Are you ballroom dancing enthusiast? Have you ever watched Ballroom Dance Competition?

I just spent two very exciting days watching Amateur Ballroom Dance Competition with amazing performance, beautiful dance costumes and a lot of fun. Watching shows like this makes you wonder, how do they do that? It looks so effortless from the outside, but is it?

Couples who perform in dance competitions (check the pictures in this Hub) spend countless of hours to practice every single move, body positioning, hands movement, feet placement, etc. Everything adds to few minutes of their performance, when they are the centrum of attention and they shine like stars on the floor.

To learn social dancing is not that difficult, but require patience and practice. When you first start to dance you have to learn basic steps. They are different for each dance and have different count. Very important thing is to know what is the count for each dance, and to count either loud or in your head, while you are dancing. This also will help you to know on which foot is your weight at the moment. Why is that important? You will know what foot you use for your next step. If your weight is on your left foot then the next step has to be with your right foot and vice versa.

Practice makes perfect, so you have to make time to practice what you learn. More you practice, better you get. With repeating the patterns over and over again you are building your muscle memory, which makes it easier to move from basic pattern to more advanced one. When you know the steps so well you don't have to think about them, then it's time to concentrate on the other aspects of dancing like hand movement, head placement, body position etc. Trying to do everything at once makes it confusing.The most important thing is don't get discourage, learning takes time. Learn with your own speed and have fun.

As you probably know there are two styles in ballroom dancing:

- American Style (Smooth and Rhythm)

- International Style (Standard and Latin)

There are some differences between them like the steps or the hold, and they include different dances as well.

I'll be talking about International Ballroom dancing, which is divided into:

- Standard dances (Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Viennese Waltz and Tango) and

- Latin Dances (Jive, Cha Cha, Rumba, Paso Doble and Samba).

Now, we can look into the characteristic of each dance.

Let’s start with Foxtrot. There are two types of Foxtrot:

- Social Foxtrot and

- International Foxtrot.

Social Foxtrot is quite simple to learn. What is characteristic about Social Foxtrot is its bouncing action, which comes from knees not from the body. What I mean by that is that you use your knees to move up and down to create this bouncing motion. You don’t want to do it with your full body, because it will look like jumping up and down and this doesn’t look nice. Social Foxtrot is very pleasant and relaxing dance and there are a lot of songs you can dance to it.

International Foxtrot is more complicated than Social Foxtrot. Footwork in International Foxtrot is based on 2 main steps: Feather Step and 3-Step. In order to look smooth the Feather steps has to blend with 3-steps, so rise and fall are not so obvious. There are some rules on how to do these steps, including the body position, body frame, head position. When you just start to learn, it's good to know the count and difference between Feather step and 3-step. Count for both of them is the same, but Feather step is danced outside partner and 3-step inside partner. For me the International Foxtrot is the most difficult dance to learn.

To have a better idea how International Foxtrot looks like, please refer to the video below.

Cha-Cha is probably the most popular Latin dance and it is one of my favourite dances. Originally came from Cuba in 1950s. This dance begins in closed Latin position. What is characteristic about this dance is a hip action, which takes some practice to learn properly. The simplest count is: 2, 3, cha cha cha, where 2 and 3 are either forward or backward steps, and cha cha cha are steps to the side. When you move to intermediate level you will learn that not all steps in cha-cha are the same. There are actually 3 slow bits and 2 quick bits, which means quick's you have to dance faster than slow's. But, when you start learning you can do it as 5 even bits, because is easier to learn. Gentelman starts with left foot going forward and lady with right foot going back on bit 2. Cha-Cha is very much flirtatious and fun dance.

Please watch the video below to better understand the steps. This is good example of Cha-Cha-Cha steps (with 5 even bits) including some popular figures/steps, which can be used in other dances as well:

-2x basic cha-cha steps

-3x New York steps

-2x spot turns

-2x hand to hand steps

-1x underarm steps

and finised with 1x basic cha-cha steps.

Paso Doble originated in Spain and is very interesting dance to learn. It is completely different from all other dances. The basic steps looks almost like marching. In this dancing man represents the matador and lady represents his cape. The count is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and each step is one bit.  There are not too many places to dance Paso Doble, but it is worth to try it. Every new dance you learn will teach you something. In Paso Doble you have to use your arms, elbows and even fingers. That’s different from other dances. In Rumba or Cha-Cha you use your arms, but they are straight, when in Paso Doble it is very important to really twist them, similar to Flamenco arms movements. By using your hands you draw attention of people watching you to wherever you want them to look.

Please check the video below to have a better idea about the steps and arms movement.

Waltz belongs to Standard dances and this is progressive dance (travel thought the floor). Basic count for waltz is 1, 2, 3, where 1 is the accent step, in 2^nd step you rise on both feet and on step 3 you lower your body. Characteristic elements for waltz are:

- rise and fall

- big, wide frame (arms and shoulders)

- sway (on step 3)

- danced in closed position

Waltz is one of the most beautiful dances. A lot of people strauggle at the beginning, because even though it looks easy, waltz takes some time to learn. When you first start to learn waltz it is difficult to grasp the idea of turns. There are 2 types of turns, depending on direction. Natural turn is to gentlemen’s right site and reverse turn is to his left site. Some other more popular figures used in waltz are:

-closed change

-whisk

-chasse

Please watch video below for better understanding.

Dancing is fun and has many benefits, so if you are looking for some fun activity try dancing. You too can learn how to dance ballroom. Social dancing is more popular then ever and attracts people of different age. To be a professional dancer you have to pretty much start very young, but if you want to compete as an amateur dancer you can do it at any age. There are different age categories: Youth 16-18, A 19-34, B 35-44, C 45-59 and D 60 & up. All it takes is a passion to do what you enjoy.