In my first blog post, I mentioned that I love to praise dance… You can read that post here… I started dancing in church when I was probably around 16ish… My church had started a dance team and quite honestly, I had never really thought about joining until the new director (who was also a member of our church and longtime family friend) asked if I would pray about joining the team. Well, I went to one of their practices and after that, I officially joined the team! I danced with our dance team for around 6 years but started dancing solo in 2012. I can even remember the first song that I danced to by myself! In the around 17 years of praise dancing, I’ve learned a few things and just wanted to share with anyone who may be interested in dancing OR who already dances and may just want some advice. Here’s a couple of them.

*First and foremost, when you are praise dancing, you have to remember that although you may be dancing in front of an “audience”, you are really only dancing for 1… and that’s GOD. Our director always, always, always reminded us that we were dancing for an audience of one. That’s for sure one of the things that I always remember when I go and dance somewhere. So often, especially with the younger ages, dancers tend to want a particular family member or person to see them dance, which ofcourse is understandable… especially when you’ve worked so hard to learn something. But it needs to be mentioned that we are there to give God all of the glory and the praise. Also when I go in with this mindset, I don’t feel as much pressure.

*You will make mistakes! No one is perfect and things happen. You may forget the moves, drop a prop or maybe even trip over something. I’ve seen it all. The only thing that you can do… is KEEP GOING and don’t beat yourself up over it. I remember once when our dance team danced to about 4 songs one Easter Sunday and I seemed to have made a mistake on every single song. I’m not kidding! I was sooo upset! One of the ladies on the team was basically like “Girl, all you can do is keep going.” And I realized she was so right. If you mess up, 9 times out of 10, the people watching may not have even noticed. Just keep moving and smiling!

Sooooo, whether you’re dancing in a group or dancing solo, just have fun!! Helping people enter into praise and worship is an absolute honor and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I will share some more tips later! Stay blessed!

S.H.O.N.