What I Have l Have Learned From Dancing

     For five years, I wrestled with learning two skills. First it was dance and then it was storytelling.  I wanted to write a book about dance because when I started to dance I could not find a book that prepared me for my journey into the ballroom dance world. Learning to dance and then writing a story about that effort reminded me of what a dance partner once said “Dan, if you do not get frustrated with learning new things then you probably will not grow as a person yourself.”     Learning new things is hard. As a learner, you must be willing to expose your vulnerabilities, make mistakes, pick yourself up off the floor and accept the advice of teachers, mentors and peers. Learning takes energy. It can be as exhausting as it can be fun and satisfying. For me, it makes no difference whether I am practicing for a dance, seeking feedback on my story or learning to ski or play golf. I struggle whenever I experiment with new things. I also know if I want to learn in today’s world, I must also be willing to leverage new technologies or I will limit my potential. Without the Internet to search I could not have done the research necessary for my book. YouTube enabled me to view scores of videos and movie clips so I could grasp the timeless appeal and history of music and dance.     What makes dancing and writing a story like The Dance Dragon different from other learning efforts is the degree of personal and emotional experiences you must share. Like many skills, learning 8-10 different dances or writing sixty-five thousand word manuscripts requires motivation, energy, and a relentless desire to get better. However, as a dancer or a writer, you must also be honest with your audience and that means first being honest with yourself. You must learn to identify and express your inner thoughts and feelings openly to other people. As a result, dancing has taught me more about myself than I ever imagined.     Through dancing I learned to put my brain in neutral, focus on the physical experience of moving my body, listen to the music and free myself of any mental or visual clutter.I have learned to ignore the noise around me and listen more to my inner voice and the body language of the women with whom I dance. In my story, I refer to such freedom as traveling on a white cloud where peace of mind, lightness of movement and joy exist. Storytelling helped me realize the limit to the power of words. Dancing taught me that there are often better ways than words to communicate or connect with people     The Dance Dragon is a story about a secret deal I made with the person I was and the person I wanted to be. I agreed to make a fool of myself to slay a dragon so I would be free to discover the joy of dance. As the storyteller of The Dance Dragon I needed to balance the turmoil in my head as both the writer and lead character, with the curiosity of the reader as to why I would make such a deal with myself.  It took several years to find my authentic voice as a writer, become more aware of myself, and then feel the power of dance. Eventually I learned to capture in words the tension that existed in both my mind and body every time I walked onto the dance floor. I then tried my best to structure a simple story in a compelling way. Through trial and error, I found ways to create a flow and a pace to my story and to introduce some of the real-life characters that inspired me to persevere.     Learning to dance was a wake-up call for me. I revisited something I had avoided my entire life and discovered I had made a mistake. Writing a story about that mistake challenged my abilities to understand my own feelings about dance and music and verbally communicate those feelings to others. I now enjoy what I once feared and understand how and why that happened.  More importantly I was reminded that we must never stop learning new things, if we want to truly know ourselves.