Dance like you mean it
And no, we’re not referring to the song by Tommy Ljungberg. Dancing has many benefits outside of looking cool and being a great and fun way to exercise. For example, to some animals (including humans) dancing is a sign of health. Many animals use dance as a form of courtship. However, there may be some aspects of dancing that are not as readily thought of as others.
Dancing, particularly choreographed, helps develop muscle memory (so you don’t have to really think about what you are doing). If a person practices a piece on an instrument enough they will develop muscle memory and can play and perform the piece with little effort. It is recommended to practice till muscle memory begins to form. This greatly with both fluidity and nerves. Many people become nervous when performing in front of others so having muscle memory is like failsafe if your mind goes blank. You can recover quickly because your body remembers what to do.
Fluidity in dancing is perhaps one of the easiest things to spot in a dancer. It can indicate their level of comfort with their situation or how well they have practiced. Fluidity and the development muscle memory reduces the cognitive load a person may be experiencing allowing them to take in more information that is going on outside of them as opposed to being tremendously focused on what they are doing.
There are a few mindful techniques you can practice if you have to perform in a situation n that makes you nervous. Firstly ‘You will perform like you practice’ well actually, you’ll perform a little worse than you’ve practiced so over practice and practice as you wish to perform. For example, if you need to turn in the dance then turn when you practice, that way you don’t forget to do in in the real thing. Remember: when you practice, you are developing muscle memory. Secondly, when practicing imaging the environment your performance will be in whether it’s giant crowd of people, or your family staring at you. The idea is to deal with the feeling of being nervous and uncomfortable before you do the real thing. That should take off some of the edges of nervousness.