Commitment
As dancers, we discuss the importance of commitment. Commitment is one of the most important factors in ensuring you are successful in all aspects of your life, not only as a dancer.
Commitment is about being dedicated to something like an activity or a cause, and in our case, this is dancing. It is about showing up to class, even when you can’t be bothered or do not feel motivated to, and still giving it your all. It can be challenging at times to stay committed, but it is these difficult times that lead to growth in you as a person and as a dancer.
When you make the decision to participate in dance, or in anything in life for that matter, it is vital to fully commit yourself. This ensures that your friends, teachers and ultimately, yourself get as much out of it as you possibly can!
The friends we make through dance are lifelong friends. We share the laughs, the fun and on our hardest days, our dance friends are there to pick us up, help us through and keep us dancing. Dance is as much a team sport as it is an individual sport. In concert dances, we must work with others to produce a synchronized piece that flows well. In troupe classes, teamwork is essential to ensure everyone can perform their best piece on stage. Even in warm ups, we all do our star jumps or splits at the same time. That’s because as dancers, we are part of a team and without commitment and dedication, unfortunately, teams can begin to break down..
We share a love of dance with our teammates, and they look forward to seeing us in class every week. There are going to be times where we unfortunately cannot make it to dance class and that is okay but we must endeavour to do our best to attend every lesson that we possibly can and catch up on those classes missed. This shows that we are committed to improving our skills and ensures that we are able to keep up with the rest of the class. It also allows the entire class to be able to advance with its choreography together and creates greater cohesion for our dances.
Our teachers spend lots of time planning our classes so that we can have heaps of fun and learn as much as possible in the lesson. By doing our best to attend class every week, it allows us to get the most of our classes and makes it easier for our teachers to be able to plan lessons that are inclusive of everyone and, of course, enjoyable!
We all go through our ups and downs in life. Sometimes we go to the studio feeling exhausted or upset by something that happened that day, and we don’t feel like dancing. However, every dancer knows that once they start dancing, they feel so much better and can leave their worries at the door of the studio. When we leave the studio, we always feel so much better than we did before, and most of the time we feel uplifted and refreshed. Sometimes we just need to ‘dance it out!’, as we say. It is vital that we are surrounded by our loving teachers and dancers to take our mind off things.
Self-discipline is an important personal quality for a healthy and happy lifestyle and is particularly important in dance. It is important that we stay determined and on-track so that we don’t lose focus on what we love. As dancers, we are constantly finding the motivation to do that extra turn, to hold those splits for ten seconds longer or to do that combination for the thousandth time. Most importantly, we find the motivation to show up to class each week to learn and grow as humans. It is an amazing feeling when you achieve a goal or learn a new skill that you commit yourself to working on. The self-discipline that comes with dance can be transferred to other areas of our lives. The learnings we get from practicing and coming to class each week help us to have the self-discipline to study for our upcoming tests at school, finish off our chores at home or even to have that healthy snack. The skills we develop through dance are very transferrable to everyday life which makes it all the more worthwhile!
Finally, having commitment to dance means we are committed to improving our skills. It is one of the many important attributes that we strive to display as dancers. Consistently showing up to class and giving it our all means we will get something out of all our hard work. It enables us to continuously improve our skills such as flexibility, rhythm, groove and strength, whilst also teaching us great life values. We can amaze ourselves by our improvements when we show up every week!
Commitment is a key ingredient to ensuring we can work towards and achieve our goals!
See you next week in class!