I was watching a very long dance lecture that featured Donnie Burns as the speaker. He said something that was so great that I have to share it with you! “You must move yourself, before you can move others.” This statement is really a double entendre.
In a lead and follow situation the leader should be focused on moving his own body from his center and connecting to his follower’s center so she knows to move herself, following his center’s movement. Blah blah blah…I know you have heard this statement formed in an infinite number of ways to explain what we all know to do (even if we never do it correctly).
Looking at Donnie’s statement from an artistic stand point. How can we expect to move/impress/inspire anyone with our dancing if we ourselves are not moved/impressed/inspired by our own dancing? Dance for your self, practice for yourself, move yourself every single day and you will foster that little rockstar that is in you. Once you do it for you, you can feel confident in showing it off to “them.”
Donnie BurnsMBE was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1959, where he attended Holy Cross High School. He is a Scottish professional ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin dance.
He and his former partner Gaynor Fairweather were 14-time World Professional Latin champions: this is by some way the record for this title.[1] They were also eleven times International Latin American Dance Champions, and this is also a record.[2] On their competitive retirement both were honoured by appointment as MBE. Donnie was undefeated in any competitive dance contest for nearly 20 years of continuous competition, a record in any major category of ballroom dance; this is now in the Guinness Book of Records. During this period he won major titles in countries throughout the world.
He is now[when?] President[3] of the World Dance Council.[4] He is a winner of the Carl Alan Award for outstanding services to dance and is widely considered the “Michael Jordan” of ballroom dancing.[citation needed] In 2008, Burns married swing dance and International Latin dancer Heidi Groskreutz.
Burns was the hero of the character Mr. Aoki in the 1996 Japanese film Shall We Dance?.
Burns also appeared during week 7 of the 12th season of Dancing with the Stars.