For a “no shortcuts” list of dance techniques, it would be perfectly fair to just write “all of them”, but ironically, that would also be a shortcut.
So here are 8 dance techniques you should definitely learn but will not learn any faster with a shortcut.
1.Cuban Motion
To the casual observer, Cuban Motion just looks like wiggling your hips when you dance. But what the dedicated dancer understands is that hip action is a product of the knees, feet, and legs. They also understand that muscle memory takes time to program…and even longer to re-program.
Think about the number of knee braces that are sold each year. Do you want to be the reason why those companies sell more of them? At the very least, taking a shortcut with Cuban Motion will look wonky and will make you a prime candidate for an injury.
2.Dips
Nothing makes a leader feel a little more like Patrick Swayze than a dip. But your partner doesn’t want to find out the hard way that you took a shortcut when it came to learning how to do one.
To successfully dip a follower, the leader must be the counterbalance, the frame to their picture, and return their partner to the dance frame with the utmost care. If you google “wedding dance fail”, chances are you’ll see a dip gone wrong. The intentions were positive but the preparation was positively absent.
3.Advanced Patterns
An advanced pattern is a beautiful exterior built upon an interior of skills and techniques. In the same way that most people can read from a foreign language phrasebook, those that spend time learning the language will communicate the most effectively.
While there may be some recognizable movements in the pattern you’re appreciating, it will also reveal and expose the lack of technical development necessary to make it all work. If you try to skip to the end you’re left with questions that could have been answered if you’d followed the natural process from level to level.
4.A Dance Routine
A dance routine may be a collection of patterns but there is a technique, training, and most certainly a process to executing one. A routine goes through three important stages: Choreography, Technique, and Refinement. Each stage allows for better execution, improved dancing, and a more confident finished product.
One of the modern myths of ballroom and Latin dancing is that a routine can be started, completed, and performed at a high level in a matter of days. With shows like Dancing with the Stars, what is shown are the quick highlights of a process that is much longer and more labour intensive than the video package presents.
5.Rise and Fall
One of the distinguishing hallmarks of dances like Waltz and Foxtrot, Rise and Fall is the technique that gives a dancer the look of someone floating across the dance floor. When done well, it can give a dancer the grace and poise that people might categorize as “effortless”.
It takes a lot of hard work to make something look easy. This may sound jaded, but have you ever seen Waltz performed in a movie? 99 times out of 100, what you are seeing is an unremarkable box step danced on tip-toes. That is what the technique looks like after a short cut.
6.Picture Lines
Picture Lines are some of the most beautiful shapes one can create in ballroom dancing but, as you might imagine, they are not dance steps you should be in a hurry to create. Picture lines are the composite of skills developed over time. They require high levels of balance, a great understanding of topline (the appearance of your upper body in ballroom dancing), and advanced footwork and placement.
As with many shortcuts, it’s easy to try to create the end result, or picture, of what you are seeing. Manufacturing that picture, rather than letting it develop, would be like trying to pass off a sketch of the Mona Lisa as the real thing.
7.Leading and Following
This one is sort of a big deal. Calling it a dance technique almost diminishes the importance of it. Technically speaking, it’s how dancers communicate. It’s their language. To move with enough clarity to send a signal to a sensitive and responsive partner is a thing of beauty to be a part of and a mystery for anyone lacking the skill.
Lead and follow isn’t a skill you learn once and move on from. It’s an occupation, a job description, a distinguishing characteristic of your side of the dance frame, and it must constantly be refined.
It’s established that leading and following is the language of social dancers and, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who feel they can get by without it. The unfortunate truth is that phrases like, “just follow” or “just lead me” aren’t magic words that can replace the training necessary to move interdependently on the dance floor.
8.Floorcraft
The ability to maneuver around the dance floor is the dancing equivalent of being a great driver. Floorcraft is a little like geometry, understanding how the degrees of rotation on certain figures, paired with the alignments of the dance floor, produce a calculated route through the ballroom.
While this skill generally pertains to the ballroom dances, great floorcraft in the Latin and rhythm dances means that you’re economical with your movements, aware of others on the dance floor around you, and have the skills to ensure that you and your partner aren’t a threat to stepping on them, landing in their laps, or flying through their wedding cake.
Your dance partner is not a shield or a battering ram. A shortcut, in this case, can create all the aforementioned outcomes along with, just like driving, ending up travelling down the wrong side of the dancing road.
Final Thought
No one wants to waste time. Therefore, our brains are primed to find efficiencies whenever possible. “Searching for efficiency” is just a rational euphemism for “taking a shortcut” and it happens to the best of us. The real trouble isn’t taking the shortcut, it’s believing that it is the most effective way to learn. A process may not be exciting all the time, but it is steady, consistent, and proven. Here’s to you fighting off the urge to beat the system. Here’s to you embracing the process, finding the results one morsel at a time, and appreciating all the wonderful nuances along the way.
Source article by: arthurmurraylive.com
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