Have you ever been unhappy when you find yourself on a dancefloor? Do words like awkward, clumsy, forced, self-conscious, artificial, alien, not compelled to dance, rhythmically challenged, come to mind?
If so, you are not alone.
This article thoroughly explores what is it that makes some people love to dance, and others hate it. Our Principle Author Jake is a dancer with 20 years of dance experience. He has danced most forms of dancing, both choreographed and freestyle. He is here to provide real observations and conclusions on the matter.
As a general rule, many people do not like dancing because their bodies are not accustomed to dancing. This also includes aspects such as peer pressure, motivation, and the feeling of being clumsy/awkward. There are, however, rare cases that have a medical disorder which is known as ‘beat deafness’.
This article explores the nuances of this topic to understand why many people struggle with dancing. As the quote below states so well, we need to identify the problem before finding a solution.
“It isn’t that they cannot find the solution. It is that they cannot see the problem.”
G.K Chesterton
Another way of saying this is, it isn’t that people cannot dance, it’s that they don’t know how to dance.
It should be mentioned that the reasons why many people cannot dance form a cycle. This article will attempt to compartmentalize each issue as much as possible for ease of understanding.
Understand that the feeling of being clumsy and awkward is natural for an activity you are not trained in:
This is perhaps one of the core reasons why people don’t like dancing. They feel:
- Clumsy
- Uncoordinated
- Rhythmically challenged
- They don’t know what to do with their hands and hips
- Self-conscious
- That they are being judged
All of these factors then make their movements even more clumsy and uncoordinated.
I get it.
The key here is to understand the source of this clumsy/awkward factor. Where does it come from? Why do some people not have it and others do?
The answer is not as mysterious as some people believe. However, as they say, how do you describe colors to a blind man? The blind man cannot imagine the truth of something like color because he has never seen or experienced them. The same goes for dancing.
The good news is that the answer to overcoming this clumsy/awkward factor is to PRACTICE. Now you may have heard this before, but not exactly like this, so please keep reading!
Practice the right kind of practice:
By practice I don’t mean attending dance classes nor do I mean rushing headlong onto any dance floor.
Dance classes will teach you how to move to set steps using your memory. This does not teach you how to freestyle in the real world.
There are in fact many dancers who look good whilst following steps that someone else has come up with. However, freestyling still fills them with fear.
Whilst rushing headlong onto the dance floor will usually just mean you reinforce your awkwardness, not improve it.
In short, if you want to be able to dance on any social dancefloor comfortably, you need to practice correctly. This means practicing the way you would dance on a social dancefloor: This is freestyling.
Practicing dancing to choreography is not helpful for social dancefloors. Unless of course, you are going to pull out a whole routine in a club.
For a comprehensive step-by-step guide to learning how to dance freestyle the natural way, read the article How To Become A Good Dancer: The complete guide people need first before you continue reading the rest of this article.
Be aware that there are different reasons why people dance:
Besides the feeling of being clumsy or awkward, another factor that plays a role in why many people don’t enjoy dancing is what makes them motivated to dance.
- Some people will be motivated to dance because danceable music moves them and they know (through freestyle practice using a mirror) that how they move looks good, which gives them confidence. These types of people will usually enjoy dancing, do more dancing because they enjoy it and as a result become better dancers over time.
- Others will be motivated to dance to hook up, or because of peer pressure, or because they are heavily intoxicated and they have lost all sense of what they prefer. Included in this group are people who’s music choice is not particularly danceable (such as acoustic guitar songs, classical piano songs, etc). If these people get a partner or have no peer pressure or are not intoxicated, they will often not dance and become even worse dancers through lack of practice. Often these types of people do not enjoy dancing.
The stand-out reason why the second group is not motivated to dance purely for the sake of dancing is that THEY ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH HOW TO MOVE THEIR BODY NATURALLY TO EXPRESS DANCEABLE MUSIC. Read that again and let it sink in.
The link between competency, and enjoyment:
Imagine an F1 car driver versus someone who is sitting in a car driver’s seat for the first time. The F1 driver knows the car inside and out, he knows how to move the car to get the best performance, how to brake just right, how to follow a course track and as a result, he enjoys going fast and cutting dynamic corners to win the race. The person sitting in a car driver’s seat for the first time does not know how to operate such a car and no doubt would be awkward, clumsy, self-conscious, and would not enjoy trying to do what an F1 car driver does.
In dancer terms, the good dancer has significant control and coordination over their bodies, they know how to follow a beat and they know what muscle to use to generate a certain dynamic movement. The bad dancer does not know how to operate their bodies in such ways and so they are awkward, clumsy, self-conscious and do not enjoy trying to dance as a result.
How do bad dancers and new car drivers get better so they can start to enjoy dancing and driving respectively? As mentioned above, practice. And practice in conducive environments to learning, for a bad/new dancer this will be learning in private to gain confidence whilst listening to music that has a beat, for a new car driver, it will be learning in a safe space such as a parking lot.
Be discerning as to what beat deafness really is:
According to Bella and Sowinski, who are published authors in the US National Library of Medicine, ‘Beat deafness or “dysrhythmia” is characterized by poor performance in perceiving durations in auditory rhythmic patterns or poor synchronization of movement with auditory rhythms (e.g., with musical beats). These tasks include the synchronization of finger tapping to the beat of simple and complex auditory stimuli and the detection of rhythmic irregularities (anisochrony detection task) embedded in the same stimuli.’.
Beat deafness or “dysrhythmia” is characterized by poor performance in perceiving durations in auditory rhythmic patterns or poor synchronization of movement with auditory rhythms (e.g., with musical beats).
Simone Bella and Jakub Sowinski
Bella and Sowinski state that beat deafness can occur in otherwise healthy individuals.
Interestingly research published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B has shown that beat-deaf individuals could tap a consistent rhythm, which suggests that the individuals in question were capable of generating a beat; however, their struggles came when they had to match their tapping to what they were hearing. The researchers state that beat deafness is not a lack of rhythm, but rather an inability to translate an auditory stimulus into a motor response.
Researchers state that beat deafness is not a lack of rhythm, but rather an inability to translate an auditory stimulus into a motor response.
Caroline Palmer, pascale lidji, isabelle peretz
Don’t assume you have beat deafness:
True beat deafness is very rare, according to NBC it’s actually rarer than tone-deafness. To put it in perspective, tone-deafness affects only 4% of the population. This means you have less than a 4% chance of being legitimately beat-deaf.
Beat-deafness likely has a genetic origin, explains Jessica Phillips-Silver, who is a postdoctoral researcher with the International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research at the University of Montreal.
A good starting point to test if you have beat deafness is to tap to a metronome whose beat becomes faster or slower. Beat deaf individuals will not be able to adjust their tapping to the metronomes changing beat. However, if you are truly concerned that you may have beat deafness, you should seek professional advice. Otherwise, it is truly just a matter of practice.