What are you REALLY building when you look for dance training shortcuts?
Dance teachers see it all the time: dancers who have big leaps but who have sloppy positions, or someone with sharp shedding but 45* turnout, or feet that flop everywhere! It looks like they’ve only focused on one or two things in their training, to the detriment of everything else. We hear it all the time, too.
“My dancer gets so discouraged hearing the same corrections over and over! Can you tell them something new or interesting to practice?”
or
“They watched Jumpy McSpringylegs’s workshop and she said you can drop your working hip backwards to make it look more turned out, and it’s so much easier than rotating both hip sockets!”,
or even
“I can’t do that by this weekend, is there a trick to make it look like I can?”.
We don’t know where it came from, but this idea that there’s little hidden secret technique methods that make an average dancer incredible with the flip of a switch is just…odd. That’s not to say there isn’t ways to quickly make it look like you’re a better dancer, but the truth is: they don’t always equal good or correct dancing.
Sure, there are ways to quickly make it look like you’re dancing better. Maybe you shift your foot on the back of your leg so it’s a bit shallow, because you can keep it tighter around the leg. Maybe you arch your back on shuffles to make it easier to hold your core. Maybe you pop that supporting hip out to power up. Who’s going to notice that, anyways? We’ve all done it – found a way to make a hard technique thing easier by shifting out of alignment or compensating in some way. And then comes the inevitable thought…why has your teacher not just told you this from the beginning?! Deep down, though, every dancer knows why: there’s a big difference between doing something impressive without the foundational scaffolding technique to match it, and being truly skilled.
Trick dancing looks strained, effortful, uncomfortable – it should be champion dancing, but there’s just something you can’t put your finger on that makes it not quite good enough – because it’s not meant to look that way!
Tricks might get you 70% there, but you watch any premier competition and you’ll see the difference between dancers training their long game (working on the hard things correctly) versus the dancers who have trained their tricks. Tricksters are sharp, they’re flashy, they’re winning….until they aren’t anymore. Until their shallow shedding is noticeable against the champions with laser-precise positions, perfect alignment, and full body strength. Until their ankle rotation coming off the floor in their hops earns them a chronic injury. The champions, on the flip side, look effortless, relaxed, graceful and poised, even in the last step of a 4+2 Seann Triuhbas. Their shins aren’t screaming in pain at the end of a Reel because they have trained their whole legs, and know how to jump well. In Highland, it’s not uncommon to see a shift in ‘top’ dancers around 13-16, where those who’ve been surviving on tricks start to be outperformed by those who’ve been training their long game. They may have even been sacrificing the ‘win’ to implement big technique changes, and it starts to pay off.
There’s also a difference between a brief moment that might catch a judge’s eye, and a whole dance that wows. Tricks, cheats, and illusions won’t carry you through a championship sword with stability and energy or earn consistent results across a whole competition season. They very likely will injure you, sidelining a season or a career. They don’t replace correct alignment, turnout, elevation, strong arms, or intentional, precise foot positions; the things often considered boring or too basic to focus on in class! The dancers who commit to the boring work eventually shine the brightest, their dancing speaking for itself.
The long game in dance is about mastering the hard stuff- precision, technique, strength, control, alignment, musicality, artistry – through training rather than tricks. It’s working over and over on the difficult movements or sequences, rather than looking for a way around them. It takes more patience. It won’t always get you the highest placings at first. But it builds the kind of dancer who lasts, who is not injured, who has exceptional technique and the strength in the right muscles to do what we are asking the body to do. They are magnetic on stage, because they’re the real deal. And bonus, it teaches the dancer something that can’t be learned any other way: the absolute joy of slogging through the hard work to realize you practiced it so many times, you can’t ever get it wrong. That movement is now ingrained – background noise, part of your scaffolding – rather than being something requiring active thought. The pleasure of hard work is a lesson we all need, but is hard to train. Luckily, focusing on your long game gets you there!
“I find it so hard to do regular high cuts now. My legs just go out into split cuts whenever it’s time! I was demonstrating for the beginners the other day and had to actively tell myself: NO SPLITS!”
“I wasn’t even thinking about my core on my shuffles! I can’t believe it! I’ve had to think about that for the last 6 years of my life.
HOWEVER! Dance teachers are savvy. Dance teachers know it’s boring to work on things repetitively. A good teacher will package the long game up into neat little ‘trick’-like packages! One of your dance teacher’s jobs is to find new and exciting ways to deliver the same old information to you, hoping that phrasing it this way or moving it that way will click in your brain, unlocking the next level in the scaffold to long-game perfection. Sometimes these can seem like the teacher is asking you to do tricks! It feels easier, or like a breakthrough, or something just clicks. Your body settles in and it feels easier. Here’s the difference, though: a long game tip packaged into a digestible bite-sized morsel will never ask you to compromise any of your foundational teachings. It will never ask you to move out of alignment, or place your body out of the correct technique – no mid fourth instead of fourth to make it look more turned out, for example – and it should never, ever make you move your body in a way that may chronically injure you. It’s a small distinction, but a real and important one in training.
Can tricks ever morph into the long game, and vice versa? YES! This is also an important distinction. Trying something new can sometimes feel very much like a trick: uncontrolled, uncomfortable, strained, or a momentary wow that doesn’t match the rest of the dance. The way to make something new travel the long game path rather than stay in the trick lane is two-fold: train the movement slowly, deliberately and precisely to make it feel natural, and cross-train the muscles and body to be able to support that move correctly; that is, in alignment and with the right supporting muscles. Split cuts can feel like a trick when you first start, and most dancers won’t be able to do them with correct body alignment or technique. Taking the trick path: doing 75000 split cuts, but never focusing on strengthening your core, thighs, feet or arms. Your legs might go out and they might get big, but your upper body is hunched and your feet will look floppy. Taking the long game path: training each of the muscle groups specifically to help with split cuts, and breaking down the movement and practicing it over and over in the correct positions with the upper body stable.
So dancers, when we say play the long game, we don’t mean you can’t aim high or push yourself, or try new things! We mean: do it the right way. Build the kind of dancer who doesn’t need tricks—because they’ve built skill. Trust the process. Invest in the hard things. The payoff is longer-lasting than any quick trick.
