We usually learn by being told something and then doing it. With social dance, we do something and learn it by the act of doing. Instead of a teacher explaining something, we experience it through our body as it happens. We learn through our sensations rather than our explanation of them. This makes the learning far more permanent as we don’t need to try and remember it.
Interaction is also variable. Although you may do the same movement many times, it’s never the same. There’s always something different that requires you to adjust. This means that as we learn, we develop our ability to perceive and adjust at the same time. We aren’t memorizing a static pattern, but learning a principle that can be applied in different circumstances. This means that we can access it more easily under pressure, because it isn’t tied to a specific pattern that we need to recall.
Learning through interaction also allows us to bypass excessive self-talk. When you’re focused on another body and a rhythm, you don’t have the mental space to talk to yourself. Your nervous system is busy responding rather than describing. This means that you allow your body to organise itself, and it sorts out the movement for you. It’s not that you’re controlling it more, it’s just that you’re not getting in the way. Your body will learn faster if you let it sort itself out in response to what’s happening in the moment.
Instruction still has a place, but it plays a different role. Instead of telling us what to do, it tells us where to place our attention. This is a critical difference. If you tell people to pay attention to something, like the way weight is transferring, or their timing, or the connection, then they will learn. But if you tell them what to do, then you’re not giving them the tools to learn. Instruction is something that helps us focus. Once we have that focus, then we can use our interactions to test and refine it.
The final way in which learning through interaction helps you is in how you build confidence. When you know something intellectually, and then you apply it successfully, that builds confidence. When you learn something through interaction, you build confidence because you apply it successfully. Repeatedly. And it doesn’t feel like such a big deal, because it’s built on the previous application and adaptation. You learn to trust that you can figure things out as you go. Instead of confidence being based on your ability to intellectually recall something, it’s based on your experience of applying it successfully. And instead of feeling like you failed when things don’t go as planned, you simply learn and adjust. Mistakes aren’t scary, because they are absorbed into the learning process immediately. Learning through interaction creates a robust process of learning. It means that you approach learning as a journey of discovery, rather than a test of whether you know the right answer. You engage with it, and it’s okay to not know because that’s where the fun starts.