Dancing is...Moving Your Feet - or - Moving Your Body?

Remember seeing those foot steps painted on the floor in "Learn to Dance" illustrations?  That kind of stuff makes people think that learning to dance means putting your feet in exactly the right spot is all that's needed.

For this dance tip let's see what looks more like dancing; someone stepping from spot to spot on a floor or someone standing still and moving their body to music. Try to picture both and you'll see the point. As usual, this illustration is overkill designed to make a point. I think the point needs making.

If we now think moving your body means something let's see how that works:

When dancing, our feet hit the floor more or less in time with music, but our bodies are almost always moving.

Stand in one spot, put on some slow music, and sway to the beat. You will find that you are in constant motion. If all movements are fluid and smooth it will be much more like dancing (moving) to music.

Body movement is a very important component to better dancers. When dancing you should keep this in mind but, also realize that it is not just randomly moving to music. In dancing, our body is moving in predetermined directions. We move forward & back, sideways, rotation in both directions, rise & fall, turning into contra position, sway from side to side & a combination of two or more together. There are rules for each. As a rule we seldom break forward or backward from the waist. "Although side to side sway looks like breaking at the waist it should only accentuated by stretching the one side without collapsing the opposite side."

The very good dancers realize not only what it take to move their body but also that the arms, legs, feet & hands are an extension of their body.
Every movement should begin with the body. Even a simple Latin walking step should begin with the body settling into the opposite hip. Once we take that step we realize our feet are not just moving from spot to spot. But, that's another story & another dance tip.

The next time you see those painted feet made to teach dancing we hope you get a chuckle out of it.
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Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.  Let's Dance!
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Practice the easy way at our Friday and Sunday night dance. We couldn't think of a better way to reinforce those lessons!  Come early, and you can get a half-hour of whole-floor practice, while we are getting ready for the dance lesson.  After the dance, we don't mind if you hang around and practice while we clean up and close up the studio.

Thought for a day..