motivation

[elyy]

hi everyone! I'd like to ask a question "what is your motivation to go on?" because in this period I fell a little bit unmotivated to go to dance and sometimes I regret I quit gymnastics for dance, I like dance but I don't think I have an artist personality (for example I don't like to choreograph, or acting..), I like a lot the tumbling part. 

[Jan McNulty]

Hello Elyy and welcome to the Forum!

 

I've moved your post to the more appropriate Doing Dance forum where all things to do with doing dance (as opposed to watching dance).  It may be worth having a little look round the Doing Dance forum.

[NJH]

I  think the motivation  many  dancers have is that  their  experience of dance is such that  it  provides the physical , mental and social  stimulus they need... 

you  cannot force yourself to like something, but  trying to  can damage  your  enjoyment overall and  hamper  developing if you  try to 

one of the things about dance is that the path of progress is  not a smooth learning  curve  it's  steps  of very steep  learning followed  by  near flat periods of consolidation - which can be frustrating when those flat periods  seem  ever lasting 

  to quote  Mr B (Balanchine)  

“I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance. ”

or as it's often  paraphrased 

“I don't need people who want to dance, I want people who need to dance. ”
 

[Tango Dancer]

Ok I don't dance professionally so I can't speak to what motivates people pursuing dance as a career.  Speaking as an amateur dance student I dance because it's a thing I need to do.  I work in an office doing a fairly sedentary but mentally demanding job.  I love dancing because it means I can stop thinking with my mind and feel with my body.  Also when I dance (especially ballet and tango) I can only focus on what I'm doing in the dance.  The world could end and the sky could fall in and nothing matters beyond the moment, the step I'm doing, the man in my arms in the tango, the exercise at the barre in ballet or whatever and that's rare for me.  Normally I'm thinking six things at once.  When I dance there's just the now and that brings me so much calm and stillness in my mind.  I come away feeling more centred somehow.  

 

I don't always feel like going to class but I usually feel better when I do.  I sometimes have to change what I dance (for example if I'm emotional and stressed tango makes me more depressed so on those days I do swing instead because it's hard to be sad doing the shim sham).  If it's been a really hard day I don't always want to do ballet so sometimes I do a really fun disco type class where the technique is less exacting.  

 

Also my late grandfather was a keen amateur dancer (modern sequence) so when I dance I feel him closer to me.  I remember his beautiful blue eyes and smile and it makes me feel connected to my roots.  I don't do the same forms of dance as he did but it feels like a way to connect with him.  

 

I guess I dance because it makes me feel good and to me that's the only reason for doing it.  

[Kate_N]

On 05/09/2021 at 09:47, elyy said:

 I fell a little bit unmotivated to go to dance and sometimes I regret I quit gymnastics for dance, I like dance but I don't think I have an artist personality (for example I don't like to choreograph, or acting..), I like a lot the tumbling part. 

I think this depends on what age you are, the kind of training you do, and have done in the past, and what your overall dreams, ambitions, and aims are for your life at this immediate time, and in the future.

 

The thing about most achievement at a high level is that it takes hours and hours and hours of detailed work, which sometimes feels unrewarding. Progress can feel so slow. I can remember one of the reasons I lost interest in serious study of ballet at about the age of 15 was that I found doing pliés and tendus so very very boring (now I love them!). I think also I had the wrong teacher for me (and I was a competitive rider, so something had to give).

 

And what  @Tango Dancer says here is so so true! Sometimes, class is 'medicine' you have to take. 

On 05/09/2021 at 23:25, Tango Dancer said:

I don't always feel like going to class but I usually feel better when I do.

 

So you might need to think about what your aims are in the short term, the medium term, and the long term. 

 

And then - think about what you enjoy doing!