Category: Ballroom

I clicked the play button on the video and was transported to that wonderful world of pleasure, excitement and amazement.  It was Fred Astaire dancing in “Top Hat and Tails”, posted by Fred Astaire Wisconsin.  You can see it here:

Without question,  I am not the first dancer to name Fred Astaire  as a model of freedom, ease and coordination. There is just something about his movement that evokes  a pleasure derived from watching a fundamental lightness born of grounding, confidence and joy.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, when asked on the day of Astaire’s death what inspired him most, he answered, “the quality that I admired most from his dance was effortless, very light and crystal clear”.

George Balanchine revealed his own genius as a ballet choreographer, yet along with Rudolf Nureyev cited Astaire as, hands down, the century’s greatest dancer.

Balanchine goes on to say “He is like Bach, who in his time had a great concentration of ability, essence, knowledge, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; there is so much of the dance in him that it has been distilled.  George Balanchine (quoted in Horizon, Jan. 1961)

I’m fascinated by Balanchine’s  last description of Astaire’s  dancing as distilled.

Distilled means something is removed, made more pure, or as definition.com explains, “to extract the essential elements of; refine”.

Distilling as a way of becoming more effortless in your dancing, still means there is much work to do.

And the work is mental.  Using your brain.

Here are 3 things that can help you achieve this.

1. An awareness of what you are already doing.  Am I bracing, holding my breath, tightening my neck, trying to be ‘right’?
2. When you know what you are doing, create a new approach through thinking of what you do want, in place of doing something that is familiar, which is driven by our habit. For example, thinking about widening your shoulders away from one another rather than physically pushing them back.
3. Maintaining a synergy between the above 2 things.  Only when you are aware of that pesky inefficient habit can you make a change.

In other words, the form we are adopting in our dancing is borne of an absence of stuff that gets in our way. Think prioritizing lightness and freedom instead of  trying hard (again, what we already know).

If you want to know in more detail how to achieve more lightness, effortlessness in your dancing you will need to distill your movements down to what is truly needed.  I work with dancers teaching them just that.

Happy Dancing!   If you would like to book a lesson with me, please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability.  I will respond within 24 hours.

If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.

Here is my showcase with my new partner Ivan Kudashev,  Jersey City Competition, Fred Astaire Dance Studio regionals. Thank you Ivan for being such a wonderful partner!  We received the highest score out of 47 participants!

Yep, it takes the village of YOU to succeed in developing skill, ease, strength and beauty in any physical endeavor.  Ultimately, if competition is part of your life excitement, you want to feel prepared and confident so you will enjoy yourself while performing.

But there is more to do. Beyond the time you spend in the ballroom, let’s consider what you can do to bring the cat’s meow to your dancing and add fitness to your life as long as you live.

Because I have a professional dance background, people think that I  get out on the ballroom floor and naturally do pretty well. But the reality is that because I’ve made the choice to stay healthy going into my , let’s just say, ‘mature’ years, I do cross training on a regular basis.  It’s not just ballroom lessons.

I’m not a fan of gyms so I make it a priority to walk briskly 2-3 miles a day.  That is my constant. If nothing else happens, at least I’ve done that.  After taking yoga classes for 10 years, I now practice myself in my studio 3 to 4 times a week even if only for 20 minutes.

On days when weather is an issue and I don’t feel like braving the heat, cold or rain, I bike briskly 30 minutes on my stationary bike.  The cardio aspect is helpful in keeping my blood pressure at a healthy level.  That seems to be creeping up over the years, but  boy does getting the heart rate up on a regular basis keep it at bay.

On Saturdays I take a gyrokinesis class with my friend and fabulous teacher, Andrea Sandahl. This class is particularly helpful for ballroom dancers to strengthen, lengthen and create more mobility in the spinal muscles.  Especially great for Latin dancing!  I use some of these exercises in my own teaching.

But for me it’s more about staying healthy and adopting a variety of movement modalities into my everyday life.  And it most definitely does help bring stamina, strength and freedom to the ballroom part of my life.

As far as nutrition, I focus on eating healthy fats, limit grains. and, no surprise here, limit added sugar to 6 (women) to 9 (men) teaspoons per day.  I’ve learned to abandon baked goods and salty snacks for the most part .

But yes, have your chocolate cake/baklava/pie (insert your favorite here) once in awhile!

The work that I do with all my students addresses habits -patterns of movement that are inefficient and limiting.  Becoming aware of  our head/neck/spine relationship is key to getting a leg up (quite literally!) in your ballroom dancing.  Other opportunities are noticing that you hold your breath, overeat, not moving enough during the day, and one of my favorites, learning to pause before losing your temper and saying something that you can’t take back.

