Mindful Dancing: This is How You Dance 10x Better With Your Partner
Do you want learn to dance better with a dance partner? The solution is here: less exercise, more attention. In other words: mindful dancing. If you incorporate this in your partner dance, the quality and pleasure of your dance will improve. Read on for all mindful dance tips …
Want to learn all kinds of difficult figures? Calm & mindful dancing is much more fun!
Are you saying: “I want to learn to dance … but I don’t want to see all kinds of figures, turns and tricks”? Good news: all those things also do not have to. Moreover: less is more.
Do you feel like you are dancing stiffly and stiffly and would you like to use your hips more? Also great to be better at that, but that is not necessarily necessary.
The only thing you need is attention for your dance partner and the music, in other words: mindful dancing. Let us look below at the tips to apply this from now on.
Enjoying partner dances, such as Salsa, Bachata or Kizomba? Less is more…
What is the best way to dance partner dances such as salsa, kizomba and bachata? Do you find these dances difficult? Ballroom dancing, Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, Bolero, Rock-and-roll … Nice to know some of those steps, but you can have fun all night with minimal resources thanks to the less is more principle.
See this as the best tips for learning how to dance a partner dance online, such as Salsa. For example at a dance party or to dance with your partner while going out.
Tip 1 – Make real mindful contact with the other
Pay attention to your dance partner while dancing. How?
From thinking, in the body.
Tip 2 – Do less: Shuffling alone is enough to enjoy the entire evening
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLmzuPNQcPUh7q2F0g_kW8XPBmMmXM8Ymq&v=75VBO-UF380&layout=gallery[/embedyt]All those turns and stunts, are they needed? No. The simplest step ever is enough: shuffling. Do you want a little expansion on shuffling? The Bolero. See the video above.
Tip 3 – Do even less: stand still
- It starts before the dance. Are you going to dance with someone you don’t know yet? Then at least briefly ask how the other person is doing. This makes a huge difference to the extent to which you can open up to each other.
- Do you want to start dancing? For example with Salsa dancing? First make a connection by standing together! Maybe you start moving by shuffling a little. Maybe afterwards you can do the basic pass of the Salsa very quietly. Staying nicely in place, feeling a connection in the hands, not using any spins, turning a little and moving each other a little, including the hips and shoulders.
- Feel free to stand still in the middle of the full beat. Maybe just dance on micro-muscle movements. So it seems as if you are completely standing still, but in the meantime you are moving very mindful at the micro level. This is especially appropriate for dances such as Kizomba.
- You stay at the end of a song standing together in silence. So don’t stop abruptly.
Tip 4 – Listen to the music … but how? Do this simple “move”: just stand still!
Dancing becomes 10 times more fun if you also listen to the music in the meantime. But then the question comes: “What do I have to do to listen to the music? How exactly can I dance to the music? “You don’t have to! All you have to do is pause when the music pauses.
So: is there a break in the music, because after that a new chorus or verse starts? Then attract your dance partner and just stand still together. That silence is precious. You are extra alert in that silence. That silence is the magic of the here and now. Start moving again when the music resumes.
Tip 5 – Listen to the music … by following the bass
What is another way to listen to the music? A way in which you get a sense of rhythm, learn dance rhythm and can keep the beat? Listen to the percussion – and then actually just the bass. Grab one of the previous tips from this article so that you can shuffle or do the Bolero, and always take one step at a time with the bass part.
Tip 6 – Search eye contact and make the other person laugh
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOAqZ-H9iuM[/embedyt]This tip is not called: Make eye contact. But: Search eye contact. Dancing is a fun game – and not a creepy stare competition. It is not the intention to force eye contact with the other, but to invite the other in a playful way by always making eye contact. Search.
Now you always send invitations – and not commands – to make eye contact. The moments in which you do have eye contact are in this way extra surprising and fun, so that the other person will enjoy – just like you.
I mainly apply this tip when I do a spin. As it were – just before I put in a spin – I just say goodbye by really looking up my dance partner’s gaze.
Tip 7 – Mindful dancing? Check every movement
Every step and every movement is fully controlled! You enjoy every millimeter that you move and you enjoy the control that you put into everything.
As a beginner, I find this the most important component of a fun dance. Thanks to this tip, the very first, “simple twist” that I learned in my Salsa lessons becomes super fun every time. I can fully control that turn. Why? It is mindful to discover how each spin feels, while your full attention is on the spin. Every turn – no matter how simple – becomes a unique experience in this way.
