I’ve read a bit of material on body language and the concept of “taking up space”. I know that you’re supposed to stand straight up, widen your stance, keep your chest forward and your chin up. On paper this makes sense and it’s easy enough to practice to the point where it becomes natural. It didn’t occur to me until tonight how powerful this concept is, and how easily our subconscious mind picks up cues about body language.

I’ve been going to electronic music festivals and concerts since I was 18 (I’m 21 now). Surprisingly, a lot people I see at these places either don’t enjoy dancing or are self-conscious of the way the dance so they abstain. After going to so many concerts myself, dancing has become second nature to me. I’m certainly not a bad dancer but I know I’m not the best either. The only difference is that I’m very comfortable and confident when I dance and I’m not in any way ashamed of being judged. I let my body flow to the rhythm and when I do I’m completely in my element.

The realization came tonight while I was dancing at a concert in a small club venue. I generally stand toward the back where there’s more room to for me to dance. I tend to do so with a lot of fluid arm movements and my feet are constantly moving. I remember so vividly looking around me and noticing that I had a 3-4 foot radius of empty space around me, while most other people where squished into the crowd or very close with their friends. As I continued to dance there were a couple times when I blatantly bumped into other people while not paying attention (not a gentle bump either, I full on fell into this guy at one point). The funny thing is, they apologized to me, as if they were interrupting the absolute blast I was having in my own little world. I noticed people making a concerted effort to not enter my bubble so as to not disturb me. It blew me away when I noticed all of this because I realized this is a pretty common occurrence when I go to shows. Not only are these people staying out of my bubble, they’re going out of their way to make sure they don’t bother me.

At 5’5” I’m not a very big kid, but being so comfortable and confident caused me to appear much more important than I would have seemed had I been a wallflower. I’m the guy that’s having fun, and it’s clear to me now that people respect that and often times feed off of it too.

This all might be obvious to many people, that the “alpha” will be respected, but tonight made it so much more concrete for me. I just think this idea lends itself to talking to women; the more comfortable and confident we are, the more people will embrace and enjoy us.

This sounded a lot better in my head haha but I hope you guys can take something away from this!