10 Things To Do After Your First Ballroom Dance Class We get a lot of questions about what to do after the first ballroom dance lesson. One of the most common one is what to do to prepare for the next few dance lessons. Here are ten things you can do that will help you prepare. Most of them are fairly simple and have a huge impact on how you dance. 1. Wait to Practice It may be a surprise to learn that it is better not to practice after your first private lesson. Why? It’s very simple. You don’t have the knowledge or the muscle memory of the proper dance technique yet. It’s very frustrating for you and your teacher after that to break all of these “bad habits”. Even the best Ballroom Dance Teacher can’t teach you in one lesson. When you start “practicing” by yourself you don’t have any feedback from the Pro. So you definitely will do something wrong and the more you practice the more bad muscle memory will be created. So Wait to Practice! 2. Book your next lesson close as possible It is very, very important to keep your first couple lessons close as possible. That way you will remember more and retain more. Your teacher will teach you new material and you will  have a chance to learn more steps/technique. It is that proven that when you start something new, after one week of not taking a lesson, you will probably remember only 50% of what you learned. After two weeks maybe only 10%. If your schedule allows, The best case is to try to have a private lesson, group class or practice party every day. In the worst case [...]

Top 10 Wedding Songs That Haven’t Been Played To Death Are you tired of hearing the same old wedding songs at a wedding reception? Or maybe you want to have a wedding song to dance to that is as unique as your love is for your partner! Perhaps you have no idea what you want to dance to for your first dance and your are desperate for suggestions! Well we have made a list of ten songs that we feel that would be a good contribution to your list to consider for your first dance. We tried to include wedding songs from all different genres to try and find music as different as your story may be. There are even a few of the lyrics included in the description. that we felt really chime strong in the songs. The other good things about these songs is that there are a lot of of different dance styles that you can do to them. That way you don’t have to worry about doing that awkward stiff legged sway thing that some couples do during their wedding. You can wow and amaze your friends with a cool dance made to any of these not so normal wedding songs. 1. Take my Hand - Emily Hackett "Take my heart and take my hand I'll be your lover and I'll be your friend" "Ooh... too good to be true I wanna spend my life with you" 2. Speechless - Dan+Shay "I'm speechless Starin' at you standin' there in that dress" "Every time you walk into the room I'm speechless" 3. I Get to Love You - Ruelle "I get to love [...]

Passion in Pictures In each and every dancer there is defining moment when technique merges with Passion. You know. You've experienced this. Meet the man who has made capturing that moment his mission. Meet Joe Gaudet in interview specially for Dance Passion. “I will have done something that matters if I can capture the singular defining moment – the expression and emotion of life – in a photo of their dance.” – Joe Gaudet Picture this. I’m in the audience of the Florida Superstars Dancesport Championships when I notice him. He is near the edge of the dance floor. His stillness exists in stark contrast to the feverish movement displayed on the floor. His eyes seem to be everywhere. His camera is in hand; the lens poised and ready. The photographer looks like a dancer himself with the tight physique of the U.S. Navy helicopter rescue crewman he once was. It is Joe Gaudet, an award winning commercial and wedding photographer who on this night is indulging in his greatest passion - ballroom and latin dance photography. Full disclosure. I have known Joe for many years as a Creative Director and Broadcast Producer. His wedding photography business is thriving and with good reason. The man is talented. But ballroom dancing? This is an area of interest that I was not aware we shared. Recently, I caught up with him and peppered him with questions. His candid responses appear below. Susan: Joe, you have stated that you have a “passion” for ballroom dance. How did that interest come about? Do you dance yourself, or is your interest strictly visual? Joe: I have to thank Sonja Ballin of “Designs by Sonja” in Pinellas Park, Florida, for introducing me to the world of ballroom and latin dance. She had approached me about [...]

