The longest distance between two points is a shortcut... and in the case of these dance techniques, that shortcut could take you on a detour to a physical therapist.
Keep in mind, for a "no shortcuts" list of dance techniques, it would be perfectly fair to include a single entry titled, "all of them", but, ironically, that would also be a shortcut.
So here are 8 dance techniques you should definitely learn but will not learn any faster with a shortcut.
To the casual observer, Cuban Motion just looks like wiggling your hips when you dance. "You know, just shake it like Shakira."
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
Hip action is a product of the knees, feet, and legs. They also understand that muscle memory takes time to program... and longer to re-program.
The Downside of this Shortcut
Think, for a second, of the number of knee braces that are sold each year in your country. Do you want to be the reason why those companies sell more of them? At the very least, a shortcut with Cuban Motion will look wonky (definitely not a technical dance term) and, more importantly, you're a prime candidate for an injury.
Nothing makes a leader feel a little more like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing than a dip... but your partner doesn't want to find out the hard way that you took a shortcut when it came to learning how to do one.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
Sending a followers body arching back means that the leader must be the counterbalance, the frame to their picture, and return their partner to the dance frame with the utmost care.
The Downside of this Shortcut
If you Google "wedding dance fail", chances are you'll see a dip gone wrong. The intentions were positive but the preparation was positively absent.
Ahhh the lure of the advanced pattern. When you're looking at the tantalizing maneuvers of students at the higher levels your dance level starts to feel a little like your old car when you pull into a new car dealership.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
An advanced pattern is a beautiful exterior built upon an interior of skills and techniques. In the same way that most people can read from a foreign language phrasebook, those that spend time learning the language will communicate the most effectively.
The Downside of this Shortcut
While there may be some recognizable movements in the pattern you're appreciating, it will also reveal and expose the lack of technical development necessary to make it all work. Like watching the conclusion of a movie in the beginning, you're left with questions that could have been answered if you'd followed the natural process from level to level.
A dance routine may be a collection of patterns but there is a technique, training, and most certainly a process to executing one. Unfortunately, dance routines are targeted by shortcut artists like open purses are targeted by pickpockets.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
A routine goes through three important stages: Choreography, Technique, and Refinement. Each stage allows for better execution, improved dancing, and a more confident finished product.
The Downside of this Shortcut
One of the modern myths of ballroom and latin dancing over the last 15 years is that a routine can be started, completed, and performed at a high level in a matter of days. With shows like Dancing with the Stars, what is shown are the quick highlights of a process that is much longer and more labor intensive than the video package presents.
One of the distinguishing hallmarks of dances like Waltz and Foxtrot, Rise and Fall is the technique that gives a dancer the look of someone floating across the dance floor. When done well, it can give a dancer the grace and poise that people might categorize as "effortless".
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
It takes a lot of hard work to make something look easy.
The Downside of this Shortcut
This may sound jaded, super-fancy, and high brow, but have you every seen Waltz performed in a movie? 99 times out of 100, what you are seeing is an unremarkable box step danced on tip-toes. This is what the technique looks like after a short cut. It's the shell of rise and fall but it crashes and burns.
Oh, the lure of a throwaway oversway, contra check, or same foot lunge. They are some of the most beautiful shapes one can create in ballroom dancing but, as you might imagine, they are not dance steps you should be in a hurry to create.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
Any of those movements, three of many more patterns referred to as "picture lines", are the composite of skills developed over time. They require high levels of balance, a great understanding of topline (the carriage and appearance of your upper body in ballroom dancing), and advanced footwork and placement.
The Downside of this Shortcut
As with many shortcuts, it's easy to try to create the end result, or picture, of what you are seeing - especially with, pardon the pun, picture lines. Manufacturing that picture, rather than letting it develop, would be like trying to pass off a sketch of the Mona Lisa as the real thing.
This one is sort of a big deal. Calling it a dance technique almost diminishes the importance of it. Technically speaking, it's how social dancers communicate. So, based on that, this is their language. To move with enough clarity to send a signal to a sensitive and responsive partner is a thing of beauty to be a part of and a mystery for anyone lacking the skill.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
Lead and follow isn't a skill you learn once and move on from. It's an occupation, a job description, a distinguishing characteristic of your side of the dance frame, and it must constantly be refined.
The Downside of this Shortcut
It's established that leading and following is the language of social dancers and, unfortunately, there are a lot of shortcutters who feel they can get by without it. The unfortunate truth is that phrases like, "just follow" or "just lead me" aren't magic words that can replace the training necessary to move interdependently on the dance floor.
The ability to maneuver around the dance floor is the dancing equivalent of being a great driver. As with driving, this is not something that can be faked or fed through a crash-course machine.
What the Dedicated Dancer Understands
Floorcraft is a little like geometry, understanding how the degrees of rotation on certain figures, paired with the alignments of the dance floor, produce a calculated route through the ballroom.
While this skill generally pertains to the ballroom dances, great floorcraft in the latin and rhythm dances means that you're economical with your movements, aware of others on the dance floor around you, and have the skills to ensure that you and your partner aren't a threat to stepping on them, landing in their laps, or flying through their wedding cake.
The Downside of this Shortcut
Your dance partner is not a shield, a battering ram, or the wedge plow on the front of a locomotive. A shortcut, in this case, can create all the aforementioned outcomes along with, just like driving, ending up traveling down the wrong side of the dancing road.
No one wants to waste time. Therefore, our brains are primed to find efficiencies whenever possible. Maybe that comes in the form of weaving through traffic, opening multiple project windows simultaneously, or reading from the back of the textbook.
"Searching for efficiency" is just a rational euphemism for "taking a shortcut" and it happens to the best of us.
In the case of this article, the real trouble isn't taking the shortcut, it's believing that it is the most effective way to learn and continuing the pattern.
A process may not be sexy all the time, but it is steady, consistent, and proven. Here's to you fighting off the urge to beat the system, here's to you embracing the process, finding the results one morsel at a time, and appreciating all the wonderful nuances along the way.