Instructor Paralysis is when social dancers get so nervous about dancing with an instructor that they lose their ability to dance well. While this condition is most prolific when people dance with international instructors, it can occur with any dancer you perceive as stronger than you. It can also happen if it’s simply someone you really would like to impress.
It’s similar to how awkward many of us get around a romantic crush. The big difference is that Instructor Paralysis happens with dance crushes instead.
Symptoms
Instructor Paralysis can manifest in different ways. Common symptoms include:
- Shaking or trembling
- Forgetting to step
- Rushing, or simply being off-time
- Profuse sweating and a racing heart
- Muscle stiffness
- Frequent apologies, or explanations for perceived mistakes
- Backleading, or over-leading
- “Terrified Deer” eyes
If this sounds like something you’ve experienced, you’re not alone.
How it feels to have Instructor Paralysis
The horrible thing about Instructor Paralysis is that it stems from wanting to do well. People who suffer from this really care about having a good dance. This can be related to wanting to not ‘let down’ the more advanced partner, or ‘prove’ that you’re a good partner in hopes of maybe snagging another dance later.
But, this pressure to do well ends up creating a mountain of anxiety. It’s really, really, hard to relax into a dance if you’re crazy anxious.
Things that make Instructor Paralysis worse or better
For the afflicted
Most of the work you can do to alleviate your symptoms happens before you even reach the dance floor. For example, if your Instructor Paralysis is tied into anxiety in the rest of your life, consider developing anxiety coping mechanisms to use in social dancing.
If you are in a dance and are feeling the symptoms of Instructor Paralysis, consider doing one of the following:
- Breathing (if you’ve forgotten to)
- Making a conscious effort to relax your muscles, especially in close hold
- Compliment your partner, instead of criticizing yourself
Another important aspect of controlling symptoms is to commit to movements. A lot of times, disconnection in people suffering from Instructor Paralysis can come from second guessing what you’re trying to do.
When you second guess yourself, moves you thought you could lead stop working. Moves you thought you could follow become confusing. It’s not that you’re not capable; you’re just assuming you couldn’t possibly be right.
Remind yourself that there’s no reason to change what works. If you commit and get it ‘wrong’, it’s still better than committing to nothing. After all, committing to nothing means that it definitely won’t be right.
For the partner of the afflicted
The partner of a person with Instructor Paralysis has the power to alleviate or exacerbate the symptoms. It doesn’t matter if you are actually an instructor or not; if you’re dancing with someone who is clearly suffering some of these symptoms, be aware of what you can do to reduce the pressure.
Some things that a partner can do to reduce Instructor Paralysis include:
- Slowing down
- Using simpler movements to build up confidence in their partner
- Breathing together
- Creating connection instead of patterns
- Smiling, or giving a compliment on something that’s working well
- Ignoring mistakes
On the other hand, a partner can make Instructor Paralysis worse by:
- ‘Teaching’ on the floor
- Disengaging from the connection
- Throwing fast-action moves together in a sequence
- Dragging a partner through steps, instead of accommodating mistakes
The most important thing is probably adapting to the other person’s connection, even if it’s not your ‘favourite’ style. Of course, this doesn’t mean do dangerous things. But, if you are able to use the weight and feel of your partner’s connection, it will likely make them feel like they’re doing things right. When that feeling of rightness emerges, they’ll become more confident. That confidence will cause symptoms of Instructor Paralysis to slowly disappear.
Don’t despair!
Instructor Paralysis, or even Better-Dancer-Than-Me Paralysis, afflicts everyone at some point. It’s nothing shameful, and most advanced dancers understand the paralysis. They’re not judging you because you’re tense, or jumpy, or otherwise freaking out. They’re likely highly sympathetic towards your plight, and know exactly what’s going on. After all, they’ve been there before.
If you’re feeling the nerves, try to remind yourself that it’s OK to be nervous. Take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride. You will survive it.
Have you experienced Instructor Paralysis, or danced with a partner who was nervous with you? Share your experience in the comments.
This speaks right to the heart of why I don’t dance as much as I want to during social dances. I get too inside my head and feel like I shouldn’t be inflicting myself on better dancers. I feel like making them dance down to my level is unfair to them and I should just leave them be. Strangely, I don’t feel like this with instructors, because I feel like they’re more used to dancing with people on all levels, so I don’t feel so bad. But other dancers that I perceive as better, definitely.
Hey Roger,
I hope you’re able to work through the idea that you are ‘inflicting’ yourself on better dancers. It’s certainly not unfair to strong dancers to ‘dance down’. In fact, there’s many strong dancers who enjoy dancing with more novice people!
No need to be worried about dancing with those better than you. When starting out we all had the problem of not knowing how to dance and good dancers appreciate this journey. Because experienced dancers move better, it is easier to learn proper movements from them. You just need to find a true social dancer who will be glad to see you have a good dance experience. If older dancers don’t teach new dancers to dance, dancing dies! You will advance more and faster if you allow dancing with those dancers who welcome you.
ALL THE TIME…!!!!
One obvious solution to avoiding instructor paralysis is to simply not ask them to dance. Nobody can obligate you to dance with instructors.
Depends if you want to avoid it, or if you want to work through it 🙂
It doesn’t work well when the instructors do the asking, unless you’re ready to decline their invitation…
As I get more advanced, I hear a lot of leads apologize for dances. That’s so not necessary! I love dancing with new people. You only get one first dance with anyone, after all. As a follow, I’m in charge of whether I have fun in a dance. It isn’t the lead’s job to “give me a dance” good, bad or meh. Same as when I’m leading. If things go sour I just smile, connect again, take a breath or two, and go into some basics. Once they’re calm, I’ll try some more advanced moves, but if it’s just not working I whip out my best most clear fundamentals and play with musicality and styling. We can practice tricks off the dance floor but we can’t take back a favorite song at 3am 🙂
I remember this one instructor, well, there was a couple of them. Anyway this one asked me to dance and I wanted to run the other way in fear, but instead I made a sort of “walk of shame” thing, walked up to her with my head bent down in doubt of myself. I felt ridiculous acting this way so I felt the need to explain myself to her. I said something like “I’m sorry for acting this way. Of course,I want to dance with you, more than anything , it’s just that I get so nervous around you and other followers at your level.”. This instructor then said something that made me instantly relax and after that, I never had a problem/as much of a problem for a long time. She said something like “You don’t have to think like that. You’re a great dancer and I want to dance with you, lets have fun!”. Simply beautiful of her and whenever I find myself in similar situations, I try to remind myself of what she said and usually, it works out just fine.
I very clearly remember the first time I danced with my first salsa instructor. I had just done 4-5 songs in a row and felt rather tired, but of course I wasn’t going to say no since I really did want to dance with him, but I think I definitely had the “terrified deer eyes” mentioned above.
It actually went pretty well and ended up building my confidence, because he started off with quite simple patterns that we had covered in classes, but built up to more complicated things. Of course this is conjecture, but it made me feel like he wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t been doing well or if it wasn’t clear that I could follow the more complicated patterns. I was excited about it for days and am still grateful!