How Dance Builds Confidence
Author: Kathy Miller
Dance is challenging! Every style. No matter how good we get at it, the expectations and challenges are always looming out in front of us. There is always something that can be improved, even for the most acclaimed professionals. So how on Earth does participating in dance help a student’s confidence?! Like other athletes, this insatiable drive to improve is actually a result of gaining confidence. It’s part of a cycle that students are perpetually moving through.
Before we can really talk about achievement, we should talk about failure. Failure is a truly great tool. It isn’t the goal, but it is a necessary stepping-stone along the way. Failure provides us with opportunities for growth, and if we don’t risk failure, we cannot actually learn and improve. We discuss this in my classes often: “If you only ever do the things you know you can do, you will never be able to do anything more than that. You must take risks to push yourself into growth.” In addition to providing opportunities to grow, failure teaches us resilience. This is an especially difficult lesson for those students who are perfectionists and have difficulty accepting mistakes. But, when we fail in healthy ways and learn to overcome challenges, it shows us that we are mentally strong and capable of moving on from disappointment. Resilience. Tenacity. Mental fortitude. We are going to keep working at this!
As we learn through our risks and failures, our brains are rewarded by the elements of praise and mastery. Good teachers will remind students that they can achieve difficult goals with patience and tenacity. Dance Unlimited teachers look for opportunities to praise students’ effort and we celebrate with them in their successes. Supportive student colleagues also provide encouragement, which further spurs us to keep working and believing in ourselves.
If we continue to work diligently and focus on the real, tangible skills involved in performing a movement (as opposed to “wishing” or “hoping” for improvement), we will eventually achieve mastery. Or, at least, something closer to it! As a dancer myself, I can attest to how incredibly rewarding it is to FINALLY “get” something after putting so much time, effort, and desire into it. There is an actual, physiological explanation for these feelings. When we achieve a goal, a chemical in our brain called “dopamine” is released. Dopamine is a “feel good” chemical that our brain naturally produces to help us focus and bring us joy, and we seek ways to get more of it.
Additionally, new synapses (connections) are formed in our brains which helps us repeat this newly learned skill in the future. Each time we can complete a task correctly, it becomes easier, until it becomes a habit. Sort of like walking a path through the woods. The more times we take the same path, the clearer it will become and the easier it will be to move through it.
A great thing happens after all these events take place: we logically deduce “Hey! If I could work hard and achieve this, just think of what else I can do!” We become more willing, even excited, to put ourselves out there and tackle the next obstacle, whether it’s in dance, or possibly some other area of our lives. So, we start the cycle again, with skills and confidence to undertake the next set of challenges.
