Parents of boys, partners of men, old and young men themselves. Whoever you are, the reasons why men/boys should learn to dance are numerous.
However, the reasons for this are sometimes not readily observable. This is because sometimes it can take time and experience to see the benefits of dance.
Our Principal Author Jake has compiled a complete list as to why every man should learn to dance. He speaks from many years of personal dance experience and verified this through desktop research.
Men should learn to dance because dancing generates:
- Confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect (both socially and non-socially)
- Healthy masculinity (including warrior personas/emotional releases)
- Physical health (including increased cardiovascular capability, agility, balance, endurance, coordination, dynamic strength and posture)
- Increased respect/perspective between genders
- Increased attractiveness/social standing
- A sense of community
- Music appreciation
To find out why these criteria are very useful in life, not just dancing, read on.
Dancing grows confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect (both socially and non-socially):
It is often said that dancing assists with confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect, and it’s true. But why does dance do this? And how?
Well, lets first define what these terms mean, according to Collins Dictionary the definitions are:
- Confidence: ‘to feel sure about your abilities, qualities or ideas’.
- Self-esteem: ‘how you feel about yourself/worth/abilities’.
- Self-respect: ‘a feeling of confidence and pride in your own ability and worth’.
Confidence:
Confidence definition: ‘to feel sure about your abilities, qualities or ideas’.
The keyword in the definition above in the context of dancing is abilities and qualities. When you start to:
- SEE good mirror feedback
- Or FEEL good from within yourself
- Or RECIEVE good feedback from others
You start to FEEL SURE about your danceability and the qualities that good dancers are renowned for. Namely the qualities of rhythm, agility, athleticism, and body control.
Self-esteem:
Self-esteem definition: ‘how you feel about yourself/worth/abilities’.
As your confidence grows, your self-esteem also grows.
This happens because how you feel about yourself is tied to your abilities. Thus growth in you feeling sure about your abilities leads to a growth in self-esteem.
Self-respect:
Self-respect definition: ‘a feeling of confidence and pride in your own ability and worth’.
The concept of self-respect is tied to both confidence and self-esteem.
As the definition mentions, self-respect is a feeling of confidence and pride in your own ability and worth.
The keyword here is pride. As you start to gain confidence and self-esteem you will start to feel proud of your dance skill. This results in a growth in self-respect.
However, the extra good news is that these qualities that come from dancing, also help us outside of dancing.
Think about it. Imagine someone who has very little going for them in life. They have nothing to pin their confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect on.
However, imagine that same person who knows that they are a good dancer. That they do look athletic, rhythmic, and cool on a dance floor. Suddenly they have SOMETHING which they are proud of about themselves. They will likely start to walk a bit taller, stand a bit broader, and speak with more dignity.
This is how confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect work. What I mean is that these characteristics are often propped up by SOME ATTRIBUTE within a person. This attribute might be a person’s intellect or sporting prowess, or it can be a person’s ability to dance.
Dancing generates healthy masculinity:
Dancing can be a key tool in promoting healthy masculinity. This was outlined in detail in our article How To Dance As A Guy: The complete guide men need. Healthy masculinity is important for these reasons:
Reason number 1: Cultivating healthy masculinity:
The classic traditional problematic image of a masculine man is one that:
- Doesn’t speak of feelings
- Doesn’t show emotion
- Is always capable
- Always emotionally steady
- Never needs to rely on social contact
- Doesn’t participate in any activity which is outside a narrow range of activities (sport, drinking, fishing for example).
However, the trick for many men is finding ways that enables them to express themselves BUT doesn’t leave them feeling compromised or weak.
One such way for the modern man to express himself safely emotionally is dancing.
Dancing allows emotion to be released and expressed in a deeply profound, meaningful, intimate and dignified manner. This is an important tool in healthy masculinity and as a stress reliever in today’s complex world.
Reason number 2: Cultivating a warrior persona:
In the book ‘Manhood’ by Stephen Biddulph, the concept of an inner warrior is described. This inner warrior is an inner force that protects our inner child.
It is important for people to have a healthy inner warrior. One which is ready to emotionally and physically defend ourselves and those we care about.
When we dance in front of a mirror to a powerful piece of music, our imaginations tend to take over. As this occurs we tend to generate a ‘persona’ which may vary according to the music. For example, if it is proud and strong music then the persona we might assume is one of a proud and strong warrior.
This sort of warrior persona creation is a real tool in assisting with athletic endeavors. The reason is that we have already visualized in our minds what sort of character we are.
This is verified by sources such as ‘The Brave Athlete’ by elite sports psychologist Simon Marshall.
Others including the legendary heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson have verified the above.
Dancing assists with strength, agility, balance, coordination, posture and cardiovascular health:
It is no secret that dancing is good for the body, particularly energetic dancing. The reason why is because dancing is one of the most dynamic movement activities. Because of this, your body becomes well-rounded in dynamic strength, agility, coordination, cardiovascular health, and skeletal alignment (posture).
Strength and agility:
Good dancers have exceptional dynamic strength and endurance of foot, ankle, calf, quadriceps, glutes, and abdominals. Not to mention agility and balance.
Try any Michael Jackson move and you will see how much dynamic strength and agility you need.
