How to learn dancing for beginners

How to Learn Dance at Home Step by Step: Complete guide

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Interested in dance and want to learn a few dance moves at home? Here's how.

Written by Red Bull Editorial Team

4 min readPublished on 07.09.2020 · 8:12 UTC

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Dance is one of the most multi-purpose skills out there. What else can you use in the club and as a workout? Lots of people learn to dance in structured settings like studios, but with the prevalence of the internet, many resources like videos and online communities for support, anyone can learn to dance at home.

How to Learn to Dance at Home

Want to improve your moves? Follow these steps to learn to dance at home:

1. Select a style

Start by deciding what style of dance you want to learn. There are tons out there — individual dance styles like ballet, jazz, and hip hop, and partner styles like ballroom and salsa. Definitely figure out what type you're interested in before you get started, which will make it easier to find the best resources.

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2. Decide on technique or routine

Next, decide whether you want to learn basic technique or a specific dance. Most dance styles have foundational movements that trained dancers practice repeatedly to build their strength, endurance, and skill. However, some folks who are just learning for fun might prefer learning a specific dance, like Lil Uzi Vert's Futsal Shuffle rather than just practicing the basics.

3. Find the right video

1 min

Dance Home Guide: B-Boy Wigor

Zaczynamy wyzwanie: #RedBullHomeChallenge! Pukamy do drzwi domów B-Boys i B-Girls, a oni pokazują, jak mieszkają. Oczywiście tanecznym krokiem! Zobacz wideo Dance Home Guide z B-Boyem Wigorem.

Now's the time to find your teacher: A video. There are tons of fantastic vids out there from professional dancers, teachers, musicians, and amateurs to help you learn to dance. Lots of websites offer classes, tutorials, or tips for burgeoning dancers — some are free and some cost money. If you're looking for a technique class, search for something like "hip hop dance class." If you want to learn a specific dance, search for the name of the dance along with "tutorial," like "Chicago Cell Block Tango tutorial."

4. Warm up

Dance Your Style 2019: Tokyp warm-up

Before you dance, it's important you warm up. Get your heart rate up and your muscles warm by jogging in place. Do some stretching like touching your toes and opening your hips to loosen up. Most dance styles require a bit of flexibility, so focus on a few exercises that will help lengthen tight muscles before you get going.

5. Do the lesson

Finally, it's time to dance! Play your video, and get moving! If you're using a smart TV, keep the remote nearby so you can pause and rewind when you need to see a step again. If you're using your phone or laptop, keep it close by for the same reason. Don't be afraid to do the same step or section a few times over — some steps take longer than others to master.

Tip: Try the moves in front of a mirror next to your video so you can see how you look.

6. Practice

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill — don't give up! Keep practicing with the same video and new videos with other teachers to get better at your dance. You'll see improvement the more you work at it.

B-Boy Junior poses for an action shot

Best Resources to Learn How to Dance

The internet is an amazing place. So many resources exist for people to master dance at home. Consider these top learn-to-dance-at-home resources to get started.

Free Options

For a more cost-effective option (though you'll have to do more searching for solid content), try out these guys:

YouTube: YouTube is a great place to start to find dance class videos if you're still figuring out which styles you're interested in learning.
Vimeo: Vimeo has always been a favorite of creative types, so you might be able to find some solid videos there.
Twitch: A newcomer to the user-uploaded video game, but Twitch is a competitor nonetheless. You could find some gems on here!

Where to Start

Totally overwhelmed and not sure which style you should start with? Consider starting with one of the big top three: Ballet, jazz, or hip hop. Almost every other style of dance uses some ballet terminology (yes, even hip hop), so it might be helpful to learn a little ballet before anything else.

Jazz and hip hop are also foundational styles — jazz is the basis for contemporary dance and hip hop informs lots of popular, urban and music video dances. Want a list of a few dance styles to try? You got it. Keep in mind, there are hundreds of different dance styles out there — one of them is absolutely perfect for you!

