My identity is pretty much attached to the dancer and the dance teacher, and I am proud of that, but in that path, I still find several tools that bring me closer to living a better life outside the dance floor. As a salsa teacher, I have seen many different ways of improving as a dancer that can easily translate into one’s life. I was thinking the other day about all the different strategies that I normally use both in the group classes and the one one-on-one lessons, that I found have been very beneficial for my life. They keep appearing in some of the books about self-improvement that I enjoy reading. So I guess this article will be a list of tools I use that can be used to improve quality of life.
Find your tribe: Community is one of the best ways to guarantee constant improvement, people keep coming back every week, not only for what they can learn but because of the people that they will find, I found that if you want to improve in anything find a group of people that enjoy and relish that.
All paths take you to Rome: If you are trying to correct your posture and it gets confusing, try to see it in another way, chest out can be said as shoulder blades together or shoulders back. Or for some people you could say try to reach the wall with your chest. Any of those could bring the same result, But for some people, only one of them will bring the posture we are looking for. So when explaining something let’s try to find different ways to help the other to click with what you are looking for.
One more last time: It sounds like we are lying and there are probably better ways to say “again.” But one more time is related to the hope that we do not need one more repetition. We are looking for something out of the movement, so we encourage ourselves and others to keep trying to focus only on the next change that is in front of us.
The best path is not through knowledge: The brain always wants to understand but being aware of your body and how different muscles activate to achieve certain movements is super complex. It is sometimes better to do any movements a few hundred times before we try to understand what it is. Even when you can understand it you might not be able to make it happen in your body until you have done it enough times. This reminds me that many married women believe they are expert wedding planners, they plan one, they know little, plan another ten and then we talk.
Breathe: When performing, training, or trying to understand a concept, I notice that my students somehow stop breathing, it is a very common reaction to stress, that clearly stands in the way of achieving your current goal. It sounds obvious, but let’s pay attention to our breath, that simple action will improve performance in anything greatly. Purple lips are not necessarily a sign of effort.
What you are not aware of might look funny: if I say lift your right hand everyone forgets the left. Yes, we need the right hand shifted but we still need the left to stay in its natural position. Checking the blind spot is crucial when changing lanes.
It takes time: It does not matter what you are trying to achieve, it takes time. Lately, we have a couple of new students that did a month of private lessons in Colombia, that want to get better at Salsa. I am 100% sure that they learnt a lot but I am also sure that they did not learn much, because there is only so much your body can digest in that amount of time. When I look at any of my routines I can clearly see that the next is simply a small step up from the previous one, and yes, I am proud of the last one, yes the one that came a few years after my first performance.
Fun and simple: the salsa syllabus in the school has a clear separation in the way that the teachers move their bodies. In the intro class, my legs are the only thing moving and my arms stay in one position. We focus on getting to know people and the fun of connecting with others through dancing. We try to create a safe space before challenging them a lot or showing them a full body movement that will probably distract from the most important part, which is moving the feet to the beat.
I am pretty sure that I have a lot of different tools that I have gathered over the years. Some of them come back to me in cycles, and some of them are always with me like a fundamental value. Everywhere I go I have the opportunity to learn and grow and I am lucky that I like and enjoy that, I care about learning as well as teaching. I can’t stop my fascination with how someone’s struggles in dance class will be very similar to what they are experiencing in life. I really enjoy being a tool for growth in dancing, and I thrive to find ways to bring betterment to people’s lives.
Gracias for reading,
Pedro