How To Learn A New Dance Style

Learning a new dance style, for a beginner or a professional dancer, means getting out of your comfort zone, discovering interesting moves, and enjoying new rhythms.

Some people find it challenging to learn a new dance style because our bodies are habitual to moving in a certain way. Learning any new dance style challenges the usual habits to change which feels complex in the beginning. This applies to beginner as well as professional dancers. 

I was very uncomfortable doing partner dances as I was used to doing solo and group dances in Jazz and contemporary dance styles. I used methods like getting familiar with the rhythm, talking openly to my dance partner, and practising regularly which helped me learn. 

A few things that are common for beginner students of dance, as well as professionals when learning a new dance style, are: 

• Getting conscious of being judged unfairly by other people

• Fear of failure 

• Feeling awkward about your imperfect body movements

• Social pressure 

Even as a professional dancer, I felt uncomfortable standing too close to a male dancer. There are many comfortable methods to learn a new dance style. You can learn and practice dance in your living room by yourself or learn together with your partner. 

You may also like to read: 20 Minute Dancer’s Warm Up Routine For Busy People

Disclaimer: All views expressed and points suggested are my own. Please consult a specialist doctor or a coach before trying new physical activity. There are no affiliate links attached to this post. 

POST CONTENTS
• Benefits of learning a new dance style
• Five stages of learning a new dance style
• Practical tips to practice dance regularly

BENEFITS OF LEARNING A NEW DANCE STYLE 

The first thing a dance teacher works on a beginner dance student is confidence. Being comfortable with a move means giving students a movement that either resembles their body language or is mostly defined as straight body lines. 

Speaking in non-technical terms, learning a new dance style is similar to learning a new language. Dance steps are the alphabet. When you combine them with a set choreography then it becomes a sentence. 

The benefits of learning a new dance style are: 

– Confident body language

– Improved focus on details 

– Learning observation skills 

– Improvement in body coordination 

– Enjoying new moves, music, and rhythm

– Understanding a country’s culture associated with the new dance style.

– Improved posture, stamina, mobility, and flexibility.

You may also like to read: Learn To Maintain Correct Posture Like A Dancer

FIVE STAGES OF LEARNING A NEW DANCE STYLE

While there are many ways to teach and learn a new dance style, students commonly experience five stages of learning. 

Learning the basics and feeling like you have landed on an alien planet. Your mind observes, and your eyes follow the dance steps, but your moves come out different than you had imagined. 

Identifying similarities between the moves you already know and the new dance style. Students learn habits of moving in a specific way by observing their surroundings. Experience and age further modify moving habits. Your arms may know certain disco moves. You try to recall those moves and modify them automatically to match the way arms are stretched in Jazz dance. 

Trying and practising new moves with the music. The best way to know if you are good at any dance style is to try it. Being curious and taking risks is a lesson that works for anything you want to learn, including a new dance style. The more you practice, the easier it becomes to understand a new rhythm of a music. 

Making mistakes, missing rhythm, and trying to find coordination of the body and mind. In the beginning, you may learn only one move correctly out of 10 and that’s okay. The dance floor is meant to enjoy making mistakes. It is part of learning. In dance, the body learns faster than the mind. It is never the other way around. It’s not logic or calculating a maths problem. You need to let go, feel the music and rhythm, practice your steps, and only then your mind will remember it the way you want it to move. 

Making progress with just a few new moves learnt in the class. Finally, learning the first eight counts of a choreography will feel like you have already won a battle. It’s exhilarating and makes you confident. You learn one step at a time. 

These are the five basic and common stages that every dance teacher knows that a student will experience. But what about practising a new dance style by yourself? 

You may also like to read: Dance As A Social Companion For Introverts

PRACTICAL TIPS TO PRACTICE DANCE REGULARLY

Here are simple practice tips you can try to learn a new dance style. 

– Try, repeat, take 5 minutes break, and then try again. 

– Play the dance music, sit, close your eyes, and visually remember the steps and the instructions of your dance teacher. 

– Slow down every move and correct the details. 

– Practice in front of a mirror. It is the easiest way to check if you are practising a move correctly. 

– Listen to the music many times in a day to get familiar with the rhythm. 

– Practice only 2-3 moves daily at first and get used to it. This method is also called chunking when you break down a choreography or a number of moves into chunks to remember and practice steps. 

– Ask your supportive partner or a friend if you are doing the move correctly. 

– Record your video for yourself and check your mistakes and progress. 

– Watch videos of the new dance style and check the posture and stance of dancers. 

– Watch a video of your favourite dancer in the new dance style. 

– Talk to your teacher about which steps are easy to follow and which are the most difficult. 

– Don’t take too much stress about perfecting a step. Precision and refined steps are a result of months of experience. Enjoy the process of making mistakes and learning. 

Conclusion

I recommend learning in a group dance class than from an app or in private tuition. It is the common nature of all human beings that we learn much more quickly by observing, imitating, and trying the habits of others. In dance class, we make friends by making common mistakes together. You can learn to dance at any age. It does not have to be competitive dancing. The more we lose ourselves to the music, and let it happen, the easier it becomes to enjoy and learn simultaneously.