Ballet
Jazz
Hip hop
Contemporary
Lyrical
Breaking
Ballroom
Bollywood
Tap
African dance
Latin dance
Swing dance
Flamenco

Learning to dance should be fun. Take the time in the comfort of your living room to learn a new technique or routine to show off to your friends.

Learn How To Dance At Home With These 4 Tips

Wanna learn how to dance at home?

There are times you get really motivated to become a better dancer...

BUT You either live 92736 miles from the nearest studio, classes are not being offered on that day, you have no ride, or you can't afford to pay for a class.

Ugh, buzzkill.

It's not always possible to take a dance class or workshop whenever inspiration strikes. But that doesn't mean you can't dance!

You can get getter at dancing anywhere, anytime... including your own living room. Here are 4 ways to learn dance at home!

1. Practice a piece you've already learned

Ever take a class that was soooo good?

Well, that experience doesn't have to end! You can keep practicing that piece on your own time.

Start by playing the song and marking the piece in your head. Then try it with a light mark.

(You don't need a mirror here, but it does help for cleaning.)

Once you remember how it feels, turn off the song and go over each 8-count in detail.

Try and remember the notes that the choreographer gave that you may have missed because of the pressures of class.

Got it more ingrained in your muscle memory? Cool. Now go full out.

With more leeway on time, you have the luxury of really playing around with the choreography – adding performance, facials, some freestyle, etc.

This is a great way to get better at dancing and hone your strategy in class taking.

Re-learning a piece at your own pace will help you understand how to approach a piece the next time you take a class.

‍Get more ideas on how to keep learning dance at home! How You Should Practice After Learning A Piece

2.

Drill fundamental exercises and grooves

Popping, Locking, Waacking, House, etc., – whatever style you want to get better in, the key to improvement is all the same – repetition.

Play a song, and practice the basics. Switch it up every few 8-counts or so.

Combine variations of those basic drills – this is the skeleton to your freestyle! Doing this will not only strengthen your fundamentals, but it's also a practice in mental discipline.

You will strengthen the body parts you engage, getting the grooves into your muscle memory.

Want to drill your Popping fundamentals? Try Boogie Frantick's Popping Program on STEEZY Studio!

‍Boogie also gives tons of practice drills that you can do on your own time, outside of the class. Or, practice Hip Hop Grooves with Bianca Vallar.

This class will definitely get your body loose and comfortable. Bust out these moves in a freestyle circle or at the club!

Carlo Darang from Choreo Cookies, Building Block, and STEEZY Studio talks about grooves here:

3. Stretch and strength train your body

As dancers, our bodies are our most important tools. It's crucial to keep it healthy, strong, and flexible.

Even if you're not actively dancing, you can still become a better dancer by stretching and strength training your body.

Identify a few parts of your body that you'd like to strengthen.

For instance, Do your arms feel floppy when you dance? Are you having problems with balance? Do you want to kick higher or jump further?

Targeting key areas will make you more confident and better able to execute in a way that you envision for yourself.

When you have a better understanding of your body, you get better at dancing with it.

Unsure of where to start? Your core is a great body part to train – a stronger core will mean better balance, control, and strength.

Do crunches, planks, and other ab exercises are easy ways to become a better dancer at home.

‍Try out: 7 Stretches To Help You Dance Better (And Stay Injury-Free!)

When I first started dancing, I'd find pieces on YouTube and try to learn it off of the 240 pixel non-mirrored video.

But now... there's STEEZY Studio.

STEEZY Studio brings dance classes from world-class choreographers straight to your home.

You can review certain sections, skip 15 seconds forward or back, switch quickly from front / back views, and practice in a slow, medium or tempo speed as many times as you need.

You have everything you need to dance at home!

We hope these ideas inspired you to train – with or without a studio.

‍Have other suggestions for training at home? Leave a comment below and share with us!

