Dance is one of the most loved passions among people of all ages. And when you have the right skills to follow the melodious rhythm and showcase your elegant moves in a ballroom dance, you are about to welcome a flood of compliments.
Continue reading to learn our top three tips that you can implement into your training so you can become a better rhythm dancer.
What is Rhythm?
Before stepping into the tips, let’s try and understand what American Rhythm is!
American Rhythm is a ballroom dance category that people embrace on the competitive and social dance floor. The American Rhythm category is divided into five sub-category of dance styles, which includes:
- Cha Cha
- Rumba
- East Coast Swing
- Bolero
- Mambo
There are several tips that you can follow to improve your rhythm dancing skills. Today, we will go into our top three. So, let’s get started with the tips in the next section!
Our Top Three Tips for You to Improve Rhythm Dancing!
Here are the three tips that you can follow to be a better rhythm dancer:
1. Improve Your Posture
Maintaining good postural alignment is critical for almost any type of dance you do. Dancing with good posture will allow you to attain the balance and control needed for rhythm dancing.
Dancing with good postural alignment means that your main blocks of weight are stacked one on top of the other, creating a nice long spine. These blocks of weight are as follows:
- Head
- Shoulders
- Ribs
- Hips
Learning to keep these blocks of weight stacked will help you to move more efficiently from foot to foot, have more freedom in your body action, and have a better physical connection with your partner. You can practice having good posture on and off the dance floor by simply being more aware of how you stand, walk, and sit.
Check out the video below to learn more about good posture:
2. Be grounded in your movements
The American Rhythm dances are what we call spot dances; they generally stay in one area on the floor and dancers demonstrate rhythmical body actions throughout each step to not only accent the music, but to be able to change directions quickly and efficiently. Inexperienced dancers tend to take larger steps which require more effort to stay balanced and move quickly. It also may cause the dancer to drift, leaving their trailing foot to move around and slide. To prevent this from happening, focus on taking smaller steps and always maintain pressure in both feet. Doing this will help you to be more grounded in your movements which will allow you to dance your body action and move easier from foot to foot.
For the competitive dancer or performer, you rarely know what the surface of the floor will feel like at different events. Some of them might be slick, while others might be sticky. Training yourself to be more grounded by maintaining pressure into the floor will help you adapt in any situation.
3. Improve Your Body Action
What is American Rhythm without having good body action? Moving your body correctly in American Rhythm is probably one of the most challenging things to do, but once you get it down, you will find that it makes the dances easier to execute. You may notice you are able to move quicker, accent the music better, and connect well with your partner to name a few.
When practicing, I recommend dancing the basics while working on improving your technique. For example, when working on Cuban Motion in the Rumba, stick to dancing the Box Step, forward or backward walks, and Cucarachas (Side Breaks).
That way the steps are something you are comfortable doing and they don’t require much brain power. This will allow you to focus on how you are moving your body while taking each step rather than how to dance the step. Once you feel more comfortable with your movements in easy steps, begin applying the techniques into more challenging steps. The goal is to eventually be able to move fluidly throughout every dance.
Click the link below to learn more about what you can do to improve your Cuban Motion while dancing the Box Step in Rumba.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, dancing with good posture, staying grounded, and applying good body action to all your dances are just a few things you can work on to improve your American Rhythm dancing skills and rock the floor with your awesome moves.
Thanks for reading, and happy dancing!
