GIVE IT A WHIRL

After a decade of dreaming about it, CLAIRE MOULDS finally takes to the dancefloor and finds herself well and truly addicted.

Claire Moulds takes to the dancefloor after years of dreaming

“Are you a dancer?” It’s a question I’ve been asked numerous times in my life – perhaps because of the ballet lessons I took when I was tiny, followed by ice-skating in my pre-teens, both of which taught me the importance of good posture, holding yourself well and interpreting music through movement to tell a story.

Like most adults, though, I lost track of my childhood passions over the years and, apart from a brief flirtation with salsa at university, my dancing days were over – or so I thought. Until I discovered Strictly Come Dancing, and I found myself feeling a physical, almost desperate, pull to the dancefloor.

While my husband would pointedly plug his headphones into the iPad and watch something else, his ability to identify a poor top line, or messy footwork, gave me hope. Admittedly, it did take a decade, but my squeals of delight could be heard down the street on the Christmas morning that I opened a voucher for ballroom dancing lessons for two.

Thursday night quickly went from being “the weekend cannot come soon enough” to my favourite day of the week; when I’d get to spend an hour tackling the waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, tango, cha cha cha, rhumba, samba and jive. Moreover, I came to understand what drives the Strictly and Dancing with the Stars celebrities to endure such a gruelling training schedule week on week – because learning to dance is completely and utterly addictive.

“There’s nothing as powerful as a group of people coming together to move to the same beat, to sweat, stomp, groove, move, let go and lose their inhibitions. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom for the mind, body and soul,” confirms Jane Shortall, choreographer and movement coach for film and TV. “No matter how exhausted, lacking in energy or low I may feel on a particular day, I always feel on top of the world right after I dance, and that I can accomplish anything.”

Regardless of your ability, or how many hours you’ve trained, spinning around a dancefloor is pure joy, providing an endorphin rush like no other and, four years on, I’m still as excited before each lesson as I was with my first.

But I’ve been surprised to learn, as I enthusiastically told people about my new-found passion, that there is a broad misconception out there that you need to have some level of dance skill or previous experience before taking up dance lessons. So many people have told me they’d love to follow in my footsteps but don’t feel they could.

“I developed the ConfiDANCE programme,” says Shortall, “because I had women of all ages saying to me, ‘I’m too self-conscious/frumpy/stiff/out of shape/stressed/old to dance’. When I could see that all they were really missing was their joie de vivre; they had simply forgotten how to let go and have fun. To counter that, our sessions involve a fusion of dance

styles, to the most upbeat music, and are designed to leave participants feeling fitter, more confident and happier.”

As with anything, there’s also a learning curve, as professional dancer and Dancing with the Stars head judge Loraine Barry explains, “People always say, ‘I have two left feet’ or ‘I have no rhythm’ but everyone has the ability to learn to dance. You have to learn the steps, and this will allow you to connect with your feet – left and right. After that, you’ll learn to hear the music and how the steps and song fit together. It doesn’t have to be ballroom either. There are many different types of dance class, and the only way to know if you prefer line dancing or tap or hip hop is to try them all.”

Another common misconception amongst beginners is that you need a partner. Fiona Gormley attends the ballroom class in Dance Ireland’s DanceHouse studios, run by the Viva School of Dance. “The majority of the class joined, like me, on their own, and it didn’t in any way hold us back,” she says. “I love meeting up with all the other students, as you get to know people that you might not normally meet in your daily life, and there’s a great sense of camaraderie – after all, everyone is in the same boat, and dance is a great leveller.”

For me, a key benefit of lessons is stress-relief. While the rest of the week you’ll find me juggling three or four things at the same time – while simultaneously worrying about the next few things that need doing after that – dance forces me to be entirely in the moment and to focus on my steps, which means that the little anxious voice in my head has to pipe down for that hour.

Learning to dance is also proven to help your brain’s performance. A recent study by researchers from the University of Illinois assigned participants to one of three different activities – brisk walking or simple stretching, strength and balance exercises or dance lessons (where the choreography became progressively more challenging). These activities were then undertaken for an hour, three times a week, for six months. At the end of the experiment, the results revealed that the group who had had dance lessons actually increased a component of the brain structure that is crucial for memory and processing.

“My memory has definitely improved, and it’s had a knock-on effect in other areas of my life too,” says Fiona. “I’m now much better at swinging into ‘concentration mode’ when I have to remember important information. I also think my brain feels refreshed after a class, and I’m always able to think more clearly the following day.”

It’s not just your mind either that benefits from a phenomenal workout. Loraine says, “From my own experience of dancing, you develop a tremendous body. Having to co-ordinate the lower and upper parts of your body creates a powerful core, which is so important for your overall health, not least as it supports the spine and protects you from back pain.”

Jane agrees: “Dancing is incredibly good for your posture. As a dancer, you are trained to keep your head up, shoulders back and to walk tall, which is very important for the skeletal system and bones, especially in later life. It’s also one of the most efficient exercises for fat burning and improves our lung capacity and cardiovascular system, which in turn affects our stamina – giving us more physical and mental energy to do more in life.”

And, if you do take to the dancefloor with your other half, there are definitely relationship benefits to be enjoyed as well. You might be in a room full of people, but it’s actually all about the two of you, as you have to move as one around the floor, work as a team to learn a new routine, and step out of your comfort zone together.

This week marked the pinnacle of my own ballroom dancing experience, as we joined a second class dedicated exclusively to the Argentine tango – the dance which gets my pulse racing the most and which I’ve been dying to learn since I first saw it performed. As I tried out the first of those trademark kicks and caressed the floor with my feet, I felt a rush: “Yes! I am a dancer.”

“No matter how exhausted or low I may feel, I always feel on top of the world right after I dance.”