Browsing Category
Mind & Body
145 posts
Learn what dance educators have observed about both physical and psychological aspects of dance.
How To Get A Dancer’s Body
By Joel Minden
Creating the look of a dancer is one thing, but a dancer's body is also characterized by fitness. Should dancers rely on aerobic training or "cardio" for conditioning? Let's consider the nature of a highly athletic form of dancing to determine whether aerobic exercise should be part of your approach to developing the body of a dancer
What Makes Elite Ballroom Dancers Better?
By Joel Minden
To answer this question, Prosen et al. (2013) examined movement quality of ballroom dancers competing at a world-class competition, the 2011 International Slovenia Open. Comparisons were made between top-ranked (placed in the top 12) and lower-ranked (placed in the bottom 12) couples
The Way of a Champion
By Mikhail Radchenko
Each time, entering a training hall, the dancer shall represent clearly why he came to training, what is the goal and what he is going to improve today. And during all training he must work over it. Full concentration on the goal is necessary.
Devotion to the motion …
By Ruud Vermeij
Because a dancer is a person he or she can never be wholly abstract. A male person is a man dancing, a female person is a woman dancing. Together the statement is made.
Raising questions about “Amateurs” in competitive ballroom dance
By Denys Drozdyuk
The term Amateur as it is used in today's competitive ballroom dancing is misleading, mismatched, and somewhat harmful to the dancers themselves. The way that the word "Amateur" is perceived by the dancesport industry is not the way that it is perceived by the outside world. This mismatch in perception raises problems, questions, and concerns
Have the mindset of a champion
In her book, ‘Mindset the New Psychology of Success’, Carol Dweck says: “In sports everybody believes in talent. Even -or especially- the experts. In fact in sports is where the idea of ‘a natural’ comes from, someone who moves like an athlete and is an athlete, all without trying. So great is the belief in natural talent that many coaches search only for talents”.
From conscious movement to unconscious movement
By Jean Dorff
There is a constant process of motions in our bodies such as breathing, bloodstream, lymph system etcetera. The majority of motions in our body are beyond most people's ability to control. Although we can bring these movements to a level of consciousness, most of us can only control them to some extent, if at all.
Insecurity versus Perfection
By Benoit Papineau
From our education, most of us were also made to believe that perfection was humanly impossible and it became difficult for us to even conceive what perfection may be. We even have learned that perfection was beyond our ability to comprehend it. Can you imagine?...
Rhythmic quality in dance is more objective than it seems
By Xavier Mora
This article is part of a project that aims at changing this state of affairs. It is a sequel to a more technical paper that makes use of some mathematics.
Lessons from Pablo Picasso
How dancers can learn lessons from Pablo Picasso. Compiled by Ekaterina Lapaeva