DANCING WITH DYSPRAXIA: How Ballroom Dancing Helped me Befriend My Body

Written by Rebecca Morris Buck

I had always wanted to dance, long before Strictly was on our television screens, but I never had a chance as a child, mostly because I was considered too shy for lessons. Consequently, as an adult I did not have the confidence: I was clumsy, knew I would fail. I did not suspect I was dyspraxic until I was in my mid-thirties, but my body had never seemed to work properly. I know now that I struggle – particularly – with proprioception, understanding where my body is in space, and how much force to move it with to perform particular actions. 

I loved the idea of dancing so much that, coming out of the COVID lockdowns, I decided it was now or never. Why not, at least, try it? I never realised how many benefits it would bring me, beyond the simple joy of moving to music. 

Let me first say I am incredibly grateful to have discovered Jannine and Ian, of NuSteps Dance: not all dance teachers would be as patient with nervy adult beginners, as good at breaking a dance into its component movements, nor appreciate the urge to learn to dance for its own sake, not for perfection or competition. I am grateful too, for my husband Chris, who was prepared to come with me (after some persuasion!). I was terrified at first, but the relaxed atmosphere helped so much, and has kept me going back for nearly 4 years. For neurodivergent learners of any new skill, the class vibe, and the teacher, are so important. I have quit many other workshops and hobbies because I was uncomfortable in the place, or with the people. 

As we learned to dance – Samba, Waltz, Foxtrot, Jive, Quick Step, Rumba, Tango, Paso Doble, Cha Cha Cha – I started to learn about my body, as well as the steps. Dance requires you to feel your connection with the floor, and I usually have to look at my feet to clearly understand where the floor is. But as I learned how the steps felt, I was able to start lifting my head, and feeling the floor. Dancing also needs an awareness of your balance, to be ‘over’ your feet, to imagine a meridian through the middle of your body that keeps your spine and neck upright. Through dancing, I have learned where the points of balance in my body are as I move.

I would be lying if I said it was not challenging, but the challenges are places to learn even more. There are certain steps, particularly those that involvement movement in relation to my partner, that I cannot learn by watching. Intellectually, I understand what is happening: but my body will not do it. I cannot work out how it is meant to feel. This is where dancing taught me the most: I need to know how something feels, so my body can remember that, and replicate it. I cannot always learn a dance move that I have watched, but I can learn a dance move that has been danced with me: if one of our teachers will physically move me into the right position, remind me which foot to move first, and help me feel how it is meant to go, and repeat it a few times: then my body understands it. How the floor feels, how the air feels as we swing through it, which way around the room we’re moving, how the push and pull of the partnership feels, where the balance points are. 

It is an understanding I have been able to extrapolate into other areas of my life: in the gym, there are exercises my body cannot figure out from a description, or a demonstration. I cannot coordinate my unruly limbs to get into some stretch positions, or fit into resistance machines. I do not trust the height and surface of the box I am about to step up on, or what it will feel like to lift a weight high, or let my body hang from a bar. What I need is patience from anyone training me: I need them not to laugh, to show me how it will feel, to not be afraid to physically help me into a position, or stand by until my balance corrects itself. To help me repeat it, until my body is confident it knows where it is meant to be in space, and then to tell me I am doing it right, because I genuinely cannot tell if I am. 

Going to the gym has given me more confidence in my body, and strength in my ankles, for hiking in nature, on uneven ground: something which had been beginning to terrify me. Benefit leads to benefit. And I can trace it back to learning to dance. 

A lifetime of undiagnosed dyspraxia meant I did not trust my body: it trips, stumbles, walks me into tables, makes me fall and hurt myself, or drop breakables. I cannot figure out how to make my limbs climb over things, and stepping down from any height feels dangerous. Those things have not gone away, but dancing has made all the difference in my relationship with my body: it is a fun way to experiment with balance, with physicality and coordination, and it has given me insight into how I learn anything that involves my body. And being friends with my physical self is such a boost of confidence. Someone recently asked me what I go to dancing lessons for, if it is not for a show, or to compete. I think, here, I have a good answer to that question.