I can’t tell if I should return to dance or let it go
Hey everyone, I’m kind of going in circles with my thoughts about dance and I’m not sure if anyone else relates to this.
I’m 23 now, and I used to train ballroom/Latin for a short period (when I was around 14-18). During that time I was often told I had a natural feel for Latin, like I’d been dancing much longer than I actually had. At the same time, I also got kind of boxed into “you’re good at Latin, but not much else,” which limited my progression in 10-dance and made partner searching really difficult.
Eventually I stopped training. Since then, dance has mostly been in my life in a very casual way: social dancing at parties, occasional movement at home, and a lot of watching performances (ballroom pros, commercial, vogueing, Broadway-style choreography, etc.).
The weird part is my current relationship with dance feels really inconsistent. Sometimes I feel amazing dancing alone in my apartment, like everything flows, I’m fully into the music, and I get this strong feeling of “I miss this and I want more of it.”
But then other times I look at myself in the mirror and suddenly I feel awkward or cringe, like I have no structure, no proper technique, and I start questioning whether I’m just imagining that I can dance at all. It feels a bit like impostor syndrome around it.
The last few years I’ve been fully focused on medical school, and that kind of pulled me away from dance. I leaned a lot into pragmatism and long-term planning, and I told myself that was the priority. But even now, I still feel like something around dance hasn’t fully “closed” for me emotionally.
Because of that, I’m stuck between moments of wanting to fully return to dance, and moments where I feel like I should just leave it as something casual.
I also don’t really know what style would even make sense for me now. I’ve always liked more Broadway/theatrical movement, and at some point I was also interested in burlesque and Latin jazz/commercial fusion styles, but I don’t know if that’s something I should actually pursue or just something I enjoy watching.
I guess I’m wondering if anyone has experienced this kind of push-pull relationship with dance after stepping away from structured training. where you feel both drawn to it and disconnected at the same time.
Would really appreciate any thoughts or shared experiences.