I know, I know… it’s not glamorous, it’s not sexy, it sounds like a big snore when you say it out loud. But if I had to name one thing missing from the philosophy of a lot of dance organizations, teachers and schools, it’s a focus on functionality, especially (but not exclusively!) on the beginner level.
It’s easy to forget what it’s like to be a beginner once you’ve been dancing awhile, and it’s easy to get wrapped up in all the cool details of our favorite dances and want to share them with everybody (I, for one, LOVE to nerd-out with fellow dance enthusiasts about technique minutiae); but the most important thing we can do to make our favorite dances accessible to new learners is to focus on making them functional. Without accessibility, we are nowhere! Literally, people will not enter our dance world if they cannot get in the door.
This past weekend, I had two different conversations with two different people at two different dance events. In both cases, the subject of ballroom dancing came up and in both cases the person reported to me that despite REALLY wanting to learn and being excited to start the hobby, they found the dances to be “too strict.”
In both cases, my heart broke! I have taught ballroom dancing for over 15 years, and I can assure you, there is nothing inherently “strict” in any ballroom dance. Yes, there are competitions where you have to follow strict rules in order to have a chance of winning, but a beginner hobby learner is MILES AWAY from even thinking about doing a competition, and if they get frustrated by “strict-ness” and quit, they will certainly NEVER get within shouting distance of anything resembling a competition.
The beauty of ballroom dancing as a hobby (see my article “What is ballroom dancing?” for more discussion of this topic) is that you can learn dances to enjoy with all your favorite songs! It only takes a couple of bare basic steps to start moving and grooving to the vast majority of pop songs from the last several decades. These are very simple, rhythmic stepping patterns that will get you in the front door of dancing. If you want more elaborate style and technique later on, there’s plenty of time for that, but the best way to get started enjoying all these dance styles is to USE them! That’s what social dancing is all about, being able to use your dance steps in a SOCIAL situation.
So, I appeal to my fellow dance teachers, dance studios, and dance event hosts… we are the gatekeepers to this fantastic dance lifestyle that can enrich our students in so many ways, giving them joy, better health, confidence, new friends… I mean, a dance hobby is the closest you can get to putting health and happiness in bottle! Why are we turning people away at the door by making them focus too much on “rules and regulations,” opaque and esoteric actions that seem important to us, but don’t actually make their beginner dance experience any more fun or joyful?
And it’s not just ballroom dances; I’ve seen plenty of other “dance scenes” impose unnecessary regulatory systems on new learners to the point where they are confused and frustrated and it’s just not fun for them. Very few of these rules are actually necessary for a new dancer to get on the dancefloor and start having fun. I will even go so far as to say—get ready to CRINGE dance teachers—that timing and musicality should not be a huge priority for beginners. Virtually every leader I’ve ever taught (even the ones who are highly musical, who play multiple instruments) get off-time with the music as beginners because they are mentally-multi-tasking with so many memory items while dancing. I have danced with a number of leaders who get so in-their-heads about timing that they can’t even deploy the basic steps; yes, of course, musicality is a very important part of dancing (after all, it’s a very clear “chicken-egg” relationship: music comes first, and then dancing), but if it stops new learners from even doing the steps in the first place, they’re never going to build the muscle memory they need to execute the steps with more conscious musical intent.
What do we teach, then? We can imagine an extreme situation where dance teachers just let everyone run amok and gyrate every which way and call it “Waltz.” I’m certainly not advocating a free-for-all where no dance is commonly recognizable. But when guiding new learners through a dance style for the first time, we need to be cognizant that too much information and too many rules rob them of fun and enjoyment. How, then, do we decide where and when to intervene?
For beginners, FUNctional is FUN. What do we need to do to make their dancing functional enough to enjoy the hobby of social dancing? If any particular style or technique item is not necessary for dance floor functionality, then it’s not necessary for teaching our beginners. Remember, the goal is to get them through the door and onto the dance floor where they can experience the pure joy that comes from living the dancer’s lifestyle! If we throw up too many obstacles to that joy, they’ll leave and go home to watch Netflix.
