1. You can Two-Step Two Step is the quintessential country dance. It fast moving with spins, weaves and cool patterns. It’s really fun and you’ll get the opportunity to two step all weekend long at a country event. Not only in competition but during social dance breaks and evening social dances. You’re gonna love it! ( Plus.. you can’t two …
7 Reasons to come to a Country Dance event (even if you don’t compete)
7 REASONS TO ATTEND A COUNTRY DANCE EVENT EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT COMPETING! 1. Social Dancing There are plenty of opportunities, day or night, for social dancing at UCWDC events. It’s a wonderful opportunity for you to practice a bunch of different styles, like: Two Step, Nightclub Two Step, West Coast Swing, Waltz, Cha-Cha, etc. Social dancing gives non-competitors and …
8 Tips to Get Started as a Country Dance Professional
So, you’ve been considering becoming a country dance professional. You’ve been a lover of country music your whole life! It’s no wonder you want to mix your love of dance, music and competing into a thriving country dance business. You know what they say, “Do what you love – love what you do.” I’m making one small assumption in this …
Performance Anxiety – Dealing with nerves
Back in the eighties, a slew of alien movies like Cocoon, Alien, ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind made all of us nervous about what an advanced “space” civilization might think about our Earthly activities. Were they studying our TV shows? Infiltrating our radio waves? Landing in pastures late at night to spy on us in our sleep? …
Teaching yourself to practice
Anyone who plays a sport or engages in any physical activity knows that practice improves your ability. The human body responds extremely well to repetition. Whether we are repeating positive behaviors, or negative, the body will grow in the direction we give it. In the dance studio, we call it “muscle memory.” Muscle Memory Muscle memory serves us well because …
Dealing with setbacks as a competitor
Setbacks… they are part of the game! Have you ever had one of those weeks when it seems like every part of your life is going along swimmingly, and then suddenly things take a giant leap backwards? That’s pretty much how it went. It’s a long road… It began when I asked my dance coach’s wife, L, to give me …
Training your center for country dancing
Have you ever been to a dance lesson where someone didn’t mention your center? You have to move from your center! Okay. Okay. So we have all heard it before, a million times, already. We know this, but we don’t all do it, or at least not all the time. The truth is that it can take years to really understand what it …
Finding (or building) your dream dance family
Back in the day, our parents stuffed us in our sleeper pajamas and piled us in the back of the station wagon. At the drive-in, we lay side-by-side on a thick musty blanket with the back tailgate down to watch Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As kids, we fell in love with Mr. Wonka – We fell in love …
Technique and Experince
Technique and Experience The start My first private dance lesson took place in small fitness room in the basement of a 1940s country club smelling of mildew mixed with chlorine. During the entire hour, my instructor explained the Rumba “basic step.” Facing the fitness mirror, we “stroked” the floor with the inside edge of our big toe, counting 4-1, 2-3. …
7 lessons you’ll learn as a country dancer
I don’t think I chose dance as a portal for transformation, I think it chose me. I remember as a very young child, rolling around on the mats at TinyTot’s Dance Academy in my black leotard and baggy pink tights that wrinkled around my skinny ankles, and despite my exuberance and excitement, Miss Cathy insisting that I get in line …