To any aspiring and professional dancer, the answers to these questions are painfully obvious. Painful in more ways than one, but sadly only obvious to some. The art and pursuit of making dance look effortless and easy, leads many observers to think that perhaps it is. (Never mind that some of these same critics couldn’t touch their own toes, let alone fly through the air in grand jeté splits. Just saying.)

But fortunately, Discovery found a more diplomatic and compelling answer for their readers through this video interview with Cape Town City Ballet’s senior principal dancer, Laura Bosenberg. See the short but inspiring video here (beautifully produced by Stage 5 Films) and share with your friends…

Mandela joyously danced his signature Madiba shuffle and when asked if there was anything he wanted to say, he gave us this:

“It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world, and at peace with myself.”
– Nelson Mandela

You can watch Madiba’s surprise stage appearance in this video clip, and in particular notice how he then encourages everyone, including those far at the back, to stand up and join the dancing, insisting that Clegg and his band repeat the song so that they could all dance again.

The song Asimbonanga – translated as “we have not seen him” – was written by Clegg in 1986 calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. In this next clip, Johnny Clegg shares his thoughts behind the song and his personal experiences with Madiba.

The world learned today of the passing of this great icon. But although we are deeply saddened, we are also truly inspired by a man who changed the world and told us to join together and dance.

Rest in peace, Madiba. We promise to always keep dancing.

Photo by Daniela Vladimirova via Flickr

Are you injury-prone, struggling with your flexibility, weight or your health? What if it turned out that you have some hidden agendas and unconscious motives relating to your physical body?

“No way” you say?

Well, you may just change your mind, quite literally, after hearing this evening talk on 30 May 2013 where Dr John Demartini delves into the mechanics of the mind and its connection to fitness, health, wellbeing and the reasons behind the things we do or don’t do to achieve our health and wellness goals. (See the video introduction below.)

Dr Demartini is a renowned human behavioural specialist, a revered chiropractor and an international authority on the mind body connection with a background of over 40 years in-depth study covering over 260 ‘ologies’ with a primary focus on health, disease, healing and wellbeing.

How to “walk your talk, not limp your life”

He says we have incredible capacity to create profound transformations in our psychology and physiology through the power of our perceptions. When we take command of how we perceive things we change the labels and our misperceptions about our own health and wellbeing.

This presentation at the Sandton Convention Centre will address the unlimited healing power of a balanced mind and is said to include ground breaking information on conquering various forms of addiction.

Event details:

Public talk: Mind over body by Dr John Demartini
Date: Thursday, 30 May 2013
Times: Registration at 19:00 and talk from 19:30 to 21:45 (including Q&A).
Venue: Committee Room 4, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
Tickets: R280 through Computicket or R300 at the door.

Still not sure? Watch this quick (1 minute 40 second) video summary of what to expect at Dr Demartini’s talk:

Don’t be a sheeple (even though they’re terribly cute). Photo by Ian Sane via Flickr

I’ll admit, there was a time when I would dread unset classes. I was so anxious about standing in front that I’d make damn sure to always aim for the middle of the barre – you know, the safe zone, always with someone in front and behind to copy.

Class after unset class, I would take my position in the safe zone and passively learn the steps to each new tendu or frappé exercise, always able to copy from someone if I lost my way. No stress, no harm done.

Until of course I was called to the front of the barre. Holy Pavlova! With the stress of remembering the steps, the timing, the sequence, and the pressure of getting it all right, my cortisol levels shot higher than Brooklyn Mack’s cabriole!

A little help from science – learning new steps minus the stress

Start applying these five tips in your next class and soon, instead of slinking into obscurity, you’ll actually ask to stand in front. Imagine that.

Photo by Dierk Schaefer via Flickr.

1) Be a control freak

Have you noticed how the smart freaks and the control freaks manage to pick up new choreography with no stress? But being ‘smart’ actually has nothing to do with it – even A-students can get caught in the don’t-put-me-in-front stress.

