Ballroom State of Mind

In episode 92 we imagined situations going perfectly in order to get solid, confidence building mental reps. No mistakes allowed! But we all know mistakes and unexpected things can happen, and it's it best to prepare for them? The answer is yes. There is a time and place for perfect reps and there is a time and place for contingency plans. In this episode, I give guidance on how to do this con...

Some people call it mental rehearsal, some visualization and others envisioning. Whatever you call it, high performers know it is a powerful tool to increase your level of preparation and even your skills. Since the brain doesn't distinguish between someone happening in real life or if it's imagined, it's your chance to program your mind and body for what you want to execute. In this e...

Good grief! Politics in dance! Is there anything in this world that doesn't involve some type of politics? This episode was prompted by a comment on social media where a dancer was lamenting that they could not be successful because of the politics in dance. What a powerless place to be, right? The short answer is to let it go and focus on the things that you can control. But many of us need a...

Words are powerful. The way you use them can determine how you feel and the energy with with you operate in the world. As one example, when your brain offers you a lot of thoughts that start with, "what if..." it leads to feelings of uncertainty, doubt, defensiveness, etc. But if you switch "what if" with "even if" then something shifts. Even if...then I can...(or I w...

In this episode, we visit some of the ways we hold ourselves back. The primary reason for that is ultimately our brain trying to keep us safe so we can survive the best we can. To do that, we need to avoid pain...even emotional pain. Most of what we try to accomplish today is going to probably lead to some pain, so don't be surprised that you're holding back in those instances. To overcome...

In this episode, I bring you a life coaching tool called Emotional Adulthood. Listeners love the podcasts that they can apply to the rest of their lives outside of dance, so this one is for YOU! When we are in Emotional Childhood, we are operating more like children in our emotional lives. It is characterized by a relinquishing of responsibility for how we feel and act. In this state, you would fi...

This episode is all about how to actually settle yourself down when your nervous system has been triggered. Often when we stop and try to "take some deep breaths" to help bring ourselves back to reality, it doesn't seem to work very well. Sometimes this is because when we take this approach, we might actually be resisting our emotions rather than processing them. In this episode I gi...

It can't be avoided. At some point, you will have a performance that just doesn't go well. You will have days where your dancing is just...off. Even if you do everything that you can to plan, prepare and mitigate issues, there will be times you just walk away knowing it just wasn't your best dancing. And we have to live with that. In this episode, I tell the story of my recent Nightclu...

Many of my clients do what they do with their dancing because, "they just want to be a good dancer." But what does that even mean? Often they aren't really sure, they just know it's not what they are right now. Why are we so resistant to believing we are a good dancer? What is the danger in believing that? Maybe it's not even a good idea to wish for this for ourselves, at lea...

While we all say we want to feel more confident, we spend a lot of mental energy proving to ourselves why we are lacking and not good enough. We rehearse our shortcomings and remind ourselves of the mistakes we have made in the past. I'm not sure why we think it's a mystery that we feel doubtful and lack confidence. In this episode, I teach you what a confidence bank is and how to build it...

Have you ever stopped to realize that nothing is really a problem unless you think it is a problem? This is why some things can really bother someone else but not bother you. As I work with clients in my private practice, so many things that we think are a problem are actually just normal development. We just don't like how it's going. But it IS totally normal actually. If we can make peace with t...

Enjoy this interview with Irene Wong: mom of 3, entrepreneur, and 16 year pro-am competitor! She shares her journey on her YouTube channel, "Everything Ballroom, and co-owns Dancewear Works, a designer dress company supplying dresses and menswear to ballroom competitors. In her words, "I'm on a mission to make dancewear accessible to all." In addition to her love for dance, she...

Few people understand what it really means to pursue dancing. We go through a lot of things and it changes us. I can't find the words to describe this episode, so just go listen and enjoy! Merry Christmas! Join Joyful Ballroom Facebook Group ⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more help and free content to benefit your dance experience! Book a free Dance Strategy Call ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠ to take charge of your dance m...

Inevitably, when a client has had a lot of change in a short amount of time, they feel like they are "cured." They feel like they have a handle on their mind and emotions so much better, but then something comes up that triggers them. This is a moment when they think they are backsliding. This isn't true at all. Listen in to this episode to hear how this is totally normal, you aren&#...

We want to be confident, right? But not too confident. Not arrogant. Not cocky. But also I want feel powerful and celebrate my success, but also still be humble. Have you taken the time to sift through all these? You should because if you want to be confident and maximize your potential, you might be holding yourself back in the name of preventing arrogance or trying to remain humble. Listen in fo...

This episode outlines one way to narrow your focus. It is a continuation of episode 77 and gives you a 3-part framework to narrow your focus---and WHAT to focus on--in situations like practice, lessons and competitions. Before you get to the framework, you must do some data collection, also called evaluation. Evaluating will help you know where to apply your attention. After you have the data you...

There are some things that are relevant to your dancing and other things that just aren't. We tend to spend a lot of energy, time and attention on things that aren't relevant and it holds us back, delays progress, exhausts us and distracts from our performance. In this episode we talk about focusing on what is relevant and NOT focusing on what is NOT relevant. A quick list of what is not r...

"Ugh! Why am I still so nervous?! Why won't those go away?!" Ummmm, well, because you are human and you care about what you are doing so they will probably never go away. But I have good news: You don't need them to go away! If fact, with the right perspective you will see they are actually good and meant to help you! At some point you associated the nervous feeling with somethin...

It can be super hard to cope when you are without a ballroom dance partner. After all, this is partner dancing. We don't really want to do it alone! In this episode I give you some ideas on how to cope, but taking any of those actions is going to be 10x harder if we are doing it from a defeated mindset. So first things first, be mindful (pun intended) of your perspective. The thoughts you thin...

Coachability is probably one of the traits that will 10x your progress. After all, if you hire a teacher or coach to help you and then you push back, question and resist their expertise, what are we even doing here? Yet I see it often...dancers in a lesson, questions semantics or the way they are teaching a certain figure or concept. A lot of time and energy is wasted on these kinds of interaction...

It's hard to put a lot of time, effort and money towards our dancing and then have a competition yield poor results and feel like an utter failure. It's not uncommon to ask the question, "Why are we doing this again?" When this comes up with clients, I like to draw a pie chart and fill it up with all the reasons we are dancing and/or competing. If results is the biggest piece tha...

You may not realize that you have a past, present and future self. Your past self makes plans, then your present self carries them out (or not) and then your future self gets to enjoy the results. At least, it's really interesting to think about it this way. Consider that if all three are in alignment, you get a lot of results! But somehow, that's not how it works out. We often look back w...

The ballroom industry has a component that is all about aesthetics. Your "look" matters. So if you don't like how you look in general, it's going to hold you back. Add on that a healthy dose of perfectionism and odds are you don't have the best relationship with your body. You might not have realized that you even have a relationship with your body, but you do. Think about ho...

Recently in Hawaii for the Hawaii Star Ball, my daughter and I went snorkeling. As I started snorkeling, I felt my nervous system being activated and it took longer than I expected for it to settle down. I started to notice how similar it is to dancing when you have an activated nervous system. Listen in to see what I mean and for a simple process to start to settle yourself down if you are freaki...

Breaking up is hard to do. Breaking up a dance partnership is no different. While the nature of a teacher/student dance relationship is business related and transactional, it can still be difficult and emotional. In this episode, we talk about the reasons people choose to leave their dance teacher, why it's so hard and how to approach the conversation for the best outcome we can hope for. Join...