So, what is functional and what is not? Let’s take footwork as an example. We don’t need to worry about technicalities like “heel leads” or “toe releases” for beginners, but if their basic patterns are messy and distorted to the point where they are UNCLEAR, they will not be able to dance successfully with a partner. Partner dancing is a type of language, a conversation between leader and follower. If the dancer’s footsteps are too unstructured, then it is the equivalent of “mumbling” your dance. If your mumbling is so incoherent that nobody can understand what you’re saying, then you have a problem. It isn’t functional. Dancers need to neaten up their footwork so that it is clear to their partner how they are stepping. As teachers, we need to guide them in doing that to the point of functionality. But if we pile on too much unnecessary detail on top of all the other items in the beginner’s mental juggling act, we max out their cerebral bandwidth. There will be plenty of time AFTER the steps settle into their muscle memory to add the unique technical items that bring out the character of our favorite dances.
Another example is frame. A dancer’s frame will vary greatly from one dance to another, but dumping all the details of the frame specifications for one dance vs. the other onto a new learner is supreme overkill. A simple, generic dance frame will work for every partner dance at the beginner level. When do we need to step in? When issues with the frame or dance hold affect the functionality of our new learners. If the frame is too loose or pliable that our partners can’t communicate, then they cannot achieve basic lead/follow functionality; we need to trouble-shoot their frames so that they are dancing effectively as a partnership unit. Sometimes beginner leaders will do something quirky with their hands or arms—completely without realizing it—that sends a wrong or confusing signal to their partner. In that case, it is interfering with the basic functionality of dancing, so we need to help them fix the problem. But again, the tipping point is functionality. Is the problem interfering with the dancer’s ability to enjoy dancing? On a beginner level, that’s our most important goal, to get our beginners to the point where they can truly start to enjoy their dancing.
Another important hinge-point for functionality is comfort. Is your new learner, leader or follower, physically uncomfortable? Or worse, in danger of injury? If something is happening that looks uncomfortable or potentially injurious, that is a priority to fix. Once again, functionality is the measuring stick; your beginner dancer is not going to have a good time OR be particularly functional if their physical comfort is being impinged upon.
After the basic steps, actions and fundamental enjoyment of dance has settled into our students’ muscle memory, that’s when we can start having the conversations about what kind of dancer they aspire to become. Some functional beginners will eventually (and sometimes even quickly) want to become those stellar competitors! I’ve worked with students who came into ballroom dancing with a previous background in other styles (like ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hip, etc.), established basic muscle memory VERY quickly and started asking questions about more rigorous style, technique and competition prospects within the first few lessons. I’ve worked with other students who dance purely for an avid social life, love dancing every weekend with their friends and have no desire to know the intricacies of where their big toe should be pointed on the rock step. Some students will eagerly devour all the “strict” rules and technique, others will only ever be interested in the FUN they get out of the functional execution of their dance steps. Many dancers will fall somewhere on the spectrum in between. It’s up to us, the teachers, instructors and mentors of new learners to figure out what kind of dancer they want to become and not let “strictness” become an obstacle to their social dancing hobby.
It should be obvious from the website where my articles appear that I am dance teacher and I do accept new students. I mention it from time to time in my articles, but ultimately the articles are primarily intended to be informational and—hopefully sometimes inspirational for my readers and listeners. I seldom will make a direct appeal to potential students, but due to the subject matter in this particular article, I will. If you have ever tried to learn social partner dancing and found the class or lesson to be “too strict,” overwhelming with too many rules, CALL ME. I am supremely sorry that you had a bad experience starting out. It shouldn’t be that way. My philosophy of teaching dance is to personalize EVERYTHING about my teaching for my students, their abilities, their goals, their learning styles, their favorite music. If you’ve ever tried to learn how to dance and felt like your instructors didn’t “get” you or move at your pace, CALL ME (or text me!). I want nothing more than for you to get as much joy out of dancing as I do, and I would be honored to guide you on that journey!
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