Safe dance practises

Safe dance practises

There are so many classes happening online these days, that for many of us, our house has become our studio! But, this leads to a difficult question. How safe is your dance space? And, how can you make your dance space safer? Let’s look at a few different ideas below about how you can protect yourself while you dance in your online class.

1. Look around you

What do you do before you dance? Do you just launch into your session and deal with any obstacles as you go?

While this isn’t a bad approach, the better option would be to take a look around you before you start. Say the image below was your lounge room. There’s plenty of space to setup the computer on the coffee table and have a dance right? Or is there?

You might just push the coffee table back to the couch, but are there any other obstacles? Yes, the rug! Pesky things trip people up all the time.

Take a good look around you – not just at body height, but also at ground level. It’s the little things like the edges of carpets and rugs that can really bring you (literally) down.

2. Close the door

It’s hard to stop pets and children getting under foot while you’re in a class. But if you can do it, it’s really worthwhile. This is useful for 3 reasons.

  1. When they get under your feet, they could trip you up.
  2. They could knock something over which could injure you.
  3. They distract you and take you out of the world of the class.

That last one is super important!! When you come to a class in a studio location, the teacher does their best to make sure that you get uninterrupted time with them.

Removing interruptions ensures that you also don’t accidently injure yourself because you forget what you’re doing too.

If you can’t close the door, don’t despair. Just keep a good eye around you on what’s happening, or keep your steps small so that you’re more in control of your movement.

3. Watch your mental space

This is a gentle reminder that your mental health is super important right now. We’re all struggling and for some what’s happening right now is harder than for others.

If you need to skip a class because moving the furniture is hard, then do that. Or consider if you can connect to be present with your dance class friends, even if you don’t turn on the video and can’t get off the couch. You might find the act of connecting to the class still does amazing things. The normality of the class occurring could pick you up – even if they can’t see you and see what you are (or aren’t) doing.

That feeling before class starts…

Dance is one of those activities which can really lift your mood – even if all you’re doing in a daggy lounge-room boogie to rehearsing for a performance. It’s also great for your body, which helps a lot too.

We welcome all dancers of any type, style and camera loving persuasion in all APB Dance classes. Check out what we have on and maybe you’ll feel better by taking one soon!