THIS ONE IS FOR THE DANCERS!

Recently, I started a second job. I want to get caught up on bills and I want to be able to save up for a trip to Rome. I’m dead set on going on another trip by myself and if you haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend it. But since I started a second job that means I’m going to have to have more willpower when it comes to dancing. I might not come out as much or stay as late but I still want to be surrounded by my friends and to dance because I love dancing! But that brings me to my point. As a group, we REAAALLLY need to stop battering people for being responsible.

How many times has our friend tried to leave right when the night is getting good because they have to work in the morning and we beg them into staying later or calling into work? We tell them, You only live once!! Or come on, just stay for a few more songs! Or you can’t leave yet, I never come out!!

I get it. I do. I want all of my friends out there at the same time, dancing the night away. But we are also adults, trying to better our lives by working or studying hard. And it takes a lot of willpower to tell our friends begging us to stay that we have to leave to get some sleep for work the next morning. I think some of us have just learned through experience, even though it should be common sense, that if you stay out until 2am and have to work at 7am the next morning, a small part of your soul is going to die.

Because of this, I think we should be conscious of our friends needs and encourage them to be responsible. If you are my friend and even if I haven’t seen you in awhile and you tell me you that you have to go, you really want to stay but you seriously have to go because you have to be at work in seven hours. I’m going to kick your butt out of the door. Not because I don’t want you there but because I know it’s hard to walk away from the friends and the fun. If we are a family like we say we are, we wouldn’t be peer pressuring each other like 5 year olds on a playground into something that is going to hurt us the next day.

Of course, if you say you have to be at work at 7am and I look at my phone and it’s 2am, I’m going to then look at you like you’re crazy and suggest you go home and get some rest but if you decide to stay anyways; I get that too. Sometimes, on rare occasions it can be fun to stay out way to late. But I am NOT going to be the one begging you to stay. It should be 100% your decision.

If we encourage this culture where we are happy to see each other, even if it’s only for a couple hours and we don’t pressure our friends to stay late when they have to get up early, I think we would see a lot more of our friends that would otherwise choose to stay home because they are afraid that they won’t be able to leave at a decent hour. Imagine a dance culture that encourages responsibility and awareness, not only would we grow but the support would increase and as years passed, we would turn into a group with degrees. A group with well paying jobs. A group that can easily support their children and a group that has real influence in the cities around us. And we wouldn’t have to give up dancing to accomplish these things!! Of course there are plenty in the group that already have these accomplishments but I think we should be fostering achievement and responsibility more than hindering it for another hour of fun.

So I ask you to challenge yourself for the next week or so. If you’re talking or dancing with a friend and they tell you that they have to leave, stop yourself. Before you beg them to stay; think about them and their needs and encourage them to go home and get some rest.

Comment below or on the facebook page if you agree or disagree. THANK YOU FOR READING!

It’s almost a cliché now to say that humans are a social species. Social groups started out as a necessary way to survive. Groups offered protection from the elements, other animals and other humans but perhaps over time, our minds developed a dependency on socialaztion to prevent us from thinking that we could do it on our own; almost like a subconscious protection to keep us needing each other. But this dependency on socialization for our physical selves can have devastating effects on our mental health if we live in social isolation. Studies have proven that social isolation leads to cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, neuroticism and even hallucinations. This is why even in a modern world where we aren’t fighting off lions, social groups give a lot of advantages.

For one, support. Support from people in the dance community is the main reason so many people refer to the dancing community as their ‘Dance Family.’ I’ve seen countless examples of people in the dance community taking care of each other. From dance competitions set up to benefit a member that got injured and needs help with their medical bills (because we are mostly millennials getting screwed by our health care insurance, but that’s a topic for another day). I’ve even seen a dancer give a car to someone that needed it. We cook together and pray together before dinner. We go out to eat for special occasions and if someone can’t pay, we cover them because we don’t want them to miss out. We crash on each other’s couches. We call each other when we need to talk to someone and we encourage each other. And in many other ways we support each other.

