Conquering my fear of dancing in public

About two months ago, I finished a three-month beginner Salsa class. I never thought I would take a dance class because I have been afraid of dancing in front of others my whole life.

I feel super self-conscious about dancing with others because I fear others will judge my poor dancing skill. To overcome my fear of dancing, I decided to take a Salsa class with my best friend from high school.

In this post, I will share the root cause of my fear of dancing and how learning Salsa helped me overcome my fear.

By sharing my journey of overcoming one of my deep-rooted fears, I hope to encourage people to act upon their fears to feel more confident and comfortable with themselves.

My fear of dance

The root cause of my fear of dancing in public stems from being afraid of how others would judge me.

My body has always been quite stiff and inflexible while growing up. Every time I tried to dance, I would always look very awkward. Whenever I was dancing, I thought people were judging how bad I was.

One of my best friends invited me to a dance workshop in college. My friend told me the workshop would be pretty chill and easy. I thought no one would notice me if I hid in the back of the class, so I agreed to go to the dance workshop.

During the dance workshop, I realized the choreography was much harder than I expected. Since I had zero dancing foundation, I couldn't keep up with others and didn't know what I was doing.

I wasn't too worried about not being able to follow all the dance moves because no one was watching me as I stood in the back row. However, toward the end of the workshop, the instructor told us to split into small groups to film what we learned.

When I heard that I had to perform in the small group, I thought I was doomed. I got nowhere to hide with only four people in the small group, so I just had to wing it during the small group performance.

I felt so embarrassed about my clumsy dance moves because my friend laughed at me during the entire small group performance. At that moment, I just wanted to dig a hole and hide in it.

Ever since my college dance workshop experience, I tried to avoid any occasion to dance because I was afraid I would embarrass myself again.

My experience with learning Salsa

Over the summer, the same friend who invited me to the college dance workshop asked if I wanted to take a beginner salsa class with him.

I was hesitant at first, but I ultimately decided to take the Salsa class because I wanted to feel more comfortable with how I could move my body.

In my first Salsa class, the instructor recorded everyone dancing Salsa to get a sense of everyone's level.

As shown in the video, I didn't even know how to count the beat in the music properly. My eyes were looking everywhere except the camera because I felt awkward and embarrassed about not knowing how to dance.

In my first two classes, we focused solely on basic footwork. Once we got comfortable with dancing with basic footwork, our instructor started teaching us how to incorporate our upper body movement into our dance.

I was a bit overwhelmed when combining my upper-body movement with my footwork. I was also worried that I could not keep up with the class and that people would judge me for making mistakes.

However, when I looked around the dancing studio, I noticed no one was looking at me because people were busy focusing on themselves. Whenever I made mistakes in my dance moves, I found that no one was laughing at me or judging me.

Suddenly, I realized that my fear of others judging me was only happening in my head. In reality, no one is paying attention to how I dance. Therefore, I decided to stop thinking about others and focus on myself.

After about one month of Salsa classes, I started to care less about what other students thought about my dance. When I stopped focusing on other people's judgment, I could concentrate on my body movement and think about where I could improve.

By practicing the movements I kept messing up, I started to get the hang of the basic Salsa steps. When I could comfortably dance basic Salsa steps, I began to feel more confident with how I moved my body.

The video below is footage from my 2nd to last Salsa class. In the video, I felt much more at ease with dancing in the class.

Conclusion

Dancing in public has always been my fear for the past ten years. I was afraid of dancing because I feared people would judge my awkward dance moves. However, after taking the beginner Salsa class, I learned that no one was paying much attention to my dance except myself.

Throughout my salsa classes, I shifted my focus from worrying about other people's judgment to concentrating on learning at my own pace.

When I started focusing on myself and correcting my mistakes, I began to progress in learning Salsa. Although I am still not great at Salsa, I am at least much more comfortable with how I move my body.

Feeling more comfortable with myself, I can confidently say I am less afraid of dancing in public now.

I welcome y'all to ask yourself this question: "what are some of the biggest fears you would like to overcome in the upcoming year?"

Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts, or feedback with me @themagichen on Instagram or reach me at themagichen@gmail.com