It’s fairly common to see aspiring dancers with energy, enthusiasm and motivation jump onto the dance floor and launch themselves into their favourite routine. However, if you’re serious about improving your dancing skills and ultimately pursuing a career in dance, you need to focus on the fundamentals first. Elements of dancing such as your posture, flexibility and fitness may sound obvious but so many aspiring dancers fail to realise how important they are to your success. To help you build a foundation for your dancing success, here are four fundamentals you should always remember:

1 Posture: Your posture will make the first impression on your audience so it’s worth spending time getting it right. Finding the correct posture as a dancer is similar as for actors and singers. Initially, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and visualise a long piece of string running through your body. It starts at your toes and exits out through the top of your head. Now imagine someone pulling on that string at the top of your head. Imagine your waist lengthening, space increasing between each rib, your neck growing longer. Now hold that as you let your shoulders drop naturally. That's the position you want to hold when you dance.

2 Flexibility: Your flexibility as a dancer is crucial for success. Not only will you need to be able to find the correct positions when you dance but you will need to hold those positions and then make a smooth transition to the next section of the choreography. Therefore, warming up before dancing and a regular stretching routine should become part of your training from the outset. Also, if you find you are struggling to improve your flexibility you might consider taking some Yoga or Pilates classes. Both of these forms of exercise are very popular among all kinds of performers and will give you an alternative approach to help you enhance your flexibility.

3 Fitness: For people who decide that dancing is something they would like to pursue more seriously, fitness immediately becomes an important element of their training. Put quite simply, you cannot expect to sustain a full performance to the best of your ability without being fit. You should try to have an effective but manageable fitness regime including running, sit-ups, press-ups etc. alongside your other training activities.

4 Care & attention: In addition to maintaining your fitness, you should be aware of the importance of your diet, your lifestyle and the structure of your training. Obviously, if you’re just thinking about one-day training to be a dancer, you shouldn’t immediately change your diet and daily routine. However, you should be aware of the importance of these factors for success and be ready to make adjustments when appropriate. Staying in shape as a dancer requires a combination of fitness and healthy eating. So, take time to think about your diet and the changes you could make to support your development as a dancer. Furthermore, you should make sure you get enough sleep and that you’re not putting your body under excessive strain by partying long into the night. Your body is your instrument – look after it. Finally, when you come to your training sessions, make sure you are following the correct programme of activities: warm up; stretches; cornerwork/isolations; routine; cool down. If you are unsure about any of these elements or worried that you are not following this sequence, you should talk to the choreographer or dance teacher taking your dance session.