Turns out there are actually four distinct types of support; emotional, informational, companionship, and tangible. Emotional support is given when we nurture each other. When a friend is going through a hard time and we tell them everything is going to be okay. I couldn’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been apart of an emotional support group in the girls’ bathroom at Red River and I never mind doing it because I’ve needed the same thing multiple times. Informational support is given when we give each other advice. In the dance community that revolves mostly around teaching each other to dance. We are constantly helping each other improve and grow in our dancing and it’s truly amazing to watch our abilities grow together because of this. The third type of support, companionship happens when we are just there for each other. When a friend goes with you to a doctors’ appointment. When they walk you to your car so that you’re safe. Sometimes I’ve had a bad day and just walking into the dance hall surrounded by friends that I know have my back, calms me down. They don’t even need to know that I needed them, just them being there is enough. The last type of support is tangible. This is when we throw competitions to help someone with bills as mentioned above or give someone a car when they need it. And that is truly amazing and speaks to how amazing people can be sometimes.

And while support from a social group or a companion is generally seen as a positive thing because support prevents many mental issues and raises self esteem; there are two things interesting about support that makes it a little more complicated. Studies have shown that if the wrong type of support is provided for what the person needs, then the support provided, even if the provider has the best intentions is completely useless and can actually have negative effects on the person’s mental health. For example, if I am seeking advice on how to spin better during a pattern in west coast swing, and someone tells me, “well I don’t know how to help you but I will stand next you while you practice.” Well that isn’t helpful; it’s just annoying. And also, now I’m self-conscious because it feels like you’re wordlessly judging me. Or if I ask for help with the spin and someone tells me everything is going to be okay and that I’m already a great dancer and I don’t need to worry about it. Um ok, also not helpful; just irritating because I don’t need to be consoled.

The wrong type of support can cause resentment and stress but another interesting thing about support from a group or another individual is that, it isn’t actually the received support that does the most good for us mentally, it’s actually the perceived support. It’s actually more beneficial to our mental health if we just THINK that we have ample support, it’s not that we have actually received it.

And while support groups are mostly a positive thing,  they can actually have a lot of negatives as well and these are not discussed nearly as much since we live in a highly social culture. For example, it is possible to give to much support. Sometimes we help each other too much and we become a crutch for our own self growth. And sometimes, groups themselves can become toxic. When the culture of the group turns honesty into passive aggressive criticism, the effects can be very negative. Also when people in the group never know where they stand, things have become toxic. Think about people that have won a competition or had the honor of judging a competition and people say behind their backs that they only won because of what they were wearing or people make snide remarks about the legitimacy of the person judging. These people take their jealousy out on others and when it becomes the norm in a group, many people suffer. And speaking of remarks behind people’s back, this brings me to a frequently discussed issue: gossip. Speaking negatively about people is only good when you are trying to protect someone and you are certain that what you are saying is true. Gossip hurts reputations and people and creates a general feeling of distrust in groups. Although gossip is never completely avoidable, it is a good idea to be conscious of when you start to talk about someone and maybe think twice before doing so.

And although is isn’t going to be a popular opinion in the dance community, I think a specific dance group issue is the social reward that is granted to the most show off individual. I know that we are dancers and to steal the spotlight is almost natural for us. But a culture that promotes constantly being the center of attention, outdoing each other, and encouraging each other to use dancing as a distraction from the work we need to do on ourselves;  simply isn’t healthy. It causes egos and arrogance to breed and diminishes growth and self awareness. It causes us to be fake with one another to gather support and increase attention instead of being real with each other. Respect through belt winning is short lived and hard to maintain. If we want to build a group that is successful and lasts for years to come and actually supports each other then we have to stop vying each other for attention and talking about each other behind their backs.

Links and citations are below:

How Isolation Impacts Mental Health

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_support

https://prezi.com/zns2vvddxk6k/positives-and-negatives-of-social-groups-on-adolescent-development/

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!