By Katelynn Heugel, Staff Writer
There are many health benefits of dancing. It keeps you in shape, and helps with flexibility and endurance. But what other benefits could come out of dancing?
As an incoming first-year, I believed I had found my niche as a band kid, and that I had no other potential talents. I had gone through the past few years thinking that I could not dance, and when a friend invited me to a “surprise meeting,” I hoped to God that it would not involve dancing. When I showed up that Friday evening, as it turned out, the event was a swing dance lesson with the Let’s Dance Society.
The† Let’s Dance Society’s goal is to bring a diverse community of students together in a fun social setting. In addition to swing, the dancers have experimented in tango, salsa, merengue, cha-cha and lindy hop to shake things up.
Little did I know that walking into that room and taking my first rock step would change my life forever.
I admit that I went back to the lessons every week mainly because I had a small crush on the teacher, but the more I danced, the more I fell in love with it.† From lesson to lesson, I was encouraged by the veteran dancers of the Let’s Dance Society to keep dancing and develop my personal style.
This would soon become a lesson in self-esteem and confidence. I had always thought of myself as a pretty confident person, but whenever I danced in front of other people, my confidence level dropped.
I wasn’t willing to just go out there and express myself, and after almost two years I have finally come out of my shell on the dance floor.
This newfound confidence has spilled over into my social life, enabling me to talk to people who I would never have attempted to connect with before.
When you partake in social dancing, you have to be willing to dance with and meet new people. The people that you dance with may be more or less advanced than you, but you never really know until that moment when you begin dancing, and as a couple, you click.
This past summer I truly began “social dancing.” I went out and danced with people whom I had never met before, and they are now the people with whom I have some of the best dancing connections.
When I first started dancing, I only wanted to do so with people that I knew — my boyfriend and other people in the Let’s Dance Society. I was self-conscious, and felt that I probably shouldn’t waste other people’s time.
I later learned that expanding my dance partner repertoire would help me gain dance experience, build friendships, learn new moves and heal broken hearts.
That same summer, I experienced an unexpected break up. All I wanted to do was stay inside and remain alone, but one of my friends convinced me to go out dancing with him as a pick-me-up. This was one of the best choices of my summer.
The venue we attended not only hosted swing dancing, but it also had late night blues dancing, which is a much more intimate form of social dancing and feels like falling in love over and over again.
At the end of the night a refreshed, independent feeling came over me.
If you are ever suffering of a broken heart, or any type of sadness for that matter, try blues dancing. All of your woes will be forgotten and swept away with the flowing beats of the blues while you’re held close by your dance partner.† The connections that a social dancer feels with other dancers cannot be described as anything but physical and emotional.
As both dancers must equally share a give-and-take physicality, they also share the enjoyment and emotions of each song and dance through one another.
The Let’s Dance Society can open up a new outlet for personal expression, a way to meet new friends and a way to find yourself.
Dancing has affected me in ways that I never thought possible.
If you’re feeling blue, or just want to expand your comfort zone in a new way, know that the Let’s Dance Society is there for you.