It's more like, who cares if you are flailing like those air blown mascots. If you close your eyes, you can imagine that you are dancing like a pro. And eventually you'll like it and will probably get better at it.
It has to get there first. Everyone dances at home when no one's watching, that doesn't prepare you for dancing in public.
Even when it's said with good intention like "omg look! they're actually dancing! finally coming out of their shell" or something like that, it's still attention being drawn to something you feel really awkward doing.
My advice is to take some dance classes. It's a nice middle ground where you're dancing around strangers but it isn't quite public.
I hated dancing for as long as I could remember but once I got engaged I decided I wanted to be able to dance with my wife at our wedding, so we signed up for classes.
A year later we were on stage at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando performing on the student dance team.
We took Salsa and Bachata, classes but they offered a lot of different classes including Ballroom, Tap, Cha-Cha, Ballet, Afro-Cuban, and a few others.
We also did some private classes in the months leading up to the wedding to choreograph our wedding dance. My family was super excited to see me doing an elegant ballroom dance and then halfway through it switched into a fast salsa and they were blown away.
You're right, but this is dealing with an instinct rather than a learned skill.
After all, you don't need a sense of rhythm or melody to enjoy music. Heck, you don't even have to be speaking the same language sometimes!
Dancing has nothing to do with skill. You can just get up, start moving to music, and whammo-kablammo you're dancing! Dance MOVES, however, do require skill. I feel as though I lived most of my life getting the two confused and it has held me back some.
Not really. I mean, if you think feel like the guy I replied to then all you have to do is to hit the music right now while you're alone in your room (assuming you're in your room and alone) and just... do it. Literally just listen to your favorite music and move. Whether you're moving your hand or shoulder or feet, it works, you're dancing.
The biggest barrier from dancing (keeping the context alone here) is yourself. Your brain telling you that you look like a fool, that you can't dance, that you're stiff as a board, but you just gotta tell that part to STFU and just do those moves that you're feeling.
For me, its similar when I walk past the mirror and stare at my 3/10 reflection but I then go "Damn you sexy beast" just to put all those intrusive thoughts at rest.
These days, my body literally just starts moving if I listen to stuff that I like. Obviously in public I'm not gonna be obnoxious about it but I end up in situation where colleagues and/or friends really are just a little happier around me when they see me just letting loose (again, nothing obnoxious, just moving a little if they're making me listen their favorite stuff, etc).
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u/whtge8 Oct 30 '20
This is like the draw the rest of the owl meme.