9 Must-Know Tips To Be a Fabulous Dancer

Reaching Fullest Potential

Dancing is one of the best ways to stay healthy. It’s right up there with playing in a marching band, participating in a high-profile sport, or strenuously exercising day-in and day-out.

Dancing is hard, but it’s fun. It’s painful, but it’s pleasurable. It takes skill, it takes talent, and sometimes people just fall right into it; honing extant ability—though this is going to be the exception rather than the rule.

All that being said, even if you’re not the greatest natural dancer, there are things you can do to help make yourself better. Following are nine tips that will help you become a better dancer. They aren’t always easy tips, but then, nothing in life worth doing is ever going to come simply.

1. Eat Right And Exercise

Proper diet and exercise are essential to the serious dancer. The only way to fully flourish is to keep your body moving, and give it the right fuel. Thankfully, if you’re diligent about dancing, that in itself is requisite exercise to help you succeed. The most diligent dancers will be in the studio forty hours or more throughout a week. Compare that to working out two hours a day.

If you hit the gym two hours a day, that’s fourteen hours of exercise a week. It doesn’t even compare to a serious dancer’s regimen. A gym athlete is a ballet beginner. And that’s why, especially given the long hours you rehearse honing steps to perfection, it is essential you only put natural, organic, healthy foods in your body.

Avoid all processed foods, all hormonal enriched foods and all chemically-augmented foods. If it’s natural and it’s got a short shelf-life, that’s what you’re after—and in balanced qualities requisite to your dance schedule. Not eating right will limit your potential ability as a dancer. Eating right will keep honing your abilities over time.

2. Get The Proper Amount Of Sleep

If you’re hitting the studio eight hours a day five days a week, you’re likely physically active at least six of those eight hours. You need sleep requisite for your body to recover from the continual load you put on it.

Now what the right amount of sleep is will depend on you. Some do better with six hours, some do better with eight hours; different girls have different needs. Find your balance, and recognize that sleep cycles take about ninety minutes apiece. Loss of sleep can itself lead to a negative cycle; so it’s important you figure out the right balance here. 

3. Stretch, Stretch, Stretch

If you don’t stretch you won’t reach your full potential, you could injure yourself and you may injure one of your dancing sisters. Stretch before rehearsal, stretch after rehearsal, take your time, and increase your body’s flexibility. In Ballet, you can grow an inch or two in height through proper stretching and rehearsal over time.

4. Costuming: Get The Right Practice And Performance Gear

Alexandra Costumes provides a catalog: “…exclusively for dance teachers, coaches, studio owners, and special groups like school dance teams and theater groups. You will gain access to our one-of-a-kind costumes at a discounted price. Our performance wear features comfortable fitting, vibrant colors, unique designs, and trendy styles…”

You want costumes from providers like this, as they come designed specifically for performance. Additionally, such organizations understand that you’ll have much more rehearsal than performance, so they can additionally help you to source the right practice gear. You shouldn’t rehearse in your performance costumes, after all.

5. Teamwork: Build Rapport

A troupe of dancers is like a platoon of soldiers, a group of actors, a team of sportsmen, or a band of brothers. You’re a close-knit group that depends on one another, and that’s something that needs to be encouraged throughout your particular studio.

Don’t be in competition with those who are in the same troupe as you. Avoid this as much as possible. Be in harmony one with another, and build rapport. You can help each other overcome obstacles in this way, and round out the quality of the whole troupe.

6. Practice: Keep At It Till It’s Subconscious

When it comes to music, rehearsal is absolutely fundamental to performance success. The same is true in theater, stand-up comedy, sports, and just about anything which requires a certain level of skill. Dancing isn’t any different in this sense. You’re going to have to rehearse with your troupe, and on your own; and you’re going to have to do that regularly.

7. Inspiration: Familiarize Yourself With The Greats

Who are the best dancers from history? Who do you personally admire? What were they like? What were their habits? What can you learn from them that you can apply to your own personal skill set? Answer these questions with study. Know who the “greats” of dance are and were; and learn what separates them from the rest.

8. History: Understand Your Favorite Dancing Styles

Where did your particular style of dancing come from, and why did it become popular? Ballet is about appearing so graceful that not even gravity can put a hold on the dancer’s body. This was the neoclassical tradition which eventually lead to what we recognize today.

Learn the roots of the dance styles you love, and you’ll understand them more intrinsically, allowing you to evince their characteristics with greater success during performance, and as you’re coming up with diverse routines.

9. Perseverance: Never Give Up

Last, but certainly not least, you must remember that dancing is a continuous process which makes you increasingly strong, fit, and graceful over time. Don’t give up. It may take you ten years or more until you’re even in the vicinity of your goal. But if you keep at it, you can see your dreams become reality.

A Better Dancer

There are a lot of things you can do to hone your dancing skills, but hard work and perseverance over time are going to end up providing you with the best results. So take time to properly enhance yourself through dance, and don’t give up when the going gets tough.