Settling Out

Settling is not a new term to dancers by any stretch of the imagination. You don’t have to be in class very long before your teacher will talk to you about settling and the disadvantages it brings.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term settling, it is when you over push your weight after a move in a “slumping” motion. Many dancers as they are improving find that this is a great way to get the look of the line you want without the technique to back it up. Of course any dancing without technique is a bad choice, but Settling has lots of other disadvantages more than dancing without technique.

Settling actually can throw off your center of balance. Gravity and Levitation work together when your top and bottom of your body is inline. When you settle this causes your lower have to “stick out” leaving your center of gravity and levitation not working together. When this happens you always endanger yourself of falling. When we fall we can face serious injury. Not really worth it just for a short period of a line.

Settling also makes you work harder as a dancer. Every time you push over that center of gravity you have to work to stand up and work to get back to center. Center is the starting place for all moves, if you end a move beyond center, you must return to center prior to starting your next move. Think of it like turning off your car every time you stop at a light. Not only is it going to get annoying really fast, but you are working harder than you should and cars weren’t design to do that… neither were our bodies.

Another disadvantage, settling although when you are looking forward at yourself in the mirror can give you that line you desire, if you would turn around and show your back, the lines there would be broken. Dancers strive for connecting lines through their spine and arms. This give the look of grace, poise, and strength. If you settle you break this line. So from one angle you may look great but from another angle you look like an beginner.

So as you can see settling has some real disadvantages on the dance floor. But settling off the dance floor has some even worse ones.

We are growing up in a culture where getting the most for nothing is what we strive for on a daily bases. Now I am not just talking about money, although it is a huge contributor to this issue. We expect so much from everything we do but we don’t put anything (or very little) in to it!

According to Psychologist, Anders Ericsson it takes 10,000 hours to become a Master at something. That means if you did nothing else but this one thing 24 hours a day it would take you 1.14 years to become a master. But let’s be real, who does anything for 24 hours a day. Most adults work for 8 hours a day, if all you did was this one thing for 8 hours a day, it would take you 3.5 years to become a Master.

But yet we look at all things a say “Oh, that’s easy! I could do that!” Or maybe, try something for 2 hours and then quit because we are never going to get it. We settle out before even giving it a honest try. But the worst of all is “trying” something new without putting any effort behind it. Going through the motions just because.