Filtering by Tag: neverstoplearning

Dance Diary: And Now for Something Completely...

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...different...odd...soul shakingly frightening...all of the above?

Somehow, I thought three years of ballroom dance had prepared me to go out and conquer myriad other forms of dance with great ease. Not so much really, as I discovered when ventured into Hip-Hop, Bollywood and Heels classes. It’s kind of like being an opera singer your entire life and then deciding you want to front a Death Metal band.

Who knew that my refusal to learn the Running Man in the nineties would be a glaring hole in my dance education in the year 2018? I spent the 90’s (and the decades before and after that) doing musical theatre, and singing pop songs. All the dance training I have had in my life has centered on pointed toes, pretty hands and elegant movement. Hip-Hop physicality is another universe from what I know.

As for Bollywood, it’s not as easy as the movies make it look. What you don’t realize watching them is how fast it is. Some of the movements are very close to Hip-Hop while others are more in line with forms I’m more familiar with. I think this may be my favorite of the new things I’ve tried lately. Not because I’m good at it, oh no, it will take eons and hours of practice before I’m remotely competent. It’s the narrative element that appeals to the storyteller in me.

Heels class has been an interesting experience in its own way. I’m used to dancing in heels so you wouldn’t think this would be a huge change. Yet most heels classes concentrate on more pop forms of dance so I’m playing catch up quite a bit. The last few weeks we’ve been working on a more lyrical (slower, more elegant, cleaner more fluid lines) and I’ve been loving it.

While my ballroom experience hasn’t helped as much stylistically or choreographically in these classes it has helped me in a lot of other ways. The biggest one being that it’s given me the guts to go into a class as a rank beginner and not run out screaming. I definitely have more patience with myself and have adjusted my expectations. Right now, If I am coming away from the class having digested 30-40 percent of the steps I’m happy with that.

I’ve also learned not to be afraid to ask the instructor to put a combination on video for me. Most of the classes I’ve been in work on the same combination for four weeks, adding a little bit each week. If I get a video of the combination that gives me a clear practice blueprint. I may not come back into class having learned it perfectly but there will be a level of comfort with the choreography that helps to pick up just a little more each time.

Most of all what the last few years have brought is dogged persistence. That’s not to say I don’t get frustrated and even a little depressed sometimes. The key is to remind myself that these feelings are not reality. Most of the time it’s my ego telling me I shouldn’t do things that make me look goofy in public. But as a friend said to me today “If we just did things that we are good at then we would never grow.”

So I’m growing.