10 New Year's Resolutions Of A Dancer

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We may not have never danced together or spoke, but we definitely have something in common. Attitude to New Years resolutions. We have all done these 2 things in the past:

Thought of some clever things to start from the first practice after 31st December
Failed miserably to stick with it after the second practice.

Here are 10 popular New Years Resolutions of every Ballroom dancer:

1. Don’t scream at your dance partner.

Oh we’ve all had these practices where everything we couldn’t do was our partner’s “fault”. This year let’s ask ourselves “what could I have done better?” question more often.

2. Stretch after each practice.

Raise your hand if you’ve planned to do it about a million times but ended up doing it just once.

3. Start taking another dancing class

It’s always exciting to try other styles of dance and tell everyone I do this and that. Whether it’s ballet, hip hop or flamenco. But, can you commit and do it every single week?

4. Warm up with basics

Most of us start a practice with rumba walks. How great would it be to spend as much time warming up doing samba or paso doble basics? You’d be definitely one of a kind.

5. Read through all the notes from private lessons

All these papers filled with info from our teachers. But do we look at them before next lessons or practice? Let’s make sure that before you go to practice you always skim through your notes. Our memory may not be as good as it used to be 15 years ago.

6. Practice regularly and follow a plan

“I’ll practice more”. We have all said it before, but did we in fact do it? Set up a schedule with your partner and commit. When your competitors are asleep or partying, you will be smashing another final practice like it was your Blackpool Pro Final.

7. Spend as much time on Jive as you do on Rumba

5 hours of Rumba practice to 1.5min of Jive (as part of final before a competition). Does the ratio seem familiar? When you write your weekly schedule of practices, make sure you practice all the dances at least equally. Ideally, it would be good to spend a bit more time on dances you suck at.

8. Celebrate every time you dance amazingly well

I love this one but it’s actually quite hard to stick to. Don’t forget to reward yourself for the small things you achieve. Great stamina at final practice? Wehay! Remembered all timings in my Quickstep? Whoop Whoop. You will notice that by celebrating small victories, you will start focusing much better on improving your dancing.

9. Start all your private dance lessons fully warmed up and ready to go

Impress yourself and your teacher by always turning up 30 minutes before and doing a full warm up before your private lesson. Hopefully your partner will do that too.

10. Be nicer to other dancers

You may not believe me, but there are people who may really look up to your dancing. You don’t need to be a World Ballroom Finalist to inspire other dancers. If you’re lucky to practice with others, always tell them something nice. Can be great outfit, beautiful walks or arms, smile etc. This little boost of confidence will put a smile on their face and they may repay that when you need it most too.

Remember one thing:

The way you do anything, is the way you do everything

I wish you all to discover the talents you have deep inside you. In 2018, grow as a fabulous dancer every day loving each single step of the journey. Happy New Year.