In my next blog, I’ll talk more about what actually happens in a lesson and how I can work with you to learn unique tools to help you have more energy, a healthier spine and respond in an efficient way to all matter of stimuli.

Happy Dancing!   If you find this intriguing, book a lesson with me, either on zoom.com or if you are in the NY/NJ area at my studio in Montclair, NJ.  Please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability.  I will respond within 24 hours.

If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.

As I am in my home studio sneaking peaks of the James Comey hearings, I am struck by the thoughtfulness of his testimony and the tenor of his responses.  They are measured and he is careful not to ascribe fact in a way that would question his testimony. He is honest and hedging – “I could be wrong”, “as I remember it”.

As a seasoned attorney as well as a former FBI director, he is straddling the line between honestly answering questions from both sides of the political spectrum and stopping just short of fueling the flame of what must be some deeply felt emotions.  He is behaving appropriately.

While dancing, we don’t have to withhold our emotions. It is completely appropriate to be outwardly and truthfully feeling and what makes us interesting to watch is all about the emotional content of our dances.  Jive is fun and playful, rumba is the dance of love, cha cha is flirty, waltz is smooth and elegant….. and so on.

The dance styles dictate the mood of emotion that we are asked to access. But after that, we are left to interpret and project the style into our own presentation.  Like actors, recruiting truthful emotions is very much a part of our job as ballroom dancers.

It has always been my experience that the difficulty in accomplishing this truth is juggling the style part and the deeply felt emotion indicated.

For example, cha cha is flirty and playful.  It also has quick hip action, footwork and arm styling.  The challenge for me is to integrate all that technique while maintaining not only the style of cha cha but the truthfulness (organically accessed) of  the style.

Yet, if we want to excel in cha cha – or any other dance style – we’ve gotta do all 3!  Especially the last one, truth.

Konstantin Stanislavski, a seminal Russian actor, director and teacher was known for his focus on mobilizing the actor’s conscious thought and will in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly.^[25]

It sounds like we as dancers, whether professional or amateur are seeking the same thing. Crafting our conscious experiences and our subconsious – so often more truthful – into a beautiful mosaic that resonates not only with our audience but ourselves .

So, James Comey, do hold back just a bit.  It is appropriate (my take definitely).  But not for us!  We can appropriately and fully express our feelings on the dance floor without censure or criticism.  In fact, we are apt to get more criticism from NOT doing it. I was told more than once that my dancing was cold!

 Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art. (Stanislavsky)

Happy Dancing!   How do you work with projecting dance styles. If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.

What is that feeling?

For this writing, it’s not about sex but the orientation towards life and finding your true self.  Finding self- what makes you tick, happy, ecstatic, alive, equals an ability to find one’s true passion

I found my own passion later in life and happily added another one 12 years ago.

A bit of back story here:  As an advanced and professional ballet dancer, I knew that I was pretty good at it.  Dancing as a career option was planted by my mother very early in my training.  It was not something that I decided myself, short-circuiting a potential deep, personal connection with ballet.

My dancing days were filled with the requisite classes, rehearsals, performances, massages, pointe shoe sewing, and ubiquitous dieting. I was by nature a disciplined candidate.  I was driven by the attainment of success and being liked by the people who made key decisions regarding upwardly mobile casting and promotions.

My mother was the monkey on my back as my primary motivator, unknowingly contaminating my own potential drive and passion. 

Yawn, another stage mother story?

She was, and I was a dancer who worked hard – too hard.  Even though I was not really walking in my own shoes, the nature of ballet was simply this:  You either work your brains out and rise to an acceptable level of achievement or you hang up your toe shoes.  So I did – work my brains out.

There is a difference in the kinesthetic condition – your level of muscular tone – when doing something that emanates from your core.  That place of excitement, energized by that pleasurable connection, on a cellular level.  Something you are passionate about.

It is true that I valued the time I spent as a professional ballet dancer and because I derived satisfaction from being good at it, the run was successful and so much of it was exciting, rewarding and rich in friendships made and retained to this day.

However, depression runs deep in the offspring of parents who push their own agendas on their children.  At a point in my life when I stopped performing, taking class and teaching ballet I was not a happy camper.  Depression, just like the hole in the ground, enveloped my being. What could I do that I decided, enjoyed and was good at?

My own discovery of what I wanted to do came after years of Jungian therapy with a very gifted woman. With her help, I  found the Alexander Technique, a method of self-care in an environment of awareness and curiosity –  tension reduction  and the means to modulate tone in our bodies for the better.

