I love dancing! I have danced basically my whole life and have been lucky enough to turn it into my career. I started to think about why I love dancing and what benefits we gain from it.

It is good exercise

This benefit is a little more obvious than the others being that you can burn calories while dancing. How many calories you burh obviously depends on the type of class you are doing. Dance also helps towards a healthy heart and lungs whilst increasing strength in muscles. If like me, you don’t enjoy the gym too much then dancing doesn’t even feel like you’re working out! It also improves endurance which aids you in different aspects of your life. Dance improves coordination and balance, which is important in day-to-day life activities or sports.

Builds flexibility and strength

Flexibility is an important part of being healthy and dance requires a great amount of flexibility. All of our dance classes start with a warmup which includes a variety of stretches. Each week we are aiming to improve our flexibility and achieve the full range of motion for all the muscle groups. The greater the range of motion, the more muscles can flex and extend. Most forms of dance require dancers to perform moves that require bending and stretching, so dancers naturally become more flexible by simply dancing.

Strength is defined as the ability of a muscle to exert a force against resistance. Dancing builds strength by forcing the muscles to resist against a dancer’s own body weight. The styles of dance we offer all require different amounts of strength, whether that is holding a balance called the ‘freeze’ in street dance or lifting each other up in stunts in cheerleading. Bottom of Form

It is a stress-reliever and builds our confidence

Whenever we exercise, chemicals called endorphins are released which then triggers positive feelings. So of course, this is the same for when you dance. Dance is the perfect form of exercise to relieve some stress and have fun at the same time. Personally, dancing on a bad or stressful day has distracted me from the outside world.  Also, when dancing you don’t have to worry about if anyone is judging you or your dancing because more than likely, the dancers themselves are getting lost in the music as well. Joining a dance class can increase self-confidence and build social skills. It gives you an opportunity to make new friends and work as a team. Physical activity reduces stress and tension so regular dancing gives you an overall sense of wellbeing. Let’s all dance like no one’s watching!

It is a good form of discipline

Teaching dance has made me realise that this is very true. Students become much more attentive and hardworking after their first few months of dance classes. This is because there’s different rules that apply to different aspects of dance. Dancing also requires a lot of focus and promotes independent thinking.

It is a creative outlet

We express our emotions when we dance and allows us to interpret how the music makes us feel. It teaches the values and skills of creativity, problem solving and risk taking. In our classes we often put on a piece of music and ask the pupils to tell us how the music makes them feel and then dance around the room expressing that. The pupils also get exposed to different types of music from pop to rock etc.

Your future

Dance education prepares people for careers in dance and other fields as well as it just being a hobby for some of our pupils.