Psychologists have found that people who step up and assume authority over a situation (‘control freaks’) are much better at picking up new information than those who’d rather stand in the middle and let others take responsibility.

It has to do with your hippocampus, the part of the brain involved with memory formation. It functions far more effectively when we are actively, rather than passively, involved in something. This means that you’re able to pick up that new adage far more easily when you actively take up the lead and assume responsibility for learning it.

Each time you copy someone, you’re using the passive part of the brain and you’ll battle to remember the steps when you turn around and repeat it on the other side.

It’s a subtle but powerful shift in mindset that anyone can do. While in class, be a leader, never follow.

2) Choose your attitude wisely

It’s about adopting an “I’m going to do this” attitude rather than the fearful “please don’t make me do this”, or worse, the apologetic “don’t copy me, I might get it wrong” mindset.

Depending on the attitude you choose – yes, it is most definitely your choice – the brain actually works differently and the body responds accordingly.

3) Don’t set yourself up for failure

Never apologise upfront that you might make mistakes or jokingly warn people not to follow you. Those “ha ha, follow me at your peril” comments send a message to your brain that you’re already anticipating mistakes and you’ve relinquished responsibility before you’ve even started. You may be in front, but you’re not leading anymore.

4) Fake it till you make it

So maybe you’re the one who always complains and jokes about standing in front. Well, you’ll have some habits to break from now on. First, decide not to make a fuss about taking the lead. Then, each time you catch yourself saying something to undermine yourself, quickly correct it (in your head, unless you want some strange looks). Remind yourself that that was yesterday’s you, and that today’s you is going to lead like never before. After all, you are what you think.

And as for the expectations of your fellow dancers? Realise that people are far more worried about themselves than about whether you get the steps right or not.

5) Act like you’re in front, even when you’re not

Pretend like you’re the only dancer in the class and never copy, even when you’re in the middle. At first, you’ll find it rather hard to ignore the others, because you’ve actually trained yourself to watch them in your peripheral vision.

But the more you un-train yourself to copy and re-train yourself to take control, the quicker the hippocampus makes it all work for you. In fact, all it takes is one clear decision to conquer this class and you’ve already got your memory firing on all cylinders.

Dr John Demartini, a human behavioural specialist and best-selling author.

Mikhail Baryshnikov once said “No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything”.

Similarly, no one is born with success. Even with a natural born talent, success can never be guaranteed based on your past, but rather as a result of how you think and what you do each day forward. Far beyond talent, a successful mindset and the right action is what’s required.

And there are few people in the world that could give you better insights into this required mindset of the world’s top high achievers than Dr John Demartini, who is giving a talk in Johannesburg on 29 May on the 11 key success principles of high achievers.

Taking a leap ahead

Dr Demartini has spent the past 40 years studying over 29 000 books, teaching over 1 million people and coaching global leaders, A-list celebrities, top athletes, Wall Street financiers, and business influencers.

Through his lifelong study, he’s discovered there are 11 key principles that the world’s top high achievers all share in common. He’s going to share these 11 key habits during this one-time-only event at the Sandton Convention Centre.

If big success is a result of little thoughts and actions accumulated each day, and if like Mikhail Baryshnikov you want to be successful more than anything, then you’d be wise to learn from other high achievers on how to tune and leverage those daily actions to reach your goal.

So what would you do if you knew these 11 success principles and could apply them daily? What more could you achieve? How much further could you fly?

Event details:

Public talk: 11 Key success principles of the world’s top high achievers
Date: Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Times: Registration at 19:00 and talk from 19:30 to 21:15 (incl. Q&A)
Venue: Bill Gallagher room, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
Tickets: R180 from Computicket or R200 at the door.

Go on, you ain’t gonna live forever…

Following their recent South African concert tour, this Bon Jovi song comes to mind – “It’s now or never. I ain’t gonna live forever…It’s my life”. Oh go on, turn up the volume and rock your life!

