How to Be a Good Dancer
Dancing to the beat of your favorite song can be a lot of fun when going to a club with your friends. However, it may be the opposite when you don’t feel confident about your moves. If this applies to you, there are some simple techniques you can try to improve the way your body embodies the rhythm.
5-Minute Crafts created this guide to teach you how to be good at dancing and be the life of the party.
1. Take dance lessons.
You may think that you don’t need to take lessons to be good at dancing. However, learning from a teacher or watching online videos can actually help you reach your objective.
If you opt for lessons in person, whether they are in a group or in private, it’s important that you take the time to try out lessons with different teachers until you find the right one for your goals.
💡 When taking lessons for a particular type of dance, it’s a good idea to practice other styles at home. For instance, if you opt for salsa lessons, you can also explore some ballet moves. This may help you improve your flexibility and strength in your dancing.
2. Practice some grooves.
The word groove is used to describe what people feel while they’re paying attention to repeated rhythms in a song. For instance, every time you’re listening to music on a bus and you bob your head to the beat, you’re grooving.
Practicing grooves and feeling comfortable with the way your body moves to the music will help you look better whenever you’re dancing. If your body is too stiff when doing so, follow these recommendations:
- Avoid keeping your arms next to your body. Instead, lift them and let your armpits be visible.
- Relax your shoulders by moving them freely.
- Bend your knees and avoid leaving them straight.
3. Play a character.
Dancing is a type of performance art. Therefore, when doing it, it’s a good idea to embody a character, the music, and the story, even if it doesn’t feel natural to you.
Remember that it’s completely fine to pretend you’re someone else on the dance floor, especially if it will make you feel more confident.
4. Make your own choreography.
Doing this will help you explore freestyle dancing, come up with new movements, and pay attention to the music in a different way. To do so, follow these steps:
- Find a song and listen to it attentively several times. As you do it, visualize the moves you would like to execute.
- Get inspired by the things around you by reading a book, watching a movie, or talking to a friend. You may also watch videos of your favorite dancers to get some ideas from their routines, but it’s important to be more focused on all those situations that could help you come up with something unique.
- Play the song you chose and let your body freestyle. Pay attention to the way your body responds to the music. Then try new variations of the movements you performed or create some more on top of them.
4. Join the movements together by starting with those pieces that you like the most or are that are the easiest. It doesn’t matter if they’re not in chronological order. You may add the others in-between sections later.
5. Polish the way you perform each movement by training and perfecting with your body that specific picture you have in your head.
6. Edit what you created by changing directions, trying new variations, removing some sections, etc. Make as many changes as you want until you feel your choreography is finally ready.
5. Keep on practicing.
Becoming a better dancer requires you to build muscle memory, which is the act of internalizing a movement into your memory through repetition. Therefore, it’s important to practice daily in order to help yourself retain all the things you’ve been learning during your lessons.
You may do this at a dance studio or even at home. Just make up some space in your living room and place a mirror in front of you to practice your moves consistently.