50 Dance or Die challenge
I love a challenge, and over the years while blogging I’ve taken part in a few, whether aligned to my main blog, or reading, or elsewhere. Sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself. There’s been a 50 dance or die challenge going round (on TikTok of course). It was mentioned in a Facebook line dancing group, and I quite like the idea of it (although I’m not sure my fitness levels would).
It’s based on line dancing, as it’s about dancing to songs where you know the dances. Obviously knowing dances isn’t applicable in the social dancing world of modern jive or west coast swing. But I think you could adapt it.
If you’re not in the line dancing world, or haven’t seen it appear in your feeds, like any challenge it has its rules.
The 50 Dance or Die challenge rules
The aim is to dance to 50 known songs in one night.
3 skips of songs are allowed.
1 ‘confusion’ pass – for unknown songs, ie when noone’s clear of the dance, so it means you wouldn’t be up dancing alone.
50 break rule (so if you hit 50 dances, you can break until others doing the challenge hit 50 too).
Bathroom or water breaks are allowed during songs you don’t know or partner dance songs.
One time rule – if a song repeats you don’t have to dance to it again.
50 dances is a long night in line dancing terms. Obviously if you’re a beginner or at a new venue, you might struggle to even know 50 dances that are played. But I think it’s a good challenge, especially if you have a tendency to go to a social night for socialising and not so much for dancing.
I want to dance as much as possible when I’m out dancing. But I’m not very fit at the moment, and also struggle when it’s hot (when air con isn’t available or on, it’s a hard slog for me). But I’ll try and dance as many songs as I know.
The regular social I go to is 3 hours long, and I’m building up more dances I know. It was quieter this month, so all but one of our requests was played. I worked out around 42-43 songs were played, as there were more walked through this month (mostly beginners dances).
I sat out a few beginner dances because I was hot (or didn’t like the dance), and missed 1 improver level dance. Also one I missed that I usually like because I didn’t remember I knew it until I noticed it was a split floor. It was a shame I missed that one. 7 dances I didn’t know (that number’s reducing every time which is a good feeling), I danced 31. Not bad for someone who’s only been line dancing a year.
I know if I went to socials organised by other teachers and at other venues, I would know a lot fewer dances. At the Oxford line dance workshops/socials I’ve been to, at the first I only knew 4 of the requested dances, at the second event I knew 10. So the number does go up if you practice inbetween and do more classes.
Maybe one day I’ll make it to 50 in one evening.
Would the 50 dance or die challenge work in social dance freestyles?
I think you could manage this challenge more easily at a Ceroc freestyle night if you were adapting it.
Generally Ceroc or modern jive freestyles tend to be 8.30pm to 12am, or even later at some events. So more opportunity to dance. As long as there’s a relatively good gender balance split so you can easily find a partner (or you’re there with a lot of people you know), 50 dances in one night sounds reasonable across a 4 hour+ time period.
As modern jive doesn’t involve set dances to songs, it’s would be about getting on the dance floor as much as possible. At those freestyles I find the more you dance, the more you find someone to dance with as well. It’s easier to find your next partner being on the floor, than when you’re sitting at the side to get up on the dance floor. And you’ll be seen more frequently as someone who’ll be dancing all night.
Maybe you’d have to change the challenge to dance with 50 different people instead.
Anyway, it’s a challenge I’m going to try and work my way up to in line dancing. Maybe by midsummer I’ll be there…although maybe not if the weather’s too hot, and aircon isn’t available!
Is this a challenge you’d try, or are you never off the dancefloor anyway?