Why no videos?

Let me be clear. All dance is good dance.

So much of our lives is spent in dusty rooms or under glaring sun, or in freezing sleet, performing tasks that have been set by others. We begin as children, trying to gain the smiles of our parents, and then in school, giving the right answers to get the good grades, to get a good job, so we can spend the next 40 or 50 years working to get better jobs, promotions or pay  rises.

In our leisure activities too, we do things that give us dopamine hits because we receive approval from others: you probably know this about social media, but it's also endemic in sports, games, even art. We perform for extrinsic rewards.

What if there were something we could do, just for ourselves, where the motivations came just from us, from our own desires? Our desire, even for deep connection, with ourselves, with others. Not for the rewards it would bring, but just for the joy of connection?

Dance can do this, but not if it comes with expectations of "right way" and "wrong way". If you see videos of people dancing as part of the teaching material, you will expect that they are showing the right way to do it, and immediately your brain will expect that you will need to copy them, in order to do it "right".

There's a whole world of dance videos out there, and a large community of people learning to copy other people's movements as precisely as they can. Where is the creativity in all of these copies? It becomes a very reductive activity. Once you've copied, learned and posted, you need to move on to the next video to repeat. The creators, the choreographers, are few and far between, but the potential for creativity is within all of us, if we stop focusing on what others have done, and begin to do it ourselves.

Also, learning to dance by watching people is a hard skill to learn. Yes, we have mirror neurons, which can help, but reading words lands in our subconscious brain. From there they can grow original synapses into our bodies, and send deep understanding of movement ideas and techniques from the centre of your consciousness into your body.

Once you have a new understanding of how to move, and trained your body to move in those ways, your creativity will find a rich dynamic new medium for you to express yourself - to learn, understand, and express the essence of who you are.

When we are moving from the core of ourselves, it becomes a joy to connect with others also moving from the centre of themselves, and you will soon find the delight that comes with the nuanced communication of two beings moving together as one.

Remember: all dance is good dance. Let us know how it feels for you.