dance without physical awareness is dead.

When is the last time you noticed the way you walk?

As strange is it sounds, this is important because in order to answer, you must have had to actually feel and notice the way that you walk. This requires physical awareness, the currency of dance learning.

If you can’t feel your body, how else are you going to make the detailed changes that dancing requires?

And how many times have you heard, “I didnt even notice myself doing that!” Uhh huh.

You see, we give commands to our physical self throughout the day, but rarely do we actually listen. Barking commands at your body, while refusing to listen to what goes on under your skin is nothing more than one-way communication. This is rarely effective in any aspect of life.

A one-way conversation in the dance studio = efforted and clumsy attempts at movement that tend to result in frustration.

Self: “Turn damn it!”.

Body: “Yes, I can do that but first I need my spine to straighten up a bit”.yy

Self: “Cmon! I said TURN! Let’s try it AGAIN”.

Body: “Ok. But if you listen to me I can explain why….”

Self: “Shut up. Ok. I am going to use a bit more force here, and try a harder”.

Body: “Why do I bother…”?

This is where the downard spiral kicks in as you watch otherwise sound minded students repeat the same mistakes over and over without progress. If you simply felt your body, in this instance,  the length of your spine, you may have figured out early, –before psycho baggage kicked in– why your turns were leaving you off balance.

Sound familiar?

So how do we cultivate two-way communication with our body and at the same time become more competant dancers less prone to repeating the same crazy mistakes?

For starters, we approach simple day-to-day activities as opportunities to practice present physical awareness.

Notice your hand pressure as you type. Feel the keyboard underneath your fingertips, the lifting of the fingers and the tendons in the arm all miraculously firing in sync to make that email possible.

Notice your posture when you walk. Feel the length of your spine and the size and style of your gait. What’s your walking style? Do you even know? How long have you lived with this stranger you call your body?

Be aware of the tension in your hands as you wrap them around a cup. Can you even feel the cup in your hands or does your mind simply switch to autopilot as you pick up your morning  tea or coffee? How often do you bring autopilot to the studio?

Hand pressure, posture, hand tension. All seemingly unrelated but CRUCIAL to mastery over a couple’s dance.

You use the same body to dance as you do to carry out your day to day activities, so if you go about your day mindlessly, chances are you will bring the same attitude to the studio.

You’ve only got one body, Paso dancers.

Listen to it. You might find it can correct you a lot faster than any teacher on this earth.