Week 27  6-25-21 “What Can I Learn Dancing at Arthur Murray?”

Changing Lives Through Dancing

You may be thinking about coming to take lessons at Arthur Murray Santa Monica. Perhaps you’re ready to return as restrictions have been lifted (we are still very careful).

Why should you get started and what can you learn? First, there is nothing better than movement to music to make you feel better physically and emotionally. The social interaction is paramount after 15 months of isolation during the pandemic.

Being on so many Zoom meetings, get togethers, lectures, lessons, chats has made me just want to be together again and share camaraderie with others. Being able to dance with a real person and interact together to the music is magical.

Dancing will increase your confidence, balance, and wellbeing. Dancing helps build a connection with the dance floor, your partner, the audience, the music, and the character of each dance.

Learning great footwork will help your posture, look of confidence, and help you to stand firmly on both feet. My balance and stamina were affected from not dancing as much during the lockdowns.

Timing helps you to be in tune with the music around you and with the flow of the dance floor. Timing helps breathing and your heart rate. Dancing to the music builds a great sense of connection and being centered.

I taught a deaf student for 9 years a long time ago. Roz was brilliant and had hearing twins and a hearing husband. She was a Rabbi at a deaf Temple, and I loved her and loved dancing and performing with her.

One day I signed a word the wrong way and she corrected me.  As she spoke, she always signed as bi-lingual. She said these words that I have repeated thousands of times over many years. Roz said, “Arm styling is the language of dance” and I hung my hat on that. She said that every time we moved our arms and hands in a dance, that it had a message a meaning, especially to the hearing impaired.

If I cannot voice my feelings, if I am happy, sad, angry, confused, overjoyed, I can always show my emotions through the use of arm and hand styling from the sultry dance of Bolero, to the fast and furious movements of Swing dancing.

Letting the energy of the dance move through the body, through the arms, hands, through the fingers releases the inner spirit and rejuvenates the body. It is said that every time we move our arms, that we should “complete the line” and finish the intended movement. This crossovers into so many areas of life and just living that I love to practice outside of my dancing.

Lastly, dancing will help you breathe. I have severe sleep apnea and am reliant on a breathing machine at night, sometime even during the day. At night I hold my breath, and this can lead to heart failure and even death.

When I dance, I breathe. I breathe deeply and rhythmically to the music and through the dance motions. I have learned to master my breathing before a performance, during an exhibition, and even after a show. Dancing has showed me how to breathe through nerves, stage fright, and has helped me transfer these lessons to many other areas of life.

These are just a few of the reasons I love dancing so very much. I will never retire from dancing. I’ll be one of the “old smoothies” gracing the dance floor until I dance up to the golden gates, and hopefully dance through and inside the doors of heaven! Dancing is for me and I love what it gives back to those who love it. “David danced before the Lord. He danced with all his might!”

Come back to dancing at Arthur Murray! You’ll be glad you did!

Thank you for reading. Thank you for supporting Arthur Murray Santa Monica as a small business in Santa Monica! We appreciate you!

Love you all,

David Woodbury

info@dancingsantamonica.com