90,000 12 life hacks, to quickly learn how to dance from Mamita Dance

Dances

Author: Pavel Gather
Psychologist, Lecturer Salsa and Tango

Dances

Author: Pavel Pavel
Psychologist, Lecturer Salsa

on At the start, you always want to get a quick result. When it doesn't happen, the hypothesis arises that everything takes time. After a conditionally acceptable time, humility comes to mastering pair dances, which, perhaps, is not given, and I will just do what I learned somehow. nine0003

This is the most common story of those who believe that the mere act of attending a pair dance class is enough to learn how to dance.
Absolutely not. If you want to really dance well, you have to make an effort outside of the dance class. A good teacher will definitely be needed, but the initiative should be on your side.

1. Listen to music

The most common and accessible advice that is given already in the first lessons. And it definitely works. Music creates a certain atmosphere of the dance and intuitively you want to move to it. It doesn't matter where you listen to music - in the car, on headphones while walking or doing household chores. nine0003

An addition that will help you dance better is your active participation in the music. Sing along, dance or simply beat musical accents with any free parts of the body. In the subway, for example, it is enough to tap out bright moments with your fingers, in the car to sing along with sounds, and at home you can jump for pleasure.

2. Watch videos of good dancers

It's complicated, but also obvious. It’s more difficult, because without recommendations from more experienced dancers, unfortunately, it’s not so easy to find a good quality video on the net (I mean not the resolution quality, but the content itself). nine0003

Meaningful video viewing is about building an understanding of HOW dancers make a particular impression on a partner or viewer. Technology is at the heart of everything. Understanding how the pros do it is a big step forward.

It is important to distinguish a show from a disco dance, a staged performance from an improvisation, a stylized dance from an authentic one, etc. Ask for recommendations and dance teachers will always throw off a couple of videos of worthy landmarks. nine0007

Tango Z. Showreel.

Online modern tango courses

Tango nuevo is the most advanced version of tango. We can quickly learn to dance from zero to a steep level.

View details

3. Dance in salsatecas/milongas/discotheques

A very delicate moment when it is worth coming to the first party. From a technical point of view, most students in 1-3 months have a sufficient set of figures and techniques to come and dance calmly. Psychologically, the same moment can be stretched out for an indefinite time. After all, it is imperative to “not lose face”, “learn more figures” and be sure what to do in case “there is an unfamiliar movement”. nine0003

In fact, the partygoers don't really care (except for a small layer of non-professional teachers who want to help inexperienced dancers by treating them as customers in the future). It is important to come and try dancing after a month of classes. You can only with friends or guys from your group. This will be enough to feel the adrenaline and inspiration from the dance.

4. Dance with partners or partners not of your level

The conventional wisdom that you need to practice in groups of your level does not withstand the test of experience. Perhaps now your eyes widened in surprise, and you want to meaningfully read the phrase again. Yes, you saw everything correctly: when you dance with a partner of your level, you don’t grow anywhere. nine0003

It's important to understand that not only does it work one way and you have to dance with cooler dancers, but it works even more effectively the other way. It is no coincidence that teaching pair dances dramatically raises the level of the teacher himself. You have an endless stream of very beginner dancers.

How it works. A more experienced partner needs to be "stretched". It's easy and obvious. With beginners, you need to take more initiative on yourself, see the general pattern of the dance more widely, turn on and insure more, try to be an example and be more careful. The quality of interaction begins to grow significantly. And wonderful partners too. nine0003

Dancing with partners of your level doesn't make you grow. Dance with both beginners and more advanced dancers

Dominican Bachata Women's Style Online Course

Want to learn how to hypnotize those around you with the most appetizing part of your body? On the course we will tell you all the secrets.

