Dancing Through Lockdown
It is difficult during these hard times of lockdown to not feel scared, bored or overwhelmed. But just because you’re stuck at home doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun and this is a perfect opportunity to practice your dancing.
Practicing dancing at home will help you to keep moving forward, stay frosty with your moves and allow you to approach your skills from a whole new perspective!
There may be pets underfoot, you may be dancing on carpet or even grass, you may be using a pillow as a partner but all in all, those things all build awareness, balance and give us a good solid chuckle from time to time.
The Health Factor
The advise from health professionals recommends to do daily exercise (whether at home or in an open space) to improve mental health and combat those lockdown blues. And what better and fun exercise is there than dancing!
Set yourself a goal to do 30 minutes of dancing each day and switch between styles. If you are unsure of what style to do, can’t remember the steps or want to practice some technique then you can try the Arthur Murray 30 Day Dance Challenge.
How Do I Dance with my Teacher?
We at Arthur Murray Inner West are still running Group and Private Lessons Online during this Lockdown period along with masked Outdoor Lessons for local students.
Online lessons allow your teachers to watch you dance and observe things they may not necessarily notice while they are dancing with you. Looking at your dancing from a new/different perspective may allow your teacher to make adjustments and provide exercises to help improve your dance technique.
Building Lead & Follow
Dancing with a partner is always more fun and is of course if you happen to have yours at home, then learning together online will be much like in person lessons. However, for those at home without a dance partner lockdown provides us with an opportunity to work on ourselves and our dancing.
As followers, we can sometimes become reliant on the leaders in “telling us what to do”, causing us to not remember the steps. It is important for us to know how to do the steps by ourselves so that we can understand our own body alignment, balance, foot placement and dancing.
This is the same for leaders. If we as leaders are unsure of how our body moves or what the steps are, then how are we expected to lead another person? Whilst dancing ballroom without a partner may seem silly now, practicing by ourselves will help our dancing and understanding in the long run.
Let’s Do This!
Just remember lockdown will not be forever, but the times in between dancing and lessons can feel like a lifetime. This is the time to become pro-active with our dancing and build a solid foundation and understanding of dancing while we are stuck at home.
A missed opportunity is tomorrow’s regret. Embrace any and every opportunity to dance during lockdown!