5 simple things beginners can do to move (and dance) better

We all have busy lives. There are some easy changes you can do to in your everyday life to make your dancing better without much effort.

1. Brush your teeth while standing on one foot.

Pretty easy really, in the morning stand on your right foot, in the evening stand on your left foot. Your body with automatically improve in it’s ability to balance. Time cost: zero, and you get a mini ballet lesson everyday (it’s like doing a basic form of tendu’s :) ).

2. When you walk down the street, walk with your feet parallel.

Roll through the foot so that your weight leaves the foot between the big and index toes. Too many people walk around with their feet turned out – an action that weakens your arch and is inefficient. Your foot is your lever arm to move your body relative to the ground. With feet parallel they are at their greatest length and thus the most powerful. (And yup, the main reason why ballet dancers dance with turn-out? to maximize efficient movement sideways – so they can stay facing the audience while they move across the floor).

3. Park on the far side of the parking lot.

Walking is a natural movement that balances the muscles in the body. Take half a minute to walk the extra 100 yards across the parking lot any time you can. It’s good for you.

4. If you have a desk job, get up and walk around more often.

Some fitness experts recommend every 20 minutes! You can set an alarm in Outlook to tell you to get up. Sitting all the time shortens the front muscle chain in the body. Notice all those people out there walking around with bad posture – with their heads sticking way forward of their bodies like a turtle? Shoulders all slumped forward to the front of the body? That’s a short front muscle chain. So, get up and go visit your coworkers, find out what they’re working on. It makes a better work environment.

5. Go barefoot at home.

As one dance teacher described it, when we are born our feet have as much dexterity and mobility as our hands, but we put our feet in these little leather coffins called shoes and they proceed to die for the rest of our lives. Did we evolve with shoes on our feet? Going barefoot allows our feet to waken up and move around more, all the small muscles in the feet can get exercise that they normally wouldn’t by wearing shoes.