5 Techniques on How to Dance On Heels Comfortably

Heels dance is an elegant and sexy dance style that originates from The United States and some parts of Europe in the last 20th and early 21st centuries. A distinguishing feature or item involved in the dance is the dance heels, a lady shoe style that gives ladies a poised and gracious appearance. To engage in a heel dance successfully, you need to have fitted dance heels and possess some level of high heel dance prowess. Many people love to engage in heels dance but don't possess the requisite skills and techniques to do the heels dance comfortably. These techniques and skills are often taught professionally at heels dance class.

 

Before you engage in high heels dance, an essential thing to note is that the second you put on your dance heel. You've changed the surface area of your connection to the floor. Typically, if you are barefoot or just in regular street shoes, you have the whole base of your foot connected to the ground. And that's what's helping you balance and stabilize yourself as you're either walking or dancing. But when you put on dance heels, all you have connected to the ground is the ball of your foot and the surface area of that heel, especially if you are wearing a stiletto. Oh, that's a really small amount of space.

 

Therefore, you have to change how you're distributing your weight and your balance. So, are you one of those that want to engage in high heels dance but need the techniques to go about it comfortably? Have you been surfing the internet to find answers to questions like, how to dance in heels? How to dance comfortably in heels? Search no further, you will find the perfect answers to your questions in this post. This post will acquaint you with the significant techniques on how to dance on heels comfortably; making you dance on heels like you have attended heels dance class.

 

Here are 5 techniques that will help you engage in easy and enjoyable heel dance:

 

1. Stabilize your core

 

In dance, the term holding your core or stabilizing your core is often used however, sometimes its meaning gets misconstrued. A lot of people, when you tell them to use their core, they automatically suck in their stomach. But actually, that's not holding your core; that's just sucking in your stomach organ. Stabilizing your core is a fundamental element of high-heel dance.

To engage your core and stabilize the rest of your body, you want to make sure that you're pulling up in the lower abdominal and that you feel almost a rapping sensation around your midsection from the middle to the sides. If you're having some trouble feeling these muscles, one of the best ways to access them is to lay down and try to imagine that there is a string pulling your belly button into the floor, that you have a straight spine, and then from there, lift your legs, and I like to call these bicycles. Doing this makes you feel your core adjusting to keep your body stable. This consequently helps you connect to those abdominal muscles so that when you stand up, you can feel and know what you should be engaging in, tightening your core.

 

2. Keep your weight over the balls of your feet 

 

It's fundamental to remember when you're involved in heel dance always to keep your weight over the balls of your feet. As stated earlier, having heels on changes your surface area from being your entire foot to just being the ball of your foot and that small area where your heel is. So, it would be best to put more of your weight over where you have a more extensive surface area. This allows you to be more stable because naturally when we are just walking in daily life, we move our weight over the foot that we're walking on. That's why for babies, it takes a while for them to learn how to walk because they have to understand where to put their weight.

 

Hence, when dancing and you're going to make that next step or turn, be sure your weight goes over the ball of your feet based on physics. It just has to, so you might as well keep the weight over the balls of your feet. So you're already there.

 

Also, keeping the weight over the balls of the feet can help your transitions happen so much quicker. Thus, you'll have more time to either get an extra turn or just make your dancing look more effortless and fluid. And that's what we're trying to do. We want the transitions to look seamless and easy, such that we could do it in our sleep. So, keep your weight over the balls of your feet, and you'll stay looking like a pro for this next tip.

 

3. Relax your shoulders

 

It's vital to note that heels dance class derives from jazz dancing and jazz lines, while jazz dancing originates from ballet fundamentals, more specifically ballet positioning and ballet alignment. A significant part of ballet technique is the posture in the heels class; just as in a ballet class, the shoulders are dropped and relaxed to create length in the neck. In addition to relaxing your shoulders, be sure not to sticking out your chest when you relax your shoulders. You want to make sure that your chest is inward when your shoulders are down.

 

Ultimately, when your shoulders are pressing down, make sure that the shoulder blades are synching downward and together, so not just down, down, and together. This, combined with your core, will create a very stable area for your arms to come from. You want your arms to come from your back and be an extension of your back. Most of the power you're going to get to execute a turn will come from your arms. So, if you have more muscles working to create that power, you have a better chance of getting more of those turns in. Therefore, combining the back muscles with the muscles in your arm helps to create more power. In effect, you can get more turns, which allows you to get more stable and balanced when you're dancing on a heel.

 

4. Be aware of your turn out

 

You don't necessarily need to have a completely 180° rotation for your turnout, but you have to ensure that your legs are coming from a place of outward rotation from the hips, one place you can first apply your turnout is on your walk.

 

As you prepare for a good performance, make sure that your steps are initiated from a turnout position in the hip can dramatically improve the look, just lines, and the appearance of your walk. This is such a simple thing that can massively elevate your overall performance as a dancer in a heel.

 

Also, endeavor to turn out your feet when you're going to do certain turns. When you go to do a turn, a lot of your torque outside of coming from your arm will come from your heel, and you're pushing your heel to make that turn happen. If your foot is turned in, your heel has nowhere to go, making sure your foot is turned out and helps you get more power for your turns. But it can also help you stop your turns. And can also be used as a brake to stop your momentum so that you could move into the next move more fluidly and more smoothly.

 

5. Remember to spot

 

You will probably have heard the term "spot for turn" if you have taken a technique class before. The crucial thing about this is that when you spot, you must be sure that you spot where you're going to be landing and not spotting where you're coming from. Spotting involves keeping your visual focus on one thing in your environment and maintaining that focus as long as you can while you are turning.

 

For example, If I want to end facing this corner, then when I set myself up, I'm going to make sure that my turn out is coming from my hip and that my feet are turned out to have somewhere to get some momentum for that turn. To ensure I'm turned out, I'm going to make sure that my focus for my spot is towards the corner and not towards the mirror, and then I'm going to turn using my arms to get more momentum and finish my turn I spotted. Spotting your landing point ensures that you end up where you planned on being, and by that, you can move into the next step more easily.

 

Conclusively, going by the salient techniques of heel dance mentioned above you can agree with me that dancing on heels is not such a hard task. As an elegant lady, practicing these techniques consistently makes it easy and comfortable for you to stand, pose and dance in stilettos or any other heels for hours, nonstop like a pro.