Wobble Boards & Bosu Balls

Wobble boards can help—but they leave out a critical system: your vestibular system. Learn why static-head balance drills fall short for dancers and how to build smarter, brain-based stability using vision, proprioception, and head movement for real-world performance gains.

A somatic approach to dance training invites dancers to develop an internal sense of their bodies—not just to execute choreography, but to move with greater awareness, presence, and sustainability. At its core, this kind of training builds interoception: the ability to perceive and interpret internal bodily signals like breath, muscle tension, heartbeat, and even emotion.

Why does this matter?

Because dancers with strong interoceptive (somatic) skills tend to move with more control and coordination, recover faster, and manage stress more effectively. They learn to listen to early signs of fatigue, adjust effort in real time, and sense subtle shifts in alignment before they lead to injury. Interoception also supports emotional regulation, something dancers need both onstage and in the studio.

When dancers are trained only from the outside-in—through mirrors, corrections, and visual feedback—they can miss the chance to develop these deeper internal connections. But when we guide them to pause, feel, and reflect, even briefly, we activate the nervous system in powerful ways.

Simple practices like breath awareness, gentle weight shifting, or even a moment of stillness before a combination can help dancers come home to their bodies. It’s not about replacing traditional technique, but enhancing it through a more holistic lens.

We need to encourage dancers to learn how to listen and translate their body's cues.

Training from a somatic perspective doesn’t make dancers less focused on form—it gives them the inner clarity to refine it more intelligently.

The body speaks... all the time! Somatic training helps dancers listen.

To your success,

Deborah