Dancing With Your Feet (Improve Your Footwork!) | STEEZY.CO

CHARLIE: What's wrong everyone? I'm Charlie Dando. You're probably watching this video because

your

legs and

feet

simply CANNOT keep up with the rest of

your

body. But fear not. I'm here with five tips to help you get stronger, maintain your balance, and be less awkward on the dance floor. Let's fix your

footwork

. If you notice that your

footwork

doesn't have enough power, GO DOWN. Tip number one: crouch down for more power. Less experienced dancers often remain in their everyday pedestrian comfort zone. And when they are asked to bend, bend, and move their bodies, they tense up and limit their potential to make more powerful movements.

Let's take advantage of that power. BEND your KNEES to give yourself as much room as possible for potential movement. If your legs are straight and your hips are bent, then you don't have access to your largest, most powerful muscle groups, and that's great! Next, don't be a scared puppy by sticking your tail in. Stick your butt out to give your hip flexors as much room as possible. You will notice that when a basketball player is in a defensive position, he is sticking his butt out to PREPARE to make really quick moves. So if you want to have powerful footwork, he bends his knees and brings out that boot.

But it's not footwork, it's footwork, but footwork isn't just about power! But footwork is NOT all about power. Agility, which is the ability to move quickly and easily, is EQUALLY important. Tip number two: increase your agility by being more efficient. A common misconception is that more muscle equals more speed. Actually, the trick is to be more EFFICIENT with your muscles by relaxing them and eliminating any unnecessary movement. Our bodies need time to acclimatize to new movements. So when learning a new step, first learn the sequence of the step, then practice it in rhythm, slowly, THEN you can increase the tempo.

Between each of these three steps, quickly check for additional muscle tension or accidental embellishments, such as hand swinging, too much bouncing, or excessive torso twisting. Remember, it's all about EASE and speed. DON'T be too extra, at least not yet. Tip number three: make music with your

feet

. It is important to remember that most of the popular dances you see today have their roots in African culture, where rhythm is EVERYTHING. Knowing this, rhythm should inform your movement. It does NOT work the other way around. If you are not in sync with the music, you are not in sync with your movement.

Have you ever heard yourself

dancing

without music playing? Rhythmic deficiencies can cause people to think they are on beat, when in reality they are not. So how do we train ourselves to be more up to date? You can start

dancing

with your ears. Practice without the music. Listen to any patterns your feet are making on the floor. If your steps don't sound like music, try recording yourself doing the same exercise WITH and WITHOUT music. Listen for any inconsistencies in timing, such as awkward gaps or slowing down or speeding up your steps. Correct yourself accordingly. Another good tool is to download a metronome app to really train your timing accuracy.

Something like our dancers do in this Reverse Choreography series. Tip Number Four: CLAY: Get a free trial of STEEZY Studio for seven days! You know, Charlie, I know our AMAZING viewers can

improve

their footwork by watching YouTube videos, BUT, if they want to get really good, really fast, what should they do? CHARLIE: Get STEEZY Studio. CLAY: Damn! And at STEEZY we have classes SPECIFICALLY designed to

improve

your footwork, from beginner classes to advanced classes. CHARLIE: You can even take my House Dance Drills classes. CLAY: Exactly, click the link in the description to get a free seven-day trial and turn your two left feet into...

CHARLIE: Normal feet? CLAY: Regular feet. Now back to the video! Tip number five: Feel your space and get out from under yourself. If you notice that your footwork feels small, or you just feel uncomfortable doing it, you probably need to get out from under yourself to increase the RANGE of your steps. DON'T be afraid to take a big step. To train this, I recommend using the lines between the floorboards or even using tape as a reference for your body, to make a plus sign on the floor and then practice crossing the midline. Or, you can see how far you can get from the midline.

Say, for example, you're trying to practice the twist step. You may THINK you are ARTICULATING your movement, when, in reality, you are MURMULATING by not crossing that midline. It just doesn't seem as interesting and complete as it could. B- B- B- BONUS tip... tip, tip, tip, tip, tip... If you REALLY want to be a footwork master, you'll want to cross train. Work your quads and hamstrings, yes, but it's ESPECIALLY important to focus on your stabilizing muscles, which are your abductors and adductors, also known as the inside and outside of your legs that help you tighten and extend.

These are some of my favorite exercises. ♪ Let's get physical, physical! ♪ ♪ Physical! ♪ The heel-to-toe walk. Walk heel-to-toe across the floor WITHOUT rocking your hips. Extra credit points if you can get your toes pointing at EVERY WALL every time you take a step. Single leg deadlift. Keep your hips close to the floor and don't lift your outside hip. Try to be parallel to the ground before going up. Do it until you are no longer wobbly. Single leg glute bridges. This one's for your loot, everyone! Thanks for watching this video STEEZY! If you enjoyed it, hit the like button and consider subscribing.

CHARLIE: Five, six, seven, eight. One two three four five six seven eight. Five... six... five, six, seven, eight. One two three four five six seven eight. Well, that hip comes back as you do it. Your arms... this is a social dance, right? So your arm, it was traditionally.