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If you're a shy person who would like to do better in social situations - learn to dance.

Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones.

I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly directly to learning to dance.

Caveats:

You need to like the music! So pick a form that's compatible with that (if there is one).

Don't go into this looking for a hook-up. Those people are greatly disliked by most of the people in the scene.

Obviously this is open to confident people too, but shy people will likely get more out of it because the structured nature of dance classes compensates for lack of confidence.

(Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)

7 comments

What maybe surprised me most about learning to dance is how much you learn about signaling and how important signaling is to get two individuals work as one. Giving and reading signals was never my strong side, but it have improved a lot after learning to use signals in dance. The way I hold my hand or some light pressure on the back tells the one I'm dancing with what I plan for us to do and it often even works when I do moves the partner have never done before

Martial arts and partner dancing are two sides of the same coin: in the former, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can break synch with an opponent by surprising, taking advantage of and increasing brief errors. In the latter, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can synch with a partner by signalling, covering up for and decreasing brief errors.

Can't recommend it enough. I suspect most developers will enjoy the pattern orientated nature, and being able to strip things down to their building blocks and create something new. Once it starts to make sense to you, the possibilities become truly endless. I had planned to learn a decent amount of cha in the last 18 months... that never quite happened, but I became a mean Kizomba dancer instead.

> You need to like the music!

If you're approaching dance with a view to finding new realms of aesthetic experience, reserve judgment on whether you like the music. Some genres of music are meant to be enjoyed more in your body than in your head, or may come from an unfamiliar culture, so you'll need to be dancing for a while to get it.

> (Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)

Which is another skill you could learn in a short amount of time - a basic sense of rhythm. Tapping along with music or a metronome works, doing something more complicated with two hands is also an option. There's both online and offline drum / percussion lessons you could take; doesn't have to be much, you get the basics pretty quickly.

Same can probably be said about basic music theory. I've tried a few times but I still don't really get it though.

I'd an Aunt who recommended amateur dramatics for the same reason. I didn't follow her advice, unfortunately.

Would you still recommend dancing to a short 5.3'' male? Are tall strong males preferred in dancing? I don't know how equal those classes are but on tv you see those couples dancing and there is definitly a ''role'' to play for the male (like picking up the woman etc.).

Picking up your partner is something that mostly happens in performances rather than social dancing. Plus it's more about body mechanics than brute strength. I have plenty of short male friends who dance.

Note also that 'male' and 'female' roles don't really exist these days in the dances I do. YMMV with scenes.

How did you learn how to dance?

I'm not the person you're asking, but will share my thoughts anyways.

I learned when a friend dragged me to a "taster" class at a local social dance venue. It was fun, so I went the next week. At the beginning of the next month, I enrolled in a "progressive" series (lessons that built on one another, unlike the "taster" classes that start from scratch each time).

Under normal circumstances, I think that's be best way to learn: at a venue where people dance socially. It's really something that's best learned in person and a class at a social dance venue means you can immediately practice what you just learned, with other people who just learned it. (Versus, say, a class at a dance studio, where you may take a class and then just go home.) Unless you live in New Zealand, that's probably not an option right now though.

For many dances, there's good content online. I dance Lindy Hop, so that's what I'm most familiar with. If you enjoy (or, at least, don't hate) Jazz music, I think it's a great option to start with. ilindy.com has a free high-quality intro course, including (last I checked) material you can practice by yourself. I'm less familiar with it, but jaminjackson.com also has a free intro course that I've heard good things about.

Pretty much this, and I also started with Lindy.