Monday, October 18, 2010

Have you considered this?

It occured to me the other day that, while we've talked about many areas of purity and modesty and being prepared, we have not really discussed the topic of dancing. It has come to my attention twice in the past few weeks that this is very much an area of physical purity that needs to be addressed.

First of all, why is it so important? Well if you've ever watched Dancing With The Stars you know that the world has taken dancing and made it a twisted and sensual thing. But that's not what dancing has to be. Dancing, like music, photography, literature, and other forms of entertainment can be used to have fun and still be glorifying to God. But because the world has made it such a sensual thing, you need to know where you draw the line. What is appropriate or inappropriate? If you ever go to a dance, you need to know where you stand on this. As always, the "Would I do this if God or my future husband were watching" question applies.

Okay so now I just want to share my own personal guidelines when it comes to dancing to help give you a starting point.

-Never dance back-to-front or front-to-back with anybody, male or female.

-Space is good! You don't have to be an arms length apart, but pressing your body up against a guy isn't a good idea either (if you wouldn't do it in a non-dancing situation, you shouldn't do it here either). I don't have an "exact" measurement of how far apart I stand, but it should be clear to others that I'm not pressed up against a guy.

-If you don't want them to touch that area of your body, don't move it in a way that draws attention to that specific area (ie hip thrust, booty roll, chest thrust, etc).

-Be mindful of your clothing. If you know the skirt of your dress is going to fly up in an inappropriate way, don't do something to make it fly up (ie kicking, jumping).

-Enjoy yourself! Like I said, these are my guidelines, but trust me I'm not worrying every second "am I following the rules?" while I'm dancing. The standard I set for myself is pretty easy to follow, and trust me, I still have tons of fun dancing within those guidelines.

So maybe you disagree with these guidelines totally or feel they should be stricter. You don't have to go by my rules, but this is the standard I've prayed about and set for myself. My point with this girls is to have a standard. Just like everything else with purity, know where you draw the line.

Love, Kat

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

All excellent points! I did hip-hop/jazz dancing for 6 years, and as I got older, the moves got raunchier (glad I'm not doing that anymore, actually!). Problem is, though, whenever I dance at a school formal for example, I find myself doing inappropriate moves by accident! So embarrassing. =S

But this is pretty important - it looks a bit odd seeing a girl dressed all modestly, and then busting out some rude dance moves....

God bless.

Anonymous said...

I really liked this! I hadn't thought of dancing. :)

Yeah, basically I'm the same way. Our youth group sometimes all gets together for dances for people's birthdays, where we basically all just do stupid 70s moves to music. :) But if there's every dancing with guys I agree, only do what you would when you weren't dancing. No close slow-dancing, nothing--actually, the most I do with guys is just try and teach them how to waltz. xD (That was a funny dance.)

I liked this post--well said. :)

Becca Danielle
Throwing Pebbles