5 Ways to Measure Your Dance Progress

Every year, hundreds of dancers show up to NBA and NFL dance auditions, hoping to make their dream team. The competition can get quite challenging as you fight for a spot on the team against fellow pro dancers. Many of these dancers will be professionally trained or have attended dance classes, and some are probably better than you.

The good news is that with constant practice, you’ll be able to improve your dancing skills and boost your dance confidence. Although each of us progresses at different rates and has individual limitations to our potential, knowing your current skill level will be crucial to your preparation for the auditions.

Here are five ways to measure your dance progress that will help you improve and challenge yourself to be better.

1. Set clear goals

You’ll need to set clear goals before you can measure your progress. These goals will help you identify what improvements you want to see in your dancing skills. They will also help sustain your momentum and fuel your motivation. Your goals may vary depending on what you want to improve on. For example, when preparing for an audition, you may want to learn new dancing styles or pick up choreography faster.

2. Record videos of your progress

Another way to measure your progress is by being your own critic. Filming yourself allows you to evaluate your dance from a viewer's perspective. When you have recordings of your dance sessions, it makes it easier for you to spot mistakes like poor posture, stiff movements, rushed moves, or when you’re out of sync with the music.

You can use the previous videos to compare the progress to your current dancing skills. Consider this an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and improve on your weaknesses.

3. Ask for objective feedback

Aside from your personal observation, you can also benefit from objective feedback from experts who are knowledgeable about dancing. They can include people who can be honest and impartial to you, such as your dance instructor, fellow dancers, or members of a pro cheer team (if you know someone). Consider asking for their professional opinion regarding your dancing skills, especially those that need improvement.

4. Document your dance journey

Documenting your dance journey is similar to recording videos of your progress. Only this time, you take advantage of social media‘s popularity and use its platform to share your talents online. This approach allows you to gather random feedback and reactions from people on the internet.

However, remember that many of their comments will be subjective and unprofessional — some might even be insulting. So, while these random feedbacks can give you a general idea of what people think about your talents, do not let the negative discourage you and take them as constructive criticisms.

5. Feeling your progress

This tip is another way you can evaluate your progress personally. Feeling your progress means asking yourself how a specific dance move feels compared to the last time you did it. Typically, when you’re just starting to learn a dance routine, you’ll likely feel stressed, your movements will feel a little stiff, and you’ll have to concentrate endlessly just to make your knees work.

But you’ll know you’re progressing when everything falls gracefully into place. It’s as if your movements become as natural as walking. These observations will not reflect on your videos and will only come to you after repeatedly performing the same dance moves over and over again.

Conclusion

Knowing your progress allows you to focus on your strengths and improve on your weakness. The five tips in this article will help you plan a solid goal and track your progress. But no matter how you’re progressing, be proud of yourself. Being optimistic makes it easier to improve and become the dancer you always dreamed you would be, considerably boosting your chances of passing the first audition round and making your dream team!

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