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“The civil libertarians and rationalists … failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
— Aldous Huxley, 1958
Decades ago, Aldous Huxley warned that the future might not be ruled by censorship and fear, as Orwell envisioned, but by comfort, distraction, and noise. People would not be enslaved by force, but by amusement — by a steady stream of stimulation so overwhelming that truth and meaning would drown in it. That warning echoes far beyond politics or media. It resonates, perhaps unexpectedly, within the glittering world of competitive ballroom dance.
Ballroom dance, at its heart, teaches extraordinary discipline — especially for children and young adults. The focus, physical awareness, respect for structure, and endurance it builds can serve a person for life. Those values remain as vital as ever.
Yet, when we take a deeper look at the industry surrounding the art, we must ask uncomfortable questions.
Are we, as a global community, still building champions — or merely preserving the nostalgia of a “golden generation”?
Do our systems truly nurture new mastery, or do they distract the next generation with endless content, conflicting advice, and the illusion of progress?
One curious trend stands out — the rise of training camps held by the very organizers of competitions.
These multi-day intensives, often positioned as “must-attend” events, promise exclusive knowledge and last-minute breakthroughs. But how effective are they?
While some camps provide genuine value, others seem to function as echo chambers of distraction — a rotation of familiar slogans and fashionable “concepts” that change with each event. The question is not ethical (training with judges has been debated enough), but practical:
What kind of information is circulating — and to what end?
Recently, my students flooded me with videos from camps across the world, all focused on one sacred word: balance.
Everyone, it seems, preaches it. But does anyone truly define it?
In biomechanics, balance is a state of equilibrium — all forces equalized, the center of mass perfectly aligned over the base of support, producing no motion. In short:
When you are perfectly balanced, you are still.
So if movement requires the center of mass to shift beyond that point, then perfect balance and motion cannot coexist. To walk, turn, or swing, you must break balance — deliberately.
A dancer who is “always balanced” is not moving; a dancer who understands how to lose balance and regain it is alive.
In Waltz or Foxtrot, “swing” is not a static posture — it’s the art of controlled imbalance.
The dancer’s body travels outside the base of support, then returns through gravity and momentum.
That pendulum between imbalance and recovery creates the illusion of flight — the breathing, organic quality that separates artistry from exercise.
So when we hear, “you must be in balance to move,” we should ask:
Do we seek stillness, or do we seek life?
In a world where information overwhelms, it’s easy to mistake abundance for knowledge. The ballroom circuit, with its constant flow of lectures, reels, and “expert” tutorials, risks falling into Huxley’s trap — the freedom to distract.
Perhaps the danger today isn’t that dancers know too little, but that they’re bombarded with too much: too many voices, too many camps, too many trends — and too little silence in which to think, feel, and truly dance.
Freedom to Dance was meant to liberate creativity and expression. But if that freedom becomes an endless carousel of information, workshops, and distractions — then have we really escaped control, or simply traded one kind of cage for another?
Maybe the real art lies, as always, in the simplest truth:
To move beautifully, one must dare to fall — and learn how to rise again.
Written by: Iaroslav Bieliei
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