Have you ever needed to know how to do a basic dance move? But when you seek them out, teachers will try and teach you ‘easy moves’. Moves which you are then expected to use on a dancefloor and look and feel great.
Sound unrealistic? It’s because it is.
This article outlines a more helpful set of instructions as to how to do basic dance moves.
A basic dance move is moving to music in a simple and natural way and forms the framework for dancing. These moves are formed through general freestyle dance practice and not specific choreographed dance practice.
This means that there should be very little ‘thinking’ on your part to do these moves. What do most teachers do to teach you basic dance moves? They make you think about what steps to do. It is no wonder that many inexperienced dancers look terrible trying to copy these ‘basic’ dance moves. Teachers are not teaching how these basic dance moves came about in the first place, which is very important.
Read on for a more detailed explanation of what all this means for you, you won’t regret it.
Basic dance moves: What are they and where did they come from?
Basic dance moves have different names. A sample list of these is below:
- The Dougie
- The 2 step
- The Body Roll
- The Woah
- The Kangsta Walk
- Figure Eight Sways
But where did basic dance moves come from? Well, as mentioned earlier basic dance moves are essentially your body moving in a natural and easy way.
For example, someone in the past has done a body roll and thought ‘hey not everyone naturally does this move’. They then break it down into specific movements so others can copy them.
However, this approach is fraught. The reason is teachers are teaching how to ‘copy’ them, not how they thought of such a move in the first place. This is a key piece of information.
So how did dancers think of such moves like a body roll in the first place? Well, they would have been freestyling. Aka, not thinking too much!
So, basic dance moves should feel natural with little thought needed.
The dance teaching paradox:
The paradox is when teachers try and teach how they do a basic dance move, they write a long list of instructions. Thereby introducing a whole lot of thinking, which is not basic at all! It’s a very human-like characteristic, isn’t it?
Have a look at the below video of the body roll, the amount of mental engagement is not particularly basic. It is too complicated for a basic dance move. And I can verify, when I do a body roll, I don’t think of any of the instructions the teacher below mentions. Yet I can do a body roll just as well as the next person.
So for the purposes of this article, we are focussing on what a basic dance move should be. We will not be focussing on ‘dance tricks’.
Dance ‘tricks’ such as a Moonwalk are a different story. Dance tricks need an active engagement and control using your analytical mind.
So how do you do a basic dance move? Read on my friends, read on, it is more simple than you think.
Learn from The Inner Book Of Tennis (or dance):
A book that is highly recommended is the Inner Book Of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. In this book, Gallwey talks about ‘the zone’ which many athletes report as a real state of mind.
The zone is a state of relaxed concentration, where distractions, physical coordination and focus all work together seamlessly.
Gallwey talks about how difficult it would be to try and teach a tennis player the hundreds of movements that go into hitting a perfect right forehand topspin. There would be literally hundreds of tiny movements.
For example, movements of a tennis swing can include:
- Begin to move to where the ball is approaching
- Judge where the ball is going to bounce and adjust positioning accordingly
- Place left foot in front of right
- Begin to withdraw racquet
- Maintain balance on balls of feet
- Use opposing hand to balance swing of racquet
- Start to swing racquet towards ball
- Adjust wrist to the perfect angle to ensure topspin ensues, etc.
Another example is a toddler learning to walk. Nobody is telling the toddler ‘in order to walk you need to follow this set of steps in chronological order’. Yet the toddler learns to walk perfectly in time.
You can see how a tennis player and a toddler do not need to actively use their mind to command their body to do such complex tasks. It would be very difficult in the space of swinging a racquet or taking a first step.
Become unconsciously competent:
As mentioned earlier, doing beginner basic dance moves should not be complicated nor require much thought process. I want to introduce you to the Martin Broadwell Four Stages Of Competence Model:
When training your basic dance moves, the goal is to be able to do them at an unconsciously competent level.
The above model makes it look as though conscious competence must come before unconscious competence. However, when dancing, being overly conscious of your moves actually inhibits natural movement.
Specific moves like the Kangsta Walk or The Dougie, require too much thought process for a basic dance move. Aka they are training to be consciously competent.
Try and think about the first moves that come to mind when you hear a great beat. What are the moves that you naturally gravitate towards when you want to dance?
This might be a hard question if you struggle with dancing, and that’s okay. This just means you are early in your dance journey. If you are such a person have a look at the step-by-step article How To Become A Good Dancer: The complete guide people need. This is a perfect article as a starting point for learning to dance.
If you have started to dance, then you may have started to notice that there are some moves that you gravitate to naturally. This is great! These moves can become your basic dance moves!
If you haven’t, then read on and see if you get inspiration.
For me, my basic dance moves consist of movements such as:
- Arms swinging in a rhythmic relaxed way by my sides
- Stepping from side to side and picking my knees up each time
- Hip rotations
Be aware that dancing at it’s core is not overly specific:
Now you may be questioning how a basic dance move is any different from moves like The Dougie, etc? A great question.
The main difference is that a basic dance is not overly specific, unlike The Dougie.
The other difference is that basic dance moves are very simple. This means they don’t require much thought. As a result, it’s easier to feel a beat and get in the ‘zone’ that was mentioned earlier.
Moves like The Dougie engage the analytical mind or conscious competency. As a result, the body will become stiff and robotic if you are a beginner.
We want basic dance moves to be easy and AUTOMATIC.
Be like a toddler learning to walk:
So, when you are a beginner trying to do basic dance moves, you will want to try to do the following:
- Not think too much! Just feel a beat, much like a child does.
- Get some solid foundational basic moves that you feel comfortable doing. This can be as simple as moving from side to side (but don’t think about it too much).
- Watch dance videos. Get an image in your head of what sort of basic moves look good to you. But avoid tricky moves!
- Use a mirror to form good basic dance movements. When you use a mirror you will naturally refine such movements so they look good.
Try and be like the tennis player trying to learn a forehand. Or even better a toddler learning to walk. Don’t try and use your analytical mind to command your body to do movements.
In time, you will learn to seamlessly and organically link different basic movements together and become increasingly creative in ways that you move.
Just remember that basic dance moves do not need to be hard friends.