First of all, let me start with wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Day !!!
Result oriented or self-improving and trying to be the best that you can be in your dance journey ?!?
Dancers who feel good about themselves produce good dancing… it’s the simple truth behind the art of dance, regardless dancing ballroom, Latin, rhythm, American smooth, salsa or any other style of dance.
Trying to reach for that podium and desired placement doesn’t always go “hand in hand” with enjoyment in dancing. Dancers often get lost in chasing the final outcome and forget the main reason, they are in this in a first place – “the joy of dancing, the art that can’t be perfect, the passion that brought them there… the dance itself”.
Finding the right balance of dancing goals, motivation on proper guidance by your teacher, will lead your journey to success and reasons to smile. In this article, I will try to give you 3 goals that I personally had for my professional dance experience and hopefully that will help you maintain your dance motivation and be happy through your journey of dance.
The first advice:
Setting clear short and long term goals! Understanding that you will have different responsibilities to achieve your goals will help you significantly. Having set your goals, you will be able to plan every week of your dance practices and dance lessons to reach what’s needed. Write your goals on a single page and try using less than 250 words. Keep in mind, that you shouldn’t have more than 3 goals a week on probably 5 goals a month…
Read your goals before every practice. it should take you less than a minute anyway. Remind yourself why those goals are there (written on the page). Rethink and change your goals when feeling like…
Remember, that %20 of what we do during our dance lessons and self practice after will produce about %80 of our final goals. Goals, goals & goals in dancing…
Second advice:
Praising your dance progress and every little step on the way to greatness! Obviously, your dancing progress will have Ups and Downs, so don’t forget to focus on the positive aspect of your progress. If you put the accent on the positive by emphasizing on what you have done well, you will manage to build more confidence and that will help your progress. Praising, often brings the best in people and makes them perform better. Personally, I have some rules for Praising:
- Praise immediately – when you do something well, don’t be shy about it and hopefully your teacher will be smart enough to do the same…
- Be specific – So… if your teacher is being happy about something, make sure that you fully understand what that thing is! I used to work in a studio on the North Shore, where people were praised because they smile or have a nice hair… Leave the studio Right Away!!!
- Speak about your dance feelings – Tell your teacher what feels good. Doing something right is worth noticing. You can always build on that good work!
- Pause – Praising is great! pause, enjoy the moment, chat about it and get back to work after!
- Encourage – Now, that you have felt good about your dancing, hope you understand that there’s nothing that you can’t do!!!
Praising matter big time and beating yourself over that left turning figure in tango / waltz for an hour or more is not worth, simply move on and get back to it another time
Advice Number 3 (for the people that are still reading ;))
My final advice is called redirect. Praising your dancing, without recognizing what needs to be done better will lead you to nowhere. If your ballroom teacher gives you only a nice feedback, than probably something is wrong. While nobody really likes being told how wrong something is, a constructive feedback can make a big difference if you are open minded. It is important that the teacher you are working with, will be able to help you improve by giving you the next step and guiding you to the next level of your dancing. Unless you confront what needs to be improved, you won’t be able to reach your best.
Honestly, those where the steps that I followed and they helped me greatly, to feel good about my professional dancing. Understanding, that YOU and only YOU can motivate YOU is a big deal
Thank for reading!!!
Aleksandar Bonev – Founder and Co-Owner of North Shore Dance Society – Glencoe
Glencoe Ballroom Dance Club Empowering Lives Through Dance (northshoredancesociety.com)
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