You Can't Delegate Growth

They say that repetition is the mother of learning. (I’d say discipline is the father, imo) I think dance is one of the clearest places you can actually see that principle playing out in real life.

You don't learn to dance by watching someone else dance. You don't become better because your coach is good. You don't improve because your teammate is talented. At some point, you have to physically get involved. You have to put your body on the floor and do the work.

And that's one of the things I love about dance. You can't delegate it.

You have to pull your weight, quite literally. You have to stand on your own feet, and you have to think on your feet. I love those expressions because, when you think about it, they all apply to dance. There is no hiding behind somebody else when you're responsible for your own movement.

You also get feedback very quickly.

Miss a step and you'll probably know about it. Forget the choreography and someone will notice. Don't perform at the level you've been practising at and your coach will tell you. Your teammates will notice. The judges will notice. The audience might notice. These days, your parents might even notice because somebody has probably recorded the entire thing on a phone.

And then there is the video.

That can be a particularly unforgiving teacher.

You can walk off a stage thinking you danced brilliantly, only to watch the footage afterwards and realise that your timing was off, your energy dropped in the second half and your "amazing" ending looked rather less amazing from the audience's perspective.

But that's actually useful.

Feedback is information.

It gives you something to work with.

You grow as an individual

One of the beautiful things about dance is that you can develop as an individual while still being part of something bigger.

Not everybody is going to develop in exactly the same way. Some dancers have natural musicality. Others have incredible physical control. Some are fantastic performers. Some are technically very strong. Others take longer to find their confidence but eventually become exceptional once they do.

A good development environment should recognise that.

You should be able to be nurtured according to your own capabilities and given opportunities to explore who you are as a dancer. You can develop particular strengths, work on weaknesses and, over time, begin to develop your own identity and personality through movement.

That individual development is important.

But then something interesting happens when you put that individual into a team.

You become part of something bigger

When you're part of a dance crew, you suddenly have another responsibility.

You still need to be yourself, but you also need to fit into something bigger than yourself.

Sometimes that is quite literally represented by a uniform. You might be wearing the same clothing as everyone else because it fits the concept, the genre or the theme of the performance. You become visually connected to the group.

But the uniform doesn't make everybody the same.

You still bring your own personality, energy and interpretation to the performance.

That's the balance I find fascinating about team dancing. You need to belong without disappearing. You need to support the group without losing yourself.

And you quickly learn that your decisions affect other people.

If you're late, the team waits.

If you don't know your choreography, somebody else has to compensate.

If you don't give the performance everything you have, it affects the overall energy of the group.

And equally, when you do your job properly, you make everybody else better.

That's a pretty useful lesson to learn while you're still young.

Then comes the repetition

Choreography is rarely about learning something once and calling it done.

You learn the first section. Then you clean it. Then you clean it again. Then somebody notices your arm is in the wrong position. Then your coach tells you that your timing is late. Then you fix it.

Then you do it again.

And again.

And again.

This becomes even more important when you are dancing alongside people who are operating at a very high level. Their standard becomes part of your environment. You realise that what you thought was "good enough" actually isn't good enough yet.

That's not necessarily comfortable.

But it is how you improve.

A good coach will call you out when you aren't meeting the required standard. Not because they are trying to make you feel bad, but because they can see the gap between where you are and where you could be.

And your responsibility is to close that gap.

One small improvement at a time.

That is the process: learn, practise, receive feedback, adjust, repeat.

It sounds incredibly simple because it is.

But simple doesn't mean easy.

The remarkable thing is what happens when you do it for long enough. You don't necessarily notice the improvement from one rehearsal to the next. Sometimes you don't even notice it from one month to the next.

Then one day you look back at an old video and think, "Wow. I used to dance like that?"

That's progress.

And it is why I think dance is such a good metaphor for life.

You cannot delegate your growth. Other people can guide you, encourage you, teach you and give you feedback, but they cannot do the work for you.

You have to show up.

You have to participate.

You have to make the mistake, learn from it, try again and keep improving.

And when you do that consistently, something quite remarkable happens. The individual becomes better, the team becomes stronger and the person starts to realise that they are capable of far more than they initially thought.

One step doesn't seem like much.

But keep taking that step, keep repeating it, keep refining it, and then look back after a few years.

That's when you realise that the repetition wasn't just teaching you how to dance. It was teaching you how to grow.