Dance like no one is watching

One of the mantras of the local (Massachusetts and Vermont) rave scene.

Even though I'm more of a goth than a raver, I love the notion. Aside from encouraging everyone to dance, rather than hiding out in a corner for fear of looking like a poorly trained monkey having a epilptic seizure, it also illustrates the key difference between the goth and rave scenes. In the goth scene, dancing is primarily a means of showing off, looking sexy, and trying to entice. In the rave scene, dancing is about having a good time, getting some exercise, and letting your inhibitions drift away.

So dance at a rave. If anybody is watching you, they're probably enjoying it. Dancing the way you feel is much like singing in the shower or along with the radio in the car; it's very personal, and very much an expression of your own style.

Some ideas to encourage the "Dance like no one is watching" attitude:

• How dances are invented
  There are many established types of dances. Many of which can be found here: Everybody Dance Now, but to me, the important thing is how they were invented and what the inventor went through to establish its reputation. Think of what people thought of the inventor when they first started dancing to their newly invented style. Did they care? Probably cared more about having fun than propagating their mad stylez throughout the masses.

• Having fun
  Dancing is about having fun, it's about interpreting music with the use of your body, it's about expressing emotions by moving your body. If you believe that dancing is about showing off to others, or a way to measure one's skill to connect to music, then that's your first problem. As with all things, practice makes perfect. If you keep discouraging yourself, then of course you'll feel paranoid and self-conscious. Wouldn't anybody? Your goal is not to break the barrier of self-consciousness, but to weaken it with practice, positive attitude and plain fun. Is fun really that hard to have?

• Moving your body
  Dancing is about enjoying all the possible ways you can move your body. It's about combining your love for music with some body movin'. Limit yourself to what others can do, and you limit your potential. Let me reiterate: "There is no *right* way of dancing!" All dances were not invented by copying other dances. They were invented to have fun.

  N.B.: In no ways was this writeup meant to encourage the use of drugs, alcohol or anything else that would make you feel more at ease to dance (in terms of consumption). In fact, I strongly discourage it, because if that's the way you start to dance, then that will be the way you will always dance.

One of several slogans used by Lion Red Beer (a New Zealand Beer) in their advertising. Others include "Sing like no-one's listening", "Work like you own the company" etc, etc, "The thirsty Drink Beer, The Hungry Drink Lion Red".

A total pile of tripe.

More appropriate advertising would be "Lion Red - Good enough to pour down your toilet.", and "Lion Red - The Runt Of The Beer Family."

The mantra of dance like no one is watching is also very big within the hippy or neo-hippy community. If you go to any sort of hippy gathering where some sort of music or drumbeat is provided, then you can pretty much assume at least one or two people are going to be randomly dancing and moving rather uniquely to the music.

The dancer's eyes will usually be closed in rapturous enjoyment of the dance, serving also as a way to allow his or herself to focus completely on the music and the movement of the body.

Within the dancing hippy community it has almost become a competition to dance as crazily you can in order to show off how unique you are and how free you are.