Why do we dance? Why do we compete?

Bar dancing competition season is in full swing, we’ve got competitions at Round Up in Dallas every Tuesday, we had a competition in San Antonio this past weekend and the big competition coming up at Cowboys Red River in Dallas is less than a month away to name a few. There is so much work, dedication and drama involved in competing, we have to ask ourselves every once in awhile, why do we do it? Why do we travel hours from our home towns to compete for the chance to win a belt or a few hundred dollars? But before I talk about why we compete in bar competitions, I first want to talk about why we dance.

In case you don’t know me personally, I consider myself to be a dancer. I dance at least four nights a week, I help teach group and private dance lessons and I compete regularly. But the line between dancer and non-dancer isn’t always clear and I don’t remember the exact moment I decided to call myself a dancer. I also suspect that professional ballet or ballroom dancers might not even consider me a dancer at all and that’s okay too. I consider myself a dancer; not because of my perceived skill or because I teach, but because of the time and effort I’ve put into it. When I started choosing dancing over other things that I loved, like video games or sleeping in, I started calling myself a dancer. When the passion flared, I had to start claiming that I was a dancer.

But what started it all? I got into dancing because a friend of mine kept asking me to go with her. I was a shy engineering student that was going through a break up and didn’t think it was something I’d enjoy. But after about the fortieth time she asked me, she introduced me to one of her male friends. Someone I almost immediately began to crush on, he asked me to join him out dancing and I agreed. But to my dismay, he wouldn’t spend a lot of time dancing with me because I was absolutely terrible. I wish I had videos from that early on because it would be nice to see how much I’ve progressed in the last four years. To see the evolution of the hours I practiced and beat myself up watching videos of myself would be really valuable. But anyways, because this guy that I had a crush on wouldn’t dance with me, I decided in an instant of irritation, ‘screw him, I can learn to do this. I don’t need him.’ Looking back though, he really only knew basics but I’m thankful that he gave me the push I needed to become the dancer I am today.

Because of this experience, I’ve asked several people why they started learning to dance and the individual reasons are all over the place, from my girlfriend made me come out to I was bored and wanted to meet new people. And those answers are always mildly amusing to me, but the most fascinating question that I love asking is, Why do you dance? Ask any dancer this, and they’ll get quiet and stare up into the sky thinking about their answer and every single time, their answers are uniquely attached to their passion. We choose dancing over almost every other activity because we love the chemistry, the connection, the music, the exercise, and just the overall feeling and high of having a great dance with someone else. We are traveling around in circles to get our hearts and minds somewhere.

The amazing thing though is that the reason we like dancing so much actually has neurological explanations based on our brain chemistry. Exercising, listening to music and touch all increase chemicals in the brain known as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. These chemicals are commonly referred to as the love chemicals. Serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin are the same chemicals in our brain that make us feel like we are in love. When we dance, we are touching our partner, we are listening to music and we are exercising almost every muscle in our body, therefore our mind basically falls in love with dancing. Like a school grade crush, we can’t get enough of it and we find ourselves choosing dancing over other things in our lives that we thought we enjoyed. And it isn’t a short term love either. I have been dancing for four years myself, and I have friends that have been dancing for decades of their lives going on to become well respected teachers and competitors.

So we are spending all of this time learning to dance and dancing socially are there any health benefits associated with dancing? The health benefits of dancing are actually endless. For myself, I know that I went from a shy engineer to an outgoing socialite with a higher self esteem. I got more muscle tone and improved my balance. Not to mention, my fear of performing in front of people has almost completely vanished. But dancing has also been shown to improve flexibility, spatial awareness, weight management and lower stress. All things that help slow mental decline, improve blood pressure and overall health. I know several people that also use dancing as a motivator to accomplish other things in their lives as well; telling ourselves that we may go dancing tonight if we finish this presentation for work or some other task we may normally procrastinate. And a running joke in the dancing community is that dancers don’t physically or mentally age. Many people who have been dancing for years simply don’t look their age and we tend to joke that it’s because we all dance consistently. While I doubt dancing literally stops lines from forming on our faces it does seem to help us in a lot of ways. Of course, dancing comes with certain injury risks, especially if you regularly include aerials, more complicated dances or even dance on crowded dance floors. But even taking that into consideration, dancing is one of the few exercises that is easy on our joints and has the lowest risk of injuries in relation to other sports and forms of exercise.

While simply dancing has all of the benefits I mentioned plus several more, it is interesting that so many of us take it to the next level and begin to compete in bar competitions. So now the question is, Why do we compete? Without going too deep into biology, competition is wired into our human nature. Some scientists say that it goes back to our desire to survive and in modern times it gets transferred to other skills and areas. It’s almost natural for us to work hard at something and then when we get to a certain level, we suddenly decide to compete against others in the same skill. But I think while this natural progression initially motivates us and interests us in competing; what is actually stronger than competition is cooperation. Why else would Jacob Reding or Mike McKinney show us a move knowing that we are going to be competing against them? Either because they have no fear that we will ever reach their level or because if they make us better through teaching and cooperating with us, then they have to make themselves better as well. And then over time, we somehow build these long term relationships that consistently push each other to learn more and to get better. What started out as a plea to a professional to learn how to move our hands the right way after we do that one spinny move, turns into a friendship. And then several competitions later, we find ourselves with our arms around each others’ backs, hours from our homes, thanking God for our food and laughing together as a family before the next competition. And then, the next morning, we sit down at breakfast after the competition, encouraging each other, laughing at our mess ups and being proud of our friends for doing their best or even beating us.

Of course, negatives arise in competing. Drama happens. Rumors spread. We fight and we argue. We get our feelings hurt with certain feedback. We are generally too hard on the judges, we overly criticize the competition setup and we are the hardest on ourselves when we don’t do as well as we’d hoped. But I think that while we push ourselves to compete it is important to recognize that the thing that is truly binding us all together, is cooperation and the little moments we have together sharing our passion and laughter.

Thank you for reading.

RedRiverGirl

What are your thoughts on the article above? Why do you consider yourself a dancer? Why do you dance? How has dancing helped you physically or mentally? Why do you compete? What are the negative and positive aspects of dancing and competing that you’ve seen? And if you don’t dance, it’s never to late to start!