We all like to look up to the good dancers. I support this; it’s great to have role models.
But how did they get so good? Stop spending such a massive quantity of your time wondering! It makes Rebecca sad.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s not magic. It’s also not “natural talent.”
Dancers get good by doing lots of things differently. Read on to find out 22 uncommon actions they take and why you should too.
NOTE: Most lindy hoppers I’ve asked aren’t 100% satisfied with their dancing. If you’re in that camp, follow the directions at the end to get the most out of this post.
Good dancers…
1. Overcome excuses about why they can’t practice. Ain’t no way you’re moving up if you can’t gain some momentum in your dance practice.
2. Take music seriously. If you need convincing, you’re not ready to advance.
3. Use both a mirror and video regularly in practice. Oh, I know there’s resistance to this. I dare you to try this every week for a month, then come tell me you failed. You won’t do it. Fail, I mean. It will be a raging success, and you’ll wish you’d gotten over yourself earlier.
4. Analyze themselves on video. It may pain you at first, but the cringing doesn’t last for long.
5. Ignore the haters. If everyone likes you, you’re probably boring.
6. Learn to dance without a partner. Relying on your partner is a crutch. If you can hold your own on the dance floor, nothing can stop you. Plus practicing alone is surprisingly good for you.
7. Strive to constantly make new discoveries about dancing (rather than waiting to be spoon fed the answers). This is a crucial part of developing your unique perspective and voice. Don’t be a dance robot.
8. Seek out instructors/mentors they mesh with and who push them.
9. Practice the shit out of everything. Does this one need explaining? Of course you’ll need to do high-quality practice, not mindless practice.
10. Disregard their inner critics’ harsh thoughts. Your inner critic is just a little child trying to distract you from doing worthwhile things. Hit the ignore button.
11. Take aches and pains seriously. Our world is full of promising dancers who ignored their injuries and failed to excel. It’s never too late to start treating your body right.
12. Develop a unique voice and perspective on dance. You’ll need to figure out what this means to you. I can only promise that this is usually a difficult process. But hey, you’re looking for hard things to work on and making your own discoveries now, right?
13. Work on hard things. Most dancers focus on what comes easy. This is good for your ego in the short term, but so-so for your dancing. Look for and practice moves and concepts that challenge you. It gives you the most bang for you buck.
14. Listen to jazz [or insert your genre here] just for fun. Just because there’s a picture of a rubber ducky wearing a storm trooper helmet above doesn’t mean you can skip this.
15. Test themselves regularly. Practice is not “the thing.” Do The Thing you actually want to do! Perform, enter comps, choreograph, teach, film dance videos—whatever calls to you. Go do lots of that, then do lots more.
16. Always work on improving fitness. Good muscular balance and aerobic conditioning augment your dance ability. If you’re looking for a place to start, try glute exercises.
17. Avoid shit talking, complaining, and making excuses. This type of negativity just holds you back. Jealousy and self-sabotage anyone?
18. Ignore their judgmental thoughts. We all have ‘em, and they are terribly distracting. Go get to work!
19. Truly believe they can do it. It’s the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset
20. Find friends who support them. Possibly the most confounding item on this list. Adults these days have a hard time finding good friends, don’t we? And then there’s the expectation that we should be able to do it all alone. Bullshit. Every successful person has a ton of support from their friends. This applies to dancers too.
21. Get consistent, accurate feedback during practice. Your partner, instructor, mirror, and video can all help.
22. Commit. You’re going to be doing this a long time. Keep going, even when it gets really tough. And it WILL get tough.
Do This Now!
Grab a notebook and ask yourself, ”Which have I done well at? Which are falling through the cracks?” Evaluate yourself honestly; no one’s watching.
For each action above you can improve on, jot down a few notes about how you can improve.
For example, I want to analyze myself on video more often. My notes might say, “Take a 60 second video halfway through practice. Watch it 3 times, pick 2 things to work on, then work on them for the rest of practice.”
Then go try some of those plans.
Remember: It’s not magic. As soon as you start taking these actions to improve your dancing, you’ll see results. Go on, I dare you to try!
Which are you failing? What would you add to my list?
