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Why We Want to Dance

C. Lynn Marple
Saturday, June 4, 2005

Are you familiar with the Anne Murray song, “Could I Have This Dance (for the rest of my life)?” It is a truly beautiful Waltz! Try humming it to yourself or sing it aloud and ‘listen’ to the flow of the words and the music. 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 …. If you will, please close your eyes while the song continues to play for just a few seconds more in your mind. Then come back here to finish reading. 

What were you doing just now in your mind’s eye? Did you see or feel yourself caught up in gracefully flowing and swaying in time with the music? Could you see yourself dancing? When you are shopping in a store or waiting to check out and hear such music, has your body actually mimicked that mental vision of yourself? I generally catch myself moving to what I hear!

You may have on occasion watched the great dancers and champions on the televised competitions. In fact, ABC is now airing a show “Dancing with the Stars” (June 2005 Wednesday nights at 7 p.m.). There was the October ‘04 release of “Shall We Dance?” with Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere. A new movie soon to be released in June 2005, “Mad Hot Ballroom”, features children learning to Ballroom Dance and they enter and go to a Ballroom Dance competition. The first time I watched a ballroom dance competition, my initial reaction was, “I’ve always wanted to learn to do that!” Have you ever said that to yourself too?

Why has there become such a sudden, resurgent interest in dancing? Is it sudden or resurgent? Or has it simply been there all along, but our busyness of today creates roadblocks for experiencing or appreciating dance to its fullest?

Perhaps, you are out for dinner one evening or you go somewhere to hear a band play or you like a particular DJ’s music selection. You want to get up and dance. Okay, I can hear someone saying, “No! I don’t”. But, deep, deep down inside the core of Who You Are, if you risk admitting it, you really do want to, don’t you? But that voice inside your head is resoundingly telling you, “I can’t dance.” 

I have heard many clients say, and I will admit that I once thought this too, “It is beautiful and exciting to watch, but I don’t want to compete like those people I see on TV. I definitely don’t want to be stiff and all prim and proper when I dance. I don’t need to learn the technique. I just want to learn the steps so that when I dance in public I look like I know what I am doing and have fun doing it!” 

I can give you lots of reasons and benefits for learning to dance:

• increase fun & enjoyment of life 
• learn a new skill or perhaps even master it
• increase self-confidence 
• meet people and make new friends 
• relax – de-stress from the day’s strain and demands
• exercise - you will use muscles you forgot you had!
• improve appearance - the movement trims and tones your body
• personal self-improvement 
• acquire or polish your grace and poise 
• overcome shyness and develop ease and assurance socially - you dance with many partners in group and practice sessions or at social parties
• achieve a sense of accomplishment - from making and meeting goals
• develop or rekindle a hobby or interest - “I’ve always wanted to try that!”
• recreation and entertainment - it’s just plain FUN!
• awards and affirmations
• fulfill a desire to perform 

Ah! Let’s look at that last one – a desire to perform. Are you thinking that ‘perform’ equals ‘competition’? You are saying to yourself, “I am not competition material!” Well, truthfully, I am not thinking of that aspect of dance either. Roll that phrase around on your tongue a little more and just let your mind wrap itself around that thought, “A desire to perform.” 

You may be thinking, “Hmmmm … where is she going with this?” I will answer that for you, but I must first ask you another question. Does music create or evoke emotion for you? Or rather, does it resonate with some deep and profound feeling at the core of your inner being? What is the natural desire that follows the feeling? For me it is the need and the desire to express it. 

How does one express that feeling? Dance! Revisit that earlier Waltz vision. What draws you to that mental vision? Perhaps, you really do want to express the pleasure you hear from the sounds of music around you; you just don’t know how. The reason competitors look so good and perform so well is that they have learned the proper method and techniques for dance. Dance has a code which can be demystified as if you were studying a foreign language. Once you know the rules of the language, you are able to speak it and use it to your advantage. When a Dancer’s desire to express the feeling of music is combined with proper instruction, it elicits that “Wow!” response from you. It is a beautiful, outward display of what we truly feel inside! You can learn how to do this too!

Uh! Oh! There is that ‘voice’ again saying, “I can’t dance!” Fred Astaire said, “If you can walk, you can dance.” Learning to dance simply takes your natural walking steps and tweaks them to fit a rhythm. You can do that. I have seen it and experienced this myself, firsthand!

As author, Alan Cohen, who is best known for Chicken Soup for the Soul, said, 

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new; because there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” 

Remember: 

“It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.” - Eric Hoffer 

This is where Premiere Social Ballroom aids you in your desire to explore something new or expound upon what you already know. We work to provide a variety of opportunities for you to sample the World of Dance and invite you to try Premiere Social Ballroom as “Your Dance Community of Choice!” 

It is my commitment to provide a safe, nurturing, warm and family-oriented environment in which you will feel comfortable to take that first step – to free your inner spirit by learning to dance. 

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