Becoming a Natural

What's a "Natural ?"

Natural
.... Noun
.... 3. One with an inherited talent at something.
............ She's a natural dancer.

A Natural moves freely and well. They flow. A Natural knows their body, as well as their partner's. They make it look easy. A Natural moves with the ronda, el marca big things to big music when there's big space, ella keeps her feet underneath her and gets cuddly when the space is tight and the music intimate. They do just the right thing for just the right partner and make them feel like they're the only one in the world while dancing.

A Natural can go to a class and learn the dance by watching the teacher and soaking up figures and steps. They can intuit how to fit these to the music, their partner, and the ronda.

Some people have it, some don't.

But what do they have?

What if instead of trying to learn what an accomplished dancer does, we could learn to be a "Natural" ourselves, then we could take anything and make it our own, without being tied to a particular style or manner of teaching.

Put another way- A Natural excels in these areas:

1. Aliaception
2. Proprioception
3. Quality of Movement (how to move)
4. Movement in Space (where to move)
5. Musicality (how movement relates to music)
6. Floor Awareness
7. Physical Fitness
8. Entrega

Without these, everything is much harder.

It's hard to learn a step because you don't have accurate body awareness, so you don't know if your feet are in the right spot. It's hard to execute the step with your partner because you have trouble feeling their center of gravity. It's hard to connect because you have difficulty being vulnerable. It's hard to dance to the music because you have trouble hearing the beat or coloring your movement with it's sentiment. It's hard to dance at the milonga because you're so concentrated on yourself and your partner that the people around you seem like an intrusion.

Improve them, the rest becomes easier.