To be successful in ballet, training is a must. What people don’t always realize, however, is that ballet training extends well beyond just the art of dance. Ballet training makes us better people. The time, commitment and life lessons learned during ballet training can truly shape us not just physically but emotionally, mentally, and socially.
Ballet training can improve our interpersonal relationships as well as our personal ethics. Ballet training even in infancy, preschool, adolescents, and adulthood has the potential to help all of us grow. Here are 6 ways ballet training makes us better people:
#1: Ballet Training Teaches Us Commitment Leads To Improvement
As a parent, I hope to instill strong work ethics, commitment skills, and a drive to be moving forward. Ballet training is an excellent way to help our little ones and our teens (and even ourselves!) understand the value of commitment and hard work.
When one commits to ballet training, they’re committing to working towards the goal of learning a new skill, a new dance routine, and a new performance. They’re learning that hard work can be fun and meaningful.
When your child trains in ballet they learn that pushing to learn the next skill is rewarding. Ballet training is a fun and exciting way to learn important life skills. Young children can watch a professional ballet company and know that they too can learn those eloquent moves by committing to their training. Best of all, children and adults alike are having fun while working hard during ballet.
#2: Ballet Training Teaches Us The Value Of Earning Something
When we see an amazingly skilled ballerina leap on stage, we know they worked incredibly hard to build that skill. In ballet, to improve you must earn it through training. Ballet training can teach even our youngest children that we must earn the things we desire most.
Ballet training is a great way to help our children learn the value of commitment and how commitment leads to earning things, such as a new skill.
Even our youngest dancers can naturally learn this important lesson through fun and creative movement during class.
#3: Children Can Learn The Value in “Failures”
To progress to the next level of training, ballet students must master the skills of their current level. Ballet training is an individual journey, one we cannot compare between two individuals. So often children are taught to compare or see skill mastering as pass or fail.
In dance training, we have the opportunity to show children the importance of focusing on their unique journey. We are teaching them resilience and the importance of mastering each level before moving forward.
Ballet training helps us to teach children to focus on their individual journey and not to compare themselves with others. No one will master every area of life without a single “failure” or disappointment, this makes learning to be resilient an important life skill. Long term ballet training truly helps us to become better people, more resilient and hard working.
#4: Ballet Training Teaches Accountability
Being responsible for your own actions and being able to hold yourself accountable is very important to being successful in life. Ballet training teaches us to be accountable for ourselves. If we have a recital coming up, we must hold ourselves accountable to be ready for our performance.
As ballet is often a group performance, we must also be accountable to our fellow dancers. Ballet training teaches us to be accountable and reliable to everyone in our performance.
Being a team player as well as being able to be accountable to ourselves is an extremely important life skill. To be successful in any career path, relationship and to be a responsible citizen, we must be able to hold ourselves accountable for our actions.
#5: Taking Shortcuts Isn’t An Option
Ballet is a form of dance where one must build new skills on old skills. To be a properly trained in ballet a student must master each skill before adding a new skill. If your form is off in one skill, you can’t properly learn the next. The building blocks of each move are vital to a safe and beautiful ballet performance.
In life, we are tempted to take shortcuts. The sooner we learn the dangers of doing so, the easier it is for us to be successful. Teaching young children through ballet that shortcuts come with a risk is a great way to teach them this important lesson.
#6: Ballet Teaches Children Others’ Opinions Aren’t Important
Constructive criticism is easily mixed with self-doubt and fear of judgement. With ballet training, children learn to take constructive correction to their posture, skill, etc., while being reminded by their instructors to focus on their journey and not the thoughts of others.
When we learn to be able to focus on constructive correction to improve ourselves without fearing judgement, we learn to take the important leaps in life. We all need some guidance and coaching to master different areas of our lives. Learning to be coachable without letting it lower our self confidence is important.
Ballet training can truly help us become better people. Giving your children, young or old, the opportunity to improve their dance skills while learning important life lessons is the beauty of ballet. Children can have fun, learn and grow through skilled ballet training at the International Ballet Academy.
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