Photo credits: JD Hancock (1, 2)
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you so much for sharing.:-) I think that could be # 23 Good Dancers Share Their Talents’. I have already implemented these into my daily routine. I have been looking for this comprehensive compilation for some time. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I OWE YOU A GREAT DANCE!!!
Funny you should say that! In my initial draft of this post, I had “Share their knowledge.” Took it out to keep to 22. Also yes, I’ll take that great dance!
I always say the better you get, the better you mess up. Once you pass a certain competency it’s not about the moves you learn or the combos. It’s about the movement. It’s being so comfortable in your movement that there are no “mistakes”. Where a less experienced dancer might stamp their foot in frustration on a missed lead or having their weight on the wrong foot, an experienced dancer flows through and creates something new in that moment, and revels in the motion, and nobody is the wiser. Learn to mess-up. Mess-up well. Mess-up often. Embrace your mistakes as doorway not a roadblock.
Very insightful. I mess up so much and as a result have created so many new dance moves…….
……..now all I have to do is remember them
Naah, its all good. If you mess up enough there’s no need to remember;-)
Also, being advanced means you create something form things that go wrong (= different then foreseen), I hope you can’t predict those!
I know people who don’t do many or any of these things and are good dancers.
I know people who swoon over these cosmoesque self improvement blogs and still suck.
Individual results will vary.
Sounds like somebody needs to practice #17! Meanwhile, I will be meditating while practicing #5. OMMM….
Actually, it sounds like we have different ideas of what “good” means. Nothing wrong with that.
Realize the mirror is your friend, your partner, your reflection your way of seeing yourself. Dance with as though you are alone; dance alone as though you are with. Make mistakes into sycopates.
Several of the above I have done. Some I have not. Using a mirror/video-cam, and analyzing my look is one I have not done. But, I am a social dancer, not a competition dancer, so the look of my dance is not important to me. How my partner feels about dancing, however, is important, and they are the “mirror” that I concern myself with. People have complemented me on my look, have asked me to teach them to be better dancers, to perform for them, so I suppose I am not horrible looking when I dance, but in the end, I am not too concerned. I have only seen videos of myself taken by other people, or on television (I’ve performed on tv a few times), but even then I don’t really analyze my dancing. To me, it is all about how my partner feels, she’s the center of my world for however many minutes we are dancing.
One of the things you listed above that I do need to work on is the inner-critic of myself. I am my own worse judge. However, those criticism, as well as the rare feedback I get from others (I really wish other people would be more critical of me) are what drive me to improve myself.
When it does come from other people, I like and embrace happily other people’s negative feedback. I don’t know why, but I love people giving me negative constructive criticism.
However, when it comes to myself, I let my own judgements of my dancing get me down. I really should take my own judgements just as positively as I would take them from other people, that is, as a positive opportunity to grow, not as a devastating emotional blow.
Snajan, I am with you all the way. I just wish people would talk more about dancing with each other. In class, there is often not the time and socially, most dancers seem to carry a protective shiield that prevents discussion. An excellent book about the inner critic is T. Galway’s, The Inner Game of Tennis. It speaks about the difference between judgement and evaluation. He points out that knowing what you did or didn’t do not whether it was a mistake or bad or even good is what will help you.
Where does your dance partner come into all of this? In my view, good dancers are good at making sure their partner is comfortable and having a good time. They’re good at picking up on and responding creatively to their partner’s movements. They’re good at having a “conversation” in their dancing. What do you think?
We could write a book on what good partnering means! This post is about things good dancers do differently to get good at dancing. I think your suggestion is more about what good (partner) dancing looks like. How they get good, vs. what good is. Though I was aiming at the former, I think both of these are great discussions to have.
I started dancing last year (lindy and west coast swing) at the ‘tender’ age of 38 (never danced anything before, not even at parties…), one of the most useful advice from one of the instructors was to watch ourselves in the mirror when practicing to get comfortable with how we look and move and it would come naturally when dancing with partners, even though it would look awkward in the beginning.
She was right, it did look strange but now I rely on the mirror more than anything, it helps connecting the visual and muscular aspects (I don’t have a better word for it), getting the isolation moves right, and it gives instant feedback.
Thanks for your insight
It is always worth reading such lists and looking to see if you’re missing something. Thanks for taking the time to write that down.