Biggest Mistakes Adult Beginners Make that Pros Don’t (Part 1): How Pros Approach Dance Differently

Starting dance as an adult beginner is exciting, but it can also feel confusing when you compare your experience with how effortlessly professionals move. The truth is, the difference isn’t just in skill or years of training. It’s in the approach.

Professional dancers think about practice, discomfort, repetition, and mindset in ways that are completely different from most adult beginners. Understanding these differences can help you fast-track your progress and remove a lot of frustration from your learning journey.

Here are the most important mindset and training differences between adult beginners and professional dancers.

1. Pros Focus on Fundamentals (Adult Beginners Often Want Fancy Too Soon)

Adult beginners often want to jump straight into the “fun” steps. Pros, on the other hand, obsess over posture, weight transfer, and timing.

Common mistake:
Skipping basics to learn harder sequences.

I see this over and over again in my dance teaching - talented adult dance students, who get in their own way by skipping over the basics. The result is invariably getting stuck, getting frustrated, and often quitting dance altogether.

What pros do:
Refine fundamentals endlessly. To a pro, “simple done beautifully” is the goal.

Most professional dancers, myself included, start each practice with fundamentals. Whether it is a series of ballet barre exercises, Latin walks, Smooth weight transfer exercises, or any other simple movements that make up the basis of your style. As pros, we know that nothing is more essential than the basics, and that “knowing” the basic steps is not enough. Honestly, even practicing them daily often doesn’t feel enough. Basics are our oxygen and heartbeat. There is no dance without them.

2. Pros Don’t Fear Repetition - Adult Beginners Often Get Bored by It

Repetition creates confidence and natural movement.

Common mistake:
Thinking “I already know this” after a few tries. Of course you do! But that’s not the point. The point is being able to do it at a 12am show - after a full day of working and rehearsals and no time to eat - and having it feel (or at least look) as natural as walking.

What pros do:
Repeat exercises hundreds of times, building muscle memory until it feels almost effortless. Okay, the truth is - it never actually feels effortless. But it does feel manageable and under your control. The more you repeat, the easier it becomes. And we want the steps to happen as easily as possible. That’s how we can concentrate on musicality, presentation, smiling at the right moment, connecting with our partners and the audience, all while praying our shoes hold up and we don’t fall on our face on that weird sleek spot.

3. Pros Listen to Their Bodies - Adult Beginners Often Fight Their Bodies

Common mistake:
Adult beginners often push, tense up, or copy shapes without understanding mechanics. Dancing is physically demanding, but it should never feel strained or uncomfortable. If a shape or a step feels off, check the technique of the step and the step before that. Make sure you understand what you should be doing to avoid injuries and cringe moments!

What pros do:
Move with efficiency - using alignment, breath, and relaxation instead of force. As pros, if we can figure out a way to make a step easier, we will. Professional dancers really know the difference between working harder and working smarter. Dance is already hard. If a step feels hard we figure out a way to make it easier. How? By using proper technique, and working with - not against - our bodies.

4. Pros Practice Between Classes (Adult Beginners Often Don’t)

Common mistake:
Many adult beginners rely almost exclusively on weekly class time. And this is okay while you are completely new. You should be fairly sure you are practicing correctly before going off on your own. But, once you’ve gone to a few classes, practicing on your own can take you a lot farther than you thought possible. Even just doing the class warm-up exercises at home teaches your body the right movement that will make dancing come easier later on.

What pros do:
Use class for feedback and do the real work outside of it: drills, balance training, musicality, posture practice - sometimes just 5-10 minutes a day. Nobody - even pros - has hours to spend on complicated training routines. We are busy, and we are tired (and probably sore). But we know that practicing technique or steps on our own is the real deal. No amount of dance coaching replaces this type of work. Got 5 minutes in the morning - that’s perfectly enough time to practice hip action, turn-out, extensions, footwork, etc…. The trick is to pick one thing to work on, and stay consistent with it for a few weeks. Then move on to the next thing.

5. Pros Embrace Discomfort - Adult Beginners Often Avoid It

Common mistake:
Learning dance feels awkward. Adult beginners often interpret that as failure. Have you seen babies learning to walk? What would happen if babies tried to walk, fell down, and decided they are just not good at it, so what’s the point? See what I mean? Discomfort doesn’t equal you being a bad dancer. It means you are learning. That’s all.

What pros do:
See awkwardness as a sign of growth and lean into it intentionally. The best dancers keep learning throughout their careers. We go deeper into the styles we know. We learn different styles. We re-learn things we thought we knew. Basically, we make ourselves uncomfortable as often as possible. Why? Because it makes us better..

In the next installment, we will dive into the difference in the emotional skills, mindset, and musicality between professional dancers and adult beginners. But in the meantime, feel free to check out more blog posts, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

And remember that Dance Flavor offers live and on-demand classes in various styles. Don’t be shy - contact us with any questions, or to try a private class in the dance of your choice!