What are Your 3 Proven Principles to Learn to Dance

In reading a very interesting article about fitness training, I was thinking about how the concepts apply to dance instruction and training.

There are a lot of coaches, instructors (and students) that espouse one method or other as being the best, the only “right” way.

For a more complete well-rounded development, exposure to different methods or systems is crucial.

Instead of focusing on the best method, we can focus on underlying principles.

The principles are few in number:

1) Principles of Fundamental Human Movement: Push, Pull, Hinge, Rotate (and Counter-Rotate), Carry

2) Principles of Physics: Forces and Torques, mass, weight, and inertia; linear and angular motion; and speed, velocity, and acceleration

10 Basic Principles of Biomechanics (From the for Dummies site)

3) Principles of Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand: We train in a way to make the bodies produce a desired response, start basic or simple then move to advanced or complex

slow to fast
low force to high force
short distance to long distance
bilaterally to unilaterally
gradually use the Overload Principle

Methods or systems of training are just ways of doing something in accordance with a plan. We can improve function and performance using many different methods. Our instruction is guided by principles.