just gotten that much more musical and that much more able to discern how unmusically I was playing. The good news about that is that at some point, our ability *is* going to catch up with our taste, provided we persevere. (I also find that looking at any plateau from that perspective to be very motivational, regardless of whether that is at the root or not)
Right on. I call this brain knowing vs. body knowing. The only way for the body to learn is through ongoing practice.
I’ve been lindy hopping for the past nine months and I’ve been through so many plateaus! At first it freaked me out, I couldn’t understand why I just couldn’t get the simplest of moves and why my brain and feet weren’t connecting. Now I understand, it’s just a build up of everything you’ve been learning, allowing you to push on through to the next level. Now I know whenever I reach another plateau (or tunnel as I call it), I’ll be moving on up again soon.
I am in a plateau at the minute , I have only been dancing for 4 months and I went to a camp where I improved greatly and now im back I really want to dance but I feel like I am making more mistakes and that the leads think I am a terrible dancer . I am now dancing more to try and break the mould but it is not helping and I am really passionate about it but also really frustrated that I cant enjoy it because I dont recognise my improvement and I am not getting better , telling other people has not helped because they just reassure me that I am good and I am not seeing it , dont really know where to go from here
Here’s a concept that has helped me: Everything is an experiment. Think of yourself as a “dance scientist.” Scientists do lots of experiments, and many of them don’t work. It’s not a Bad Thing, that’s supposed to happen. You’re supposed to make a lot of mistakes in dancing too.
If you’re making the same mistakes over and over, then you need to do different experiments. What would happen if you started practicing at home? What would happen if you only listened to the music for one song, instead of focusing on doing the right steps? What would happen if you danced with your eyes closed for one song? What would happen if you took a few private lessons? What if you tried all these ideas differently?
You won’t know the answers until you try the experiments. This has really helped me keep from getting too discouraged. There are SO many experiments to try. If one fails, I try the next one I think up.