(WXYZ) — It’s News Years, and you know what that means! It’s time for New Years resolutions and all that jazz; but what about setting one you might actually keep? Ricardo Souza, New York City based Brazilian professional dancer, thinks you should give dance a try this year, and here’s why.
“Dance is such a powerful and transformative artform that we can all benefit from. It doesn’t matter what type of dance you want to try, just go and do it! Dance has the power to positively impact all areas of life, including confidence, charisma, and your overall health and wellbeing. How many things can do this that are as much fun as dance is?” says Souza.
Here are the top reasons Souza thinks you should try dance this year, and why it’ll be a great New Years resolution to make:
1 - Dance can improve your health and overall well-being
It’s well known that doctors will tell you to get out and exercise more, but how many of us actually do that? Dance is an easy and fun way to add more movement to your daily routine. When you are doing something fun, you are more apt to stay consistent with it. Not only will dance help improve your physical health, it can also support better mental and emotional health too.
2 - Dance is great for improving both verbal and non-verbal communication skills
If you’re like most people, you have probably picked up a bad habit or two during the COvid-19 pandemic. Dance can help get you out of that rut and improve the way you communicate with others, both in terms of how you speak to people, and the way you interact with them. Dance teaches good social etiquette, how to touch someone in a polite and respectful way, and also teaches you.
3 - Dance can help build self confidence
Dance is an artform that is very powerful at building self confidence. It teaches better body awareness, good posture, and graceful movement that makes you more confident in your own skin. You are doing something with your own body that looks good and feels good, and you’ll notice this! Dance teaches you how to interact and communicate better with others, and all while having fun. This combined is a powerful way to build more confidence in yourself that you can use to improve all aspects of your life, including work, romantic relationships and friendships.
4 - Dance teaches value life lessons
Here are two great life lessons that you will experience first hand from dance:
1 - You can only lead people when you first cultivate a good connection with them. While this is very true in terms of leading people across the dance floor, it’s equally as true when it comes to being a leader at your job or in your community. Building connection and trust is key.
2 - Just because you make a mistake, don’t give up. Every successful person will make hundreds, likely thousands of mistakes in life, but you just get back up and keep going. There’s no way to learn dance, or live life without making mistakes. Cultivating a skill like dance gives you the direct experience of what it feels like to mess up, then keep going, while acknowledging that mistakes are just a part of the process and don’t have to hold you back. When you can learn to apply that skill to life, it will help cultivate success in everything else.
5 - Dance can help spice up your relationships
Whether you are looking to spice up your romantic relationship, have a great date night option, or just have fun with your friends, dance can help with it all. Dance can help you connect with others on a deeper level while trying something new together. It can help you get out of that Covid rut, and bring some joy back into life. Whenever you combine music and movement with physical touch, you have a recipe that’ll help improve your relationships.
Here’s to an amazing 2022, and to trying something new that can improve your mood, confidence, physical and mental health.
