You don’t need to get out the spray tan or cover yourself with sequins and have a panel of judges telling you you’re fabulous! You don’t even have to be in public. In fact, you can even dance while you drive, well, sort of…
Dancing is a wonderful way to release stuck energy in your body. Put on your favorite song and boogie around your living room, office, or kitchen. Dancing creates many health benefits like an improved condition of your heart and lungs; increased muscular strength, endurance, and aerobic fitness; better muscle tone as well as stronger bones and helping with weight management.
But if those aren’t enough reasons to start dancing how about having better coordination, agility, flexibility, balance and spatial awareness? All of this contributes to increased confidence not only physically but psychologically too with greater self-esteem and improved mental functioning!
You can dance by yourself, with a partner, in groups and pick from a plethora of techniques and music with which to express yourself. All of this will affect your business of course because you will have more energy and with all that new found confidence flowing easily through you, well, I think I just have to turn the music on right now!
Our relationships with our clients are also a dance, a give and take, someone leading, someone responding and a constant flow of exchange. When you find your own rhythm with this it need not be choreographed but will evolve into a beautiful interpretive freestyle that makes your heart sing, and everyone involved feels satisfied.
My first love in life was ballet and I was intent on becoming the next Margot Fonteyn. The Universe clearly had other ideas for me, but it began a lifelong love affair with moving my body in a variety of different styles to a wide range of music. It never occurred to me when I was a kid that this was my fitness regime. As a young adult, it became my first business teaching.
Jazzercise, a jazz-dance aerobics franchise. I never made any money, but I was certainly fit! As a young mother I would put on Trance music and dance around the living room with my eyes closed inventing my own form of meditation. Years later the dancing funneled into yoga which had a lot going for it, however as yoga is so controlled, the freedom and joy of dancing spilling forth from my soul were still wanting to be released.
I went to a Ceroc class which is two-step, sort of like Modern Jive. I didn’t know anybody and the teachers stood up on stage while three or four rows of couples lined up along the length of the room. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a partner because every few moments the women would move to the next man in line!
By the time I finished learning a short routine, I had danced with almost every man in the room, learned a new skill set, made a few friends and suddenly could be twirled around on the floor sort of feeling like I knew what I was doing! It was wonderful. The class is followed by freestyle dancing and that’s where I really learned how to follow and let the man lead. It’s fascinating to dance with so many different people as everyone has their own unique style and it forces me to adapt to each new partner’s technique.
Just like with mirroring a client’s body language and verbiage, while dancing I am doing the same, looking for visual clues, getting a sense about the man’s energy. I find my face hurts at the end of the night from smiling ear to ear for hours on end. The best thing about dancing for me is that I am totally present in my body and free from outside thoughts. I am flowing in the now.
Next time you’re about to get on the phone with someone, put on your favorite song and dance around your living room to carry that vibe through to the dance you will have with your clients.