Want to Boost Your Productivity? Get Up and Dance Sharper thinking If you’ve been experiencing a bit of brain fog at work, shaking your groove thing can help clear all that up.  Studies have found that dancing can improve cognition as well as fine motor skills. So if you work at a job that requires focusing on a task for extended periods of time, dancing may be just what the doctor ordered. A report published in the New England Journal of Medicine also found dancing can reduce one’s chance of developing dementia. Reading, playing board games and playing musical instruments were also found to help sharpen the mind. Increased energy Are you looking for some energy to get through the work day? If you’ve resorted to mixing energy drinks with your coffee, it’s time to make a change. Dancing before work can give you a much healthier energy boost. Consequently, you’ll be alert and ready to take on the projects that await you. Besides, it’s kind of hard to type when your hand is shaking uncontrollably from caffeine-induced jitters. Elevated mood Are you often in a surly mood before you even get to work? Dancing may help change that. Before you know it, you’ll be the happiest person in the office. In fact, you’ll be so chipper it will start to get annoying. “Dancing has been shown to reduce depression, anxiety, and stress and boost self-esteem, body image, coping ability, and overall sense of well-being, with the benefits lasting over time,” say Berkley Wellness researchers. Fewer sick days Being out of the office on a sick day can put projects behind schedule. It’s hard to be productive when you’re sick or when team members are out because of their own illnesses. Luckily, the exercise you get from dancing is also an immune booster. According to the National Institutes [...]

Social Dance Etiquette USA Dance, Inc., the national governing body for DanceSport in the U.S., offers these tips for dance etiquette: May I Have This Dance? When you ask someone to dance, be sure to make eye contact with your prospective partner, offer our hand, and ask clearly, “Would you like to dance?” If your partner says yes, smile, offer your hand, and escort him or her onto the dance floor and into dance position. This will make your partner feel supported and at ease. Yes, Thank You, I’d Love To Dance When someone asks you to dance, your response should be, “Yes, thank you, I’d love to.” In a social dance environment, it is customary to say “yes” when someone asks you to dance. In order for dancing to be a joyous activity, it is important that social dancers are supportive and kind to each other at all skill levels. You Dance Divinely! During the dance, be sure to be aware of your partner. Smile and make eye contact, but don’t stare. It is fun to dance with a partner who is gracious and appreciative. At the end of the dance, ALWAYS say THANK YOU to your partner and begin to escort them off the floor. When To Say No When a person asks you to dance, it is appropriate to say no if you have danced with this person before and he or she has been physically or verbally abusive. It is also appropriate to say no if the person is obviously drunk or threatening in some way. If you feel that a dancer is physically dangerous to the other dancers, you should report the situation immediately to a Chapter Board member. Unless someone is truly offensive, it is not appropriate to say no because your partner may [...]

Dancing Makes You Smarter For centuries, dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise. More recently we’ve seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being. Most recently we’ve heard of another benefit: Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter. A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one’s mind by dancing can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing also increases cognitive acuity at all ages. You may have heard about the New England Journal of Medicine report on the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging. Here it is in a nutshell. The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity. They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect. Other activities had none. They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework. One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to [...]

Dancing Has Some Serious Health Benefits A four-month dance program helped older Latino adults walk faster and improved their physical fitness, which may reduce their risk for heart disease, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology/Lifestyle 2016 Scientific Sessions. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago tested whether a community-based intervention focused on Latin dancing could benefit 54 Spanish-speaking adults (about 65 years old, 80 percent Mexican female) who were not very physically active. Participants were randomly assigned to either participate in a dance program twice a week for four months or to attend a health education program. All participants completed questionnaires about their leisure time physical activity and a 400-meter walk test at the start and end of the study. After four months of twice-weekly Latin dancing, researchers found: Dancers walked faster and were more physically active during their leisure time than before they started dancing. Dancers completed a 400-meter walk in just under 392 seconds compared with almost 430 seconds at the start of the study. Leisure physical activity rose from 650 minutes to nearly a total of 818 minutes per week. Those in the health education classes had a smaller improvement in their fitness – they finished the 400-meter walk in about 409 seconds at the end of the study compared with 419 seconds four months earlier; total time spent on weekly leisure physical activity increased from 522 minutes to 628 minutes over the course of the study. The dance program is a program called BAILAMOS©, a culturally-tailored, community-based lifestyle intervention developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago by David X. Marquez and Miguel Mendez, included four different dance styles — merengue, bachata, cha cha cha and salsa – led by the dance instructor, with more complex choreography as the program progressed. Increasing physical [...]