Sure, dancers might not be able to lift the heaviest of weights. But their strength lies in DYNAMIC movement, much like a mixed martial artist.
And remember, upper body strength is more or less useless if the legs and back are not useful.
Coordination:
Collin’s dictionary defines coordination as the ability to use the different parts of your body together efficiently. This begs the question, what is a dancer trying to be efficient at?
The answer lies in aligning the beat of the music with different movements of the body, in a rhythmic manner. The more complex these movements are, whilst rhythm is maintained, heightens the level of coordination.
Look at any martial artist, sportsperson, or physical activity and you will see the benefits of increasing coordination levels.
Cardiovascular health:
Energetic dancing can be an exceptional workout for our heart, lungs, and aerobic capacity.
As mentioned above, dancing is one of the most dynamic movement activities in the world. If you couple dynamic movement with exertion, the body’s cardiovascular system will likely benefit.
Posture:
Look at any good dancer and you will see their posture and skeletal alignment are usually quite good. Good posture helps with several physical and mental factors.
- Physical factors:
- These include reducing the skeletal stress of the neck, back and shoulders. This has flow-on effects to the ability to move freely.
- Moving freely means greater chance of engaging in more physical pursuits and thereby increasing the chance of a healthy lifestyle.
- Think about a person with a hunchback. Such a person cannot jump, walk, or run with freedom because the skeletal alignment is not correct.
- Mental factors:
- Physcologists have shown that ‘power poses’ can increase our levels of confidence and testorone levels.
- Power poses are poses such as hands on hips, shoulders relaxed and drawn back, chin level and drawn up, etc.
- This is captured in the below quote and article.
“Our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves. Our bodies change our minds”.
Amy Cuddy, social psychologist at Harvard Business School.
From ‘Some Examples Of How Power Posing Can Actually Boost Your Confidence‘
Dancing increases respect/interaction between genders:
The wonderful thing about dancing is that it is so universal. It transcends ideologies, religion, politics, race, skin color, age, and gender. A beautiful process starts to happen when boys and men start to appreciate dancing. This process is that they will transcend the gender barrier and start to see women as PEOPLE FIRST and not as potential romantic partners. Despite how obvious this sounds, it is more prevalent than most people realize. This is broken down below:
- When men and boys realise how meaningful dance truly is, and how good it feels to be physically one with the music, they will want others to experience it too. Suddenly, finding a romantic partner is not the highest priority, the highest priority is just for people to feel good whilst dancing and be happy for those that are in the dance zone.
- When men and boys realize the skill that goes into dancing, they will have a genuine and profound respect for those that are either honing their dance skills or are masters of their dance craft, regardless of gender.
Take a look at the below video (particularly 4:35) for an example of how supportive/universal the gender environment is when people come together to enjoy dance:
It can be useful for guys to choose a dance class where there is an equal gender mix. The reason being is it can be intimidating if a guy is the only guy in a dance class. This is mentioned in more detail in the article How To Dance As A Guy: The complete guide men need.
Dancing makes men more attractive to women and increases general social status:
In our article How To Dance With Girls In A Club: Verified by women, we outlined our research into what women desired from men on a dancefloor. A common response by women was that men who could dance were deemed more attractive than those who could not.
It can also be argued that being able to move in a coordinated/athletic manner improves general social status.
This is not an arbitrary (random) preference of people. This harks back to ancient and powerful biological needs of our primitive ancestors. These ancient needs include the ability of a man to:
- Defeat rival males in physical confrontation and protect the tribe from threats.
- Master his body and mind in order to be a capable part of the tribe.
- Satisfy the physical needs of his partner.
- Fit in socially.
All of these factors are on show when a man can dance well. This is broadly broken down below:
- His athleticism and agility on a dancefloor shows he is potentially capable of both:
- Defeating rival males and
- Protecting the tribe from threats.
- The rythym and confidence mastery he shows demonstrates he has a level of capablness in the physical/mental arena.
- His vitality on a dancefloor shows his ability to be physically satisfying.
- His enjoyment of dancing showcases his ability to fit in socially and be someone who is enjoyable to be around.
‘If men have rythym, cool dance moves, and are a confident dancer, there is a good chance a woman will want to dance with you before you even approach her.’
Lauren, 25, club dancer.
Dancing allows men to be part of a healthy community:
Read any men’s mental health article and a significant issue for today’s men is having meaningful and long-term friends. Many men struggle with this for several reasons.
The key to combatting this friendship issue is to have access to a community. Particularly a community where friendships can form without too much awkwardness.
A good type of community that doesn’t rely on harmful habits such as gambling or drinking, is a dance community. The core of a dance community is generally based on enjoying an activity. As opposed to egos or competing with each other.
A dance community is great place for the modern man to start looking for connections.
Dancing generates a deeper appreciation of music:
The legendary Dutch painter Van Gogh once stated that in order to truly know a landscape, one must paint it.
This principle also applies to music and dancing. Dancers would say, in order to truly know a piece of music, one must dance to it.
A painter must appreciate the details of a landscape in order to accurately interpret the landscape. In the same way, a dancer begins to appreciate music more in order to reflect the song in dance form.
The meaningfulness of music becomes amplified as we become more attune to its complexity, something that happens naturally in dance. This wholesome skill is valuable as I think we can all acknowledge how important music is.