Photo by Martinak15 via Flickr

“Just take a deep breath” may be one hell of a clichéd thing to tell someone who’s stressed out of their mind. But scientists have found that it’s actually exactly what’s required to stop the body’s biological and chemical stress response and create a calmer state of mind.

For dancers, this knowledge of how to quickly regain a calm composure can mean the difference between an effortless performance and a noticeably stressed and strained one.

Beating the breath-stress connection

Ever noticed how your breathing becomes rapid, uneven and shallow when you’re feeling anxious, nervous or under pressure? Compare that to those calm moments listening to your favourite soothing music, or stroking your cat on a lazy afternoon – your breathing is slow, easy and deep.

But here’s the trick, although your breathing rate is usually as a result of your state of mind, it can also be the cause. Put another way, stress affects your breathing, but breathing can also beat your stress.

By simply deliberately slowing down your breathing the next time you feel anxious, you can trick the body out of its stress response. Your slow breathing tells the body that all is well (your cat-stroking mode) and disrupts the stress messages. Even though you might not have fixed whatever it was that was causing you stress, the slow, deep breaths will put you in a much calmer, more controlled state of mind to be able to deal with it.

This is certainly one trick to remember to soothe those pre-performance nerves. Just take a deep breath, or five.

And if you’re still struggling to keep your head above water, enjoy this song by Alexi Murdoch called ‘Breathe’. (P.S. Fans of Stargate Universe will recognise this from the ending in episode 3.)

Taking a cue from high-performance sportsmen and women who have realised the importance of a high-performance mental coach, I set out to discover just what a performance coach could really do for a dancer.

Top three ways a mind coach can help a dancer

Are you still thinking small? Photo by Falequin via Flickr

1. Expectation

According to Sandras Phiri, a performance coach based in Cape Town, a coach can help the performer to change his or her expectation, because a person who does not expect to do well will struggle to achieve the desired goals.

“Unfortunately many people are wired to expect undesirable results as opposed to results they want,” says Sandras. “For instance, when they win, they say ‘I can’t believe it’ and when they lose they say ‘I knew it’. Switching those affirmations around can be very powerful.”

2. Visualisation

Visualisation is not idle day-dreaming. Sandras suggests that a lot of games are won in the mind before they are won on stage and visualisation techniques are just what you need to pre-empt that win.

He claims that when he’s working with his clients on this, he can see from the reactions on their faces and the muscle tension that it is very real in their minds. “Going over this process several times,” he says “significantly reduces nervousness as the performer feels that ‘I’ve done this before’”.

3. Perseverance

Dancers may need no lessons on persevering through pain. (In fact, I’m sure even rough and tough rugby players could learn a thing or two from dancers on that point – with an effortless smile for the audience of course, no grunts and grimaces allowed chaps.)

No, this type of perseverance is different. Sandras explains it best when he says that “many performers sometimes look at other successful performers and get impatient with their own progress. They don’t realise or they forget that to be good at anything one must put in the time. A coach can help the performer to persevere and invest the time.”

Get in the zone

Another performance coach, Craig McKenzie, who has had specific experience with professional sportspeople, adds that he works to coach and upskill athletes and performers “to be in their best mind space in training and competition”.

Have you tried some mental target practice?
Photo by Editor B via Flickr

He says that each dancer first needs to be able to identify and then learn to get into their ‘ideal performance state’, also known as ‘the zone’ where you can then perform at your highest level.

This illusive state of mind may be legendary, but certainly not mythical – it’s very real and Craig and his colleagues at Head Start Sport have developed a model to help athletes get their minds into the IPS (Ideal Performance State).

After all, dancing is a sport and an art, with all the physical and performance pressures of both. So perhaps adding a little mental exercise to your physical regimen wouldn’t hurt.

Have you experienced ‘the zone’? Do you know how to get there on command? Share your thoughts with us below.

We’ll talk to experts in the fields of psychology, neuro-science and human potential for their advice, from memory tricks for concert rehearsals to stress-coping techniques and more.

Watch this space for these mind-bending articles coming soon…