Interesting

5. Learn to dance for a partner and for a partner

Turks and Argentines are one of the best partners in the world. In Russia, partners are highly valued. Why? The answer is simple. In Argentina and Turkey, it is not questionable for men to ask another man to lead in one piece or another and give feedback on the quality of the lead. For them, it will be a great shame to hear moralizing from a partner, or even more so to be known in the community as an insecure partner. nine0003

In Russia, due to the constant, often far-fetched, opinion that there are more women in pair dances, partners calmly get up and study their partner's part. Such partners then grow into very cool dancers and teachers. In no case do this at parties, only in class. Here we are talking only about the learning strategy. At parties, be yourself.

6. Do not memorize the links

Always try to look deeper and understand the through principle and idea of movement. Understanding what and how is done will make it possible to independently generate any sequences and chips. nine0003

Human memory is limited and there will always be a moment when something will escape and your repertoire will be limited by the size of RAM.

In Argentine tango, for example, there are seven levels of movement construction that, when mastered, will allow you to make millions of combinations. And how many dance sequences can you really remember? In rueda, more than 150 figures dance in a rare circle. It's hard to keep more in mind.

7. Develop your body

Many years of experience in teaching couple dance shows that as soon as everyone pairs up in a class, any progress in individual style ends. But it is the individual style that distinguishes everyone at the disco: partners change, and style is always with you. nine0003

The body as the main instrument of dance must be very plastic, responsive and emotional. Surprisingly, not all pair dance schools have a general physical warm-up. It is vital to tune the body and understand how it works.

You can always train extra and concentrate more on the basic steps, as their true value is as body work. The sequence of steps is, in fact, the simplest thing that can be in pair dancing. The quality of individual performance determines the craftsmanship. nine0003

8. Try on the images of inspiring dancers

A psychological life hack for those who have already mastered the steps, but still feel that there is not enough brightness and drive. Most are terribly afraid of being someone else's "clone". Here the action is the same as under the influence of hypnosis - the more you resist, the more you plunge into an altered state of consciousness.

With a high degree of probability, you are already dancing like someone else's "clone". A meaningful fitting of someone else's image is that you mentally take the image of the one who inspires you (inspiration is critical in this case) and "put on" yourself. Then you start dancing and trying to feel in general how it is to be able, for example, to be the best partner or the sexiest partner in a disco. This is much more difficult than it seems. But it works extremely efficiently. nine0003

9. Dance to offbeat music

Habitual rhythms keep you tight. Tango salon or speedy timba leave little room for experimentation and fantasy. Pattern dancing is always noticeable and is reserved for beginners.

The truly new is born outside of the usual. Look for places to experiment. If there is no place, organize self-training. The main thing is not to get carried away, because music determines the style. We bring something new to pair dances, rather than trying to change them. nine0007

Search, improvise, don’t be afraid to go beyond, develop in different directions, be inspired by music atypical for the style

10. Try your hand at basic dance directions

dances exist according to their own non-choreographic laws.

This is the deepest delusion, which has turned into a ceiling for the qualitative development of partner dances. After all, all professional dancers, for example, in salsa or bachata, build their ideas on the basic choreographic principles. nine0003

Do not think that choreography is only applicable on stage. Any meaningful movement of the body can be choreographic. In general, try classical or modern choreography. Basically, hip-hop can work too.

11. Look for battle sensations

Pair dances return us to an active position of manifestation of our body. As in the days of our ancient ancestors, we impress the members of the opposite sex by how dexterous, hardy, sexy, etc. we are. Modern laws of the jungle in the entourage of big cities. nine0003

If you look around the dance floor, it becomes clear that the majority are clearly herbivores (not in the sense of vegetarians, but in relation to those around them). I am sure that predators are always more interesting in terms of the attractiveness of the image - try to find a counterbalance among herbivores, for example, a cat woman or a lion man.

The conversation is about an internal position, not about aggressiveness. Lability and lack of control are inherent in adolescents, and not in adult self-sufficient people.

Accordingly, even a training or friendly battle gives, on the one hand, practical skills - to make a bright sequence of movements, bring an idea to a climax, show a spectacular feature, on the other hand, develops the psychological basis of the dance - self-confidence, resistance to extraneous attention, self-control and self-control in complex elements. nine0007

12. Communicate with professionals

The environment shapes the internal position. Basically, real passionaries of the dance community are ready to openly talk, discuss and support the development of dance in every possible way. Universal principles and the ideas they articulate have a much longer and more practical perspective than meets the eye.

