The Ultimate Guide To Body Awareness For Beginner Dancers
In the very first section of our Ultimate Guide For Beginner Dancers, we explored the concepts behind music, rhythm, beats – and how they relate to dance. Now, we’re going to talk about body awareness.
(See Article: The Ultimate Guide To Musicality For Beginner Dancers)
As a dancer, your body is your most important tool. The more you familiarize yourself with it, the more natural and reflexive it will be to control it.
So read on, beginner dancers, and let’s start movin’!
Skrrrrt. Hold up. Before we get to moving anything, we need to know what we’re moving!
Body Awareness In Dance
Have you ever taken a yoga class? Then you’ll know that a big objective of yoga is simply to be present – in the mind, and the body.
By doing so, you’re bringing together your mental and physical – a healthy and therapeutic practice for anyone.
Similarly, as a dancer, your mind and body must be working together – your mind is the part that understands the music and the intent behind the movement, and your body is the actual tool for moving.
(See Related Article: How To Utilize Your Body To Execute Choreography Better From Carlo Darang (Cookies))
For Better Body Awareness, Try This:
Lay on the floor, and close your eyes. (Turn on some light music here, if you want.)
Go through this list of body parts, and focus your thoughts and feelings on each one.
Flex or move the part to draw more attention to it. Once you feel fully comfortable with where it is and what it feels like, move on to the next one.
Arms
Shoulder
Forearm
Wrist
Fingers
Fingertips
Legs
Thigh
Knees
Calves
Ankles
Feet
Toes
Hips
*Try rotating them in and out
Chest
Upper chest
Core (tummy area)
Lower abdomen
Neck
*Try turning your neck, and also rolling it clock- and counter-clockwise
It sounds almost too easy to be effective – but the key here is not the difficulty of the movement (which is obviously very minimal).
The key is how familiar you’re becoming with these body parts, which requires a surprisingly great deal of focus. Muscle memory starts with muscle awareness!
Most of us, even as dancers, go about our days or take class without putting much thought into each individual part of our tool. By dedicating your time and energy to getting to know it, you’re practicing the most fundamental dancer hack there is!
Body Placements In Dance
Cool, so we’re getting to know what each part of body feels like in a resting position.
Let’s create some pictures to explore how our bodies look and feel in certain placements.
(See Related Article: 5 Ways A Contemporary Dance Class Can Make You Better)
We’ll be using 3 main ideas for these exercises:
Focus
Posture
Angles
Focus
What “focus” refers to in dance is the direction your face is facing. Timed right with a committed facial, your focus has the power to make or break a piece.
Whatever pose you’re holding or pathway you’re moving through, your focus is most commonly straight to the mirror (not the greatest habit, but it’s good to watch yourself at first, when developing body awareness), to the right, to the left, up, down – and to varying degrees.
For example, “right 45” can refer to turning your face toward the right, but only halfway from directly ahead and your right side. “Down left 45” signals looking slightly toward the left, with your chin pointed down, so that your eyes are aimed at the bottom corner of the wall.
For a 2-D visual, think back to math class, and imagine the wall in front of your face being a giant x-y plane.
The corners of the room are the “diagonals” (“45s,” and the ends of the x-axis is the left/right, the y-axis, the up-down.
For Better Body Awareness, Try this:
Stretch your neck to the rhythm of a song, by looking to the
right, left, right left, ↔ then switch to
up, down, up, down ↕
then hit the diagonals! ⤢⤡
then roll your neck around so your eyes are making a big circle ⤿ and switch directions ⤾
Focus changes will flow naturally as you learn choreography, but sometimes the choreographer will specify certain pictures and combos to have a certain focus.
Posture
Posture has a lot to do with the style or mood of the piece.
For example, waacking will call for your chest to be more open, and your focuses will be sharp and purposeful. In a more “ghetto”-feeling piece, your posture might be directed more toward the ground, with a more relaxed torso and shoulders.
Think of posture as relating to body language. A big part of interpersonal communication is based on body language.
Similarly, your posture for a piece will set the tone for each movement in the choreography and consequently, the piece as a whole.
For Better Body Awareness, Try this:
Experiment with different postures and emitting a different “mood,” by putting on songs of varying genres, and having your body react naturally to them.
An upbeat pop song, a rap song, a slow r&b song, house music, EDM – experiment!
Memorize how your body feels, especially your core.
Angles And Pictures
Before getting into full-body poses and movement, let’s study how your body feels hitting certain angles.
These “angles” of your body parts, and the “pictures” they make with your body, are like the action shots that you see from competitions. Such. Clean. Lines!
Think of choreography as having points – Points A and B in the graphic below are the “pictures,” and the in-between movement is called the “pathway.”
We’re going to focus just on the points – the individual angles of your body parts that make those pictures.
For Better Body Awareness, Try this:
Extend your arms straight ahead of you, parallel to the floor. Now, bend at the elbows, creating a perpendicular angle.
Now, extend your arms to the left and right, straight out to each side. Reach as far as you can, through your fingertips! Bend again at the elbows, folding your arms so that your hands are by your clavicles.
Mix up these different “angles” of arms, memorizing how each feels. It’ll help you be a “cleaner” dancer in the long run, knowing exactly how these basic pictures are supposed to feel.
Add different angles to the mix, like diagonal arms, rotating your shoulders, etc.
Flex your limbs as you execute each picture, to really solidify it in your memory.
To exercise your pictures and the pathways between them,
For Better Body Awareness, Try this:
Pick 2 poses. Any 2 poses!
Now, put on some music, and hit your first pose on count 1. And switch to the second pose on count 5.
You can make that switch abrupt, or “milk” in between the 4 counts, by sloooowly getting from one picture to the next.
Curious about moving more? We’ll explore dynamics and textures in our next post. But before moving your body, it’s important to first note what your body feels like. Hopefully this guide helped you feel more comfortable in your own body, and more ready to dance in it.
Besides body awareness and execution, what are some other basics that beginner dancers should practice? Comment below and share with us!
Learn from the masters of their own bodies, on STEEZY Studio!
The Ultimate Guide To Body Awareness For Beginner Dancers was originally published on STEEZY