Brown Ballroom Dance

Although it is good to dance as much as possible, practice should have some structure. Otherwise, bad habits may be reinforced as opposed to developing new and better ones.

Start each hour with ten minutes of warm up dancing and stretching, followed by 2 songs devoted to rumba walks, and 2 songs to extended ballroom walks. These need to be done with correct poise, paying special attention to straightening legs, brushing, use of foot and foot positioning. If you are competing you need to be at practice on time and at a session your partner is attending. If your partner is not there work on your own, developing muscle memory for your step patterns, timing and dance frame.

Hopefully after the initial warm up there will be time to play 2 songs of each dance being competed at the upcoming competitions, if not play at least 1 song of each. Try to have a specific goal to work on whilst you are practicing and ask for advice from more senior dancers as to how this is progressing. Key elements to work on should be: frame, partnering, timing, footwork and placement, rise and fall, Cuban motion/hips, arm styling, presentation, emotion. Try not to learn new step patterns. At competitions, you are better off dancing one step pattern well, thirty times in a row than than dancing ten patterns badly.

These easy steps help quickly improve your dancing. Attending as many classes as possible is an obvious given. If you have time constraints, you are better off going to a Bronze class instead of a more advanced class regardless of how long you have been dancing.