I was overwhelmed during my first rehearsal for the ballet Coppelia, but as they progressed through the month of February, I realized that despite my minimal ballet experience, I brought a lot to the table as a dancer. My skills and experience from dancing styles like ballroom, salsa, swing and even Zumba, proved to be extremely valuable as I learned and rehearsed a ballet routine.

In the corporate world, they would be called transferable skills. In this case, I guess they would be transferable dance skills. I guarantee you have some of these skills as well, even if you’ve only been dancing a short time. So read on to be reminded of how many skills you’ve amassed as a dancer!

Sometimes I forget that things that are second nature to me now are actually learned skills. The average person pulled off the street and into the dance studio won’t automatically understand the difference between marking choreography and dancing it, or be able to hear the beginning of a phrase in music to know when to take the first step. Basic body awareness and coordination aren’t basic to someone who has never danced before. We may not even think of these things as dance skills, but try dancing without them.

The group of ladies dancing the Mazurka for this production had a broad mix of dance skills. Some were professional dancers with decades of teaching experience. Some were brand new to dance. I was in the middle with a lot of dance experience, but at a more intermediate level. I think only one of us had past experience with Coppelia in particular.

As someone whose dance experience primarily came from other dance styles, those outside-the-actual-dancing skills became my biggest strengths. When the choreography was dramatically changed between the second and third rehearsals, I was able to memorize the new sequence quickly. I give credit to the hundreds of Zumba classes where I learned to pick up choreography on the fly as I danced it, and the hours spent learning and relearning my American Smooth routines as they were tweaked and rearranged for competitions. Just like with writing, the first time choreography is set is usually just the first draft.

Another skill we develop as dancers, which is so critical and yet often overlooked, is mental strength. Through February’s rehearsals, I recognized how my mental strength, which has been developed over years of performing and competing, came into play as the newer dancers in the group showed signs of stress and anxiety over changing choreography or difficult sequences. The only reason I was less stressed over the changes was this wasn’t my first rodeo, even if it was my first ballet. I had already gone through multiple experiences on my dance journey where the unexpected occurred and I survived each one. So when another hiccup or unplanned turn shows up, I already know I can get past it.

Mental strength is huge, and is transferable not just from one dance experience to another, but through every aspect of our lives. I frequently start a work day with a plan that gets completely upset by lunchtime. I have to adjust and pivot in order to get the work done that needs to get done and hopefully finish at least some of my original plan. I know how to do that calmly and with poise thanks to dance.

Poise is another skill learned from dance that we may not think about until it’s pointed out to us. My main ballet teacher praises my posture and poise, saying she can see it even when I’m just walking into the studio. Random people through the years have asked me if I was a dancer or a dance teacher because of the way I moved. Of course, posture plays a huge role in dances like ballet and ballroom, but not just as a physical requirement. As we grow as dancers and build confidence in ourselves, we naturally start to stand a bit taller.

There was one particular transition in the Mazurka choreography that I kept blundering and it was starting to stress me out. After I got home from rehearsal, instead of trying to dance it again, I listened to the music. I knew the point in the music that I was supposed to hit and kept missing, and I realized by listening to the music and counting out the steps, I was taking too much time in the step before, which was why I always ended up arriving late.

Understanding the timing of steps and how to count the music are another set of skills that dancers develop while they’re learning other things. In ballroom, when you learn steps, you learn both where to go and how long you have to get there. As you progress, you learn the timing on a more detailed level. It’s not just 1-2; it’s potentially 1-ee-and-ah-2-ee-and-ah. Being able to hear that detail in the music as well and coordinate it with your movement allows you to add nuance to your dancing, i.e., musicality.

All of the coordination between your body, the choreography, the timing and the music takes a lot of brain power. Even just coordinating your upper body movement with your lower body movement can be tough at first! As dancers, we learn how to do this at the same time we are learning our routines by practicing our movements over and over again. We also learn our own process for solving new sets of movements and music.

There was a do-si-do sequence in the Mazurka that involved dancing balancés and pas de basques around a partner that really threw my brain for a loop at first. I knew from past experience how to approach the puzzle, and eventually I figured it out. Then we tried to dance it to the music, and the puzzle fell apart, ha! That’s part of the process though – break it down, figure out each piece, and then put a couple pieces back together at at time. When they fall apart, try again.

There are so many more skills we pick up on our dance journeys – physical strength, flexibility, balance, perseverance, grit, discipline – I could go on and on. I hope the few I described today served as a reminder of how much you’ve accomplished on your dance journey, outside of competitions or performances.

Another skill we tend to develop as dancers is the ability to downplay our skills and achievements because when we’re surrounded by other dancers, they don’t seem such a big deal. Working with a group of dancers with such mixed skill levels, from newbie to pro, really highlighted to me that they are actually a very big deal! My experience learning Coppelia‘s Mazurka would be very different if I didn’t have my transferable dance skills to support me.

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