Accept that, for example, behind the words "listen to your partner" is not only a beautiful metaphor, but also a practical skill to literally listen to your partner. At the same time, always treat every thought, even the most respected teacher, as a private opinion. nine0003

Your skill will lie in finding the scope of the idea even in conflicting opinions. Most often, the contradiction is speculative and the truth lies in the angle of perception or situationality.

Your dancing growth will stop sooner or later. This can happen at the level of three basic steps or years of experience in teaching and show performances. Regardless of your level, the suggested 12 life hacks can get you off the ground and greatly accelerate your dance growth. There is no way here without your motivation and activity. Take your dance development into your own hands. nineOl000 Dangerous sexuality

Salsa: destroyers of stereotypes

Couple dancing as a source of strength.

Self-destruction of the couple dance community

The Salsa series as a mirror of the community

Mamita Fridays: salsa, bachata

Destroying the myths about leading pair dances

Does dancing make us better?

The seven deadly sins of teachers

Why we will never dance bachata like the Dominicans

Why tango?

Dispute over musicality

Selection of dances according to alcohol preferences

Where to find inspiration for dancing? nine0003

Terrible tango nuevo

Distribution of roles in a salsa party

Argentinean tango through the eyes of a salsa dancer

Is there a predisposition to dancing?

Which is more effective: individual or group lessons?

Sexual overtones in partner dancing

How to learn to dance from scratch: 6 key tips

Dreaming of learning to dance, but something stops you? All beginners have fears. And The Challenger has ideas on how to start dancing, even if you've never tried it. nine0003

Forget your fears

If you think that you do not have a sense of rhythm, flexibility, age is not right, this does not mean that you cannot sign up for dancing. All fears live in the head. Modern types of dances perfectly develop all these qualities. In dance studios you will be in a group for beginners or individually, the trainer will show and tell you what to do and how to do it. Training takes place gradually, from the basics - you will be taught everything.

Try different dances

There are many dance directions: European, Latin American, Caribbean, modern, oriental, fitness, classical. How to decide? Go to trial lessons and find something of your own - so that this particular dance ignites you, gives you strength. Maybe it will be not one, but two directions. In the first lesson, you will get acquainted with the basics, starting with the simplest. If you have chosen a pair dance, you should not worry about the lack of a partner - the studios will always help with this. nine0003

Dance for yourself

Here is the main secret. Dance at home, in the hall, on the street. A little practice - and you will dance anywhere without hesitation. Enjoy the movements, do not think about how correctly and well you do it. Let at first it doesn’t work out the way you would like, but the more you practice, the easier the elements are given. Desire is all you need. A competent coach will teach technique and inspire confidence. Nobody dances the first time like Baryshnikov - tune in to success, and you will succeed. nine0003

Attend classes regularly

Yes, learning to dance after two or three lessons is unlikely to succeed. Regularity is important here - then you will definitely see progress. You can learn the basics in a couple of months by attending two or three classes a week at a school or dance studio. The main thing is not to stop. At home, too, dance whenever possible.

Do not compare yourself to others

Level yourself. Everyone needs a different time and amount of effort to achieve the desired results. History knows examples when people learned to dance professionally and successfully competed even in adulthood. But you need to put in the best effort. A person who lives by dancing can do it all. From scratch. At any age. nine0003

Don't forget your dream

Dances inspire, ignite, change from the inside. If you try, you will probably not be able to live without them and you will regret only one thing - that you did not come earlier. Thanks to dancing, you develop a sense of rhythm, flexibility, improve health, improve your overall mental state (dance is recommended as a therapy), the body becomes more toned, and posture improves. The dancer moves in a different way in life - he flies, proudly carries himself.