In today’s article I’d like to talk about two other characteristics that make your dancing more attractive: Skill vs. Style.
To me, when it comes to developing an attractive dance style, they stand in opposition. An attractive dancer should demonstrate equal amounts of technical ability and individual style. Note that I am not saying a “good dancer”: if you manage to copy amazing dancers well, you are an amazingly good dancer too. It’s just that you won’t be an attractive dancer. I’ll present research further down that explains why!
First, we need to distinguish between what is technique and what is style. Can you make that distinction?
Test yourself!
How much of what you are doing is technique-based, and how much is style?
1. Can you contrast your movements? Can you take any aspects of your dance (e.g., bounce, tension, stretch, tempo, posture) and turn their volume up and down?
2. Can you stop and go at any time? Can you slow down or speed up at any moment?
Don’t just play with the black and white extremes, but try all the gray in between as well.
Excellent technique is like having an entire factory with tools and equipment. You should be able to build anything you want. Lack of technique is like building a house using only a hammer.
Here are some of the things excellent technique allows you to do:
* You can comfortably lead/follow any move you want.
* You can comfortably dance these moves to any tempo you want.
* You can instantly change your movement if you need to match the music or simply avoid bumping into someone.
To improve your technique, I recommend you take a lot classes from teachers who foremost share their technique and not their style. Take what ever they say, and go over the above tests. Finally, practice until it becomes a natural part of what you do.
Style!
It take courage to express individuality. When you express your individuality, you’re exposing your likes and dislikes. Copying another dancer’s style is like wearing their clothes. When people see you dance, they actually see them dance.
The decoy effect in action!
Dan Ariely, a behavioral psychologist, presented a fascinating experiment in his book “Predictably Irrational”. Dan’s experiment tested if decision-making could be manipulated with the presence of a decoy. He showed pictures of two people. When asking people to vote who they found more attractive, each got about 50% of the votes. He then manipulated the pictures to create less attractive decoy versions. He again asked people to choose who they found more attractive, but this time they could choose between the original two and a decoy of one. The results? When people had a decoy, they selected their more attractive counterpart. Why did they choose this way? Relativity helps us make decisions in life – not necessary good decisions, e.g. jealousy and envy – but decisions nevertheless.
What does all this mean for us as dancers? If your style is the “decoy” equivalent of someone else’s style, you simply make that person more attractive.
Play with this thought for a second: Do we decide who is the best dancer by counting how many “decoy” dancers they have?
Back to the first question: How to make your dancing more attractive:
Learn the techniques first. More importantly, get your knowledge from a variety of different sources. Many teachers don’t distinguish between their technique and their style; you have to learn to distinguish them yourself. While practicing your technique, watch yourself in the mirror or film yourself dancing. What combination of techniques match your personality best? Are you a high energy dancer, or do you like it soft and smooth? It’s important to note that better technique also allows you to create different styles to different music, or even different styles depending on what kind of place you are dancing in (is it slippery? crowded?).
See what works best with your body, your temperament and your surroundings.
Please respond on the discussion board under: Attraction: some have it and others don’t?.
/Ali