I was stunned after my first lesson at how free and easeful I felt.  There was something delicious about giving up a whole lot of bracing which I was unknowingly holding onto as if I were still performing.

For years I longed to explore the art of ballroom – for my own enjoyment.  This became a platform to utilize the amazing principles that I trained for via the Alexander Technique.  I am most comfortable working with movers who wish to explore the unique tenets of Alexander’s discovery – the head, neck, spine relationship.

It is always a joy to see dramatic changes during the course of our partnership.

I’m grateful to have found not one but two passions, and to be able to pass these on to dancers is thrilling.

 It’s never too late to explore, find, and pursue your passions!

Happy Dancing!     What is your passion story?

If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.

Do you get frustrated learning and remembering steps?

Unequivocally, I do. I’ve been there and struggle with this negative creature on an ongoing basis.

Frustration, that unwelcome emotion, often in cahoots with the nagging critical voice  has a nervous system all its own, increasing tension and messing with our breathing.  It is the ultimate saboteur.  It can take over all reason and infiltrate the very thinking that is needed to move towards a goal and constructive learning.  It’s an expert rattler.

I have found it to be yet another habit that has imprinted itself on my learning system – the ever present nag, the should’ve gotten this by now BIG voice inside, and very much bent on sabotaging the thing that I want most:  achieving a goal.

If you are human (like me!)  you have been frustrated.  It’s not going to go away without getting a handle, particularly when you have a lot of skin in the game.  Stuff like when you are preparing to go onto the ballroom floor and you want to win.

I often ask, “what is this frustration about”?  Is there a purpose?

The good news is that frustration is an emotion based on hope.  The goal is there – learning, remembering, attaining something.  We expect to reach our goal but it is sometimes thwarted by our expectations which are often based on an inner voice that won’t quit.  On the positive side, it’s purpose is to cause an increase in focus and extra effort to meet that goal of nailing the difficult transitions from one set of steps to another.  Or getting an organic connection with your partner.

On the negative side, frustration that turns into anger or a downward spiral of confidence is goal killing.

Here are some things that I have learned:

1. Honor your way of learning.  If you need to repeat 8 counts of music 10 times, voice that to your teacher.  Teachers would rather do this than deal with the negative side of frustration. (If you are a teacher/pro, model the encouragement that you offer to your student, to yourself!)
2. Step back from what is causing the frustration.  Get some emotional distance. Take a short water break.
3. Do something that you know you can succeed at, what you can do well, automatically.
4.  Sometimes it’s best to give up and fight another day.

Our teachers should be our biggest supporters and I have found that to be true in my experience.   I hope that is your experience as well.  The gift to ourselves is to keep frustration on the positive side and to know how we best learn, to breathe, and adopt a calm focus.

Happy Dancing!   How do you deal with frustration?   If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.

I’ve spent a lot of time  avoiding ‘failure’.  As a child with musical and movement facility, I had much to live up to.

I often had stomach aches as I attended dance conferences with my ballet teacher and my mother. I was primed to be the best dancer in my age group, and believed that it was my job to confirm this.

From the beginning, my talent was part of my family’s pride, and while that sounds positive, for a child the perceived responsibility is overwhelming.

My Mom was a piano teacher and MY piano teacher.  Each Spring, she would enter me in a piano audition where I would have to play from 4-6 pieces by heart in front of a judge who would grade my performance, producing a report card. Out of all her students, I received the highest grades and the most praise.  I was thrilled afterwards because my nausea miraculously went away and well, it was over until next year, UGH!

The thing about behavioral molding is that it sticks and becomes part of one’s psychological imprint.  So every event can be charged with the conditioning of past behavior.

As an adult, the job of fulfilling everyone else’s expectations and dreams was over, but the memory of the demands of a challenge that may not be met was still fresh. As an antidote, I never wanted to go down a path that strayed too far from safety.  And I never fell flat on my face.

Often, I longed to do just that, but oh no, that just was not possible because I habitually managed very well the levels of demand so that I knew I would succeed.

Things shifted for me when I heard about FM Alexander’s 9 year process of trial and error, mostly his failure to discover the means to stop his habit of compressing his neck before speaking.

But his years of failures eventually netted him success through his recognition of the power of pausing before action.  I was inspired by his courage and trained for 3 years and paused a lot and put myself in a state of unknowing, often not to my liking, as immediate ‘success’ was not certain until I ‘failed’.

It is without question that FM was personally and singularly motivated to solve his vocal problem and failure was indeed an option if not a requirement for success. I benefit every day from his persistence and courage in the face of such failure, and am happy to say that my students do too!

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Happy Dancing!  How do you see failure in the scheme of things?  If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.

To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here.