By Francisco de La Calleja

It happened again at last week’s group class. I had just finished introducing a new idea and, after asking if there any questions and clearing up a couple of doubts, the group was ready to step into action.

“Take your partner and try that out!” I called to the group and began approaching the nearest couple to see how they were doing.

The moment I was within a foot of them I was hit by a solid whiff of alcoholic breath.

“We just took a little drink,” said the woman as she noticed my questioning mien.

“How come?” I asked, trying to hide the disapproval in my voice.

“We were a bit nervous and it helps us relax.”

It wasn’t the first time I had heard this and it surely it would not be the last. Over the years I have come to accept the fact that most people will indulge when going out to a bar or a club. For a variety of reasons, most people actually believe that having an alcoholic beverage will actually help them dance better. The conventional wisdom says that a little drink will help a nervous person relax, since alcohol diminishes inhibitions. It may even provide a fleeting euphoric sensation. Hence the idea of having a drink will get you to party.

But let us look at what alcohol actually does. The very first thing that happens while you are sipping that first drink is that your stomach reacts by trying to refuse the intake this toxic substance. Even though alcohol can be absorbed through the stomach lining, it quickly dumps the offending fluid into the intestines. Just as quickly, your intestine absorbs the alcohol and sends it into your bloodstream on its way to the liver for elimination. As it flows through you arteries, alcohol widens your blood vessels, making more blood flow to your skin. This makes you feel warm. But that is a passing sensation. When your skin warms up it radiates heat and you perspire to regulate the temperature. The ensuing heat and fluid loss causes the actual core body temperature to drop. In fact, one standard drink can cause an average-sized man to lose as much as a tenth of a degree Celsius in body temperature within minutes.

Since your body has to maintain a constant temperature, this forces your heart to increase blood flow to the whole body, depriving the brain from the regular blood flow needed to engage in cognitive activity, such as learning. And that happens just as the brain’s communication pathways in the hippocampus are inhibited by the alcohol’s chemicals, which the liver is desperately trying to eliminate. This organ however must regulate the output of sugar levels into the bloodstream in order to deal with the offending chemicals, sending depleted blood to your brain. One negative effect compounds another all of which effectively slow down your reaction times and make it difficult for you to think clearly, to create memories and to move in a coordinated manner.

So no, after one drink you are not drunk and you are certainly far from being driving-a-vehicle impaired, but when you are taking a dance class with as little as one standard drink in your system, your brain is weak from lower blood flow, hungry from decreased glucose levels and handicapped by the blocking of the existing neural pathways, on top of being inhibited in the creation of new ones, effectively making learning very difficult. You are not drunk but you are in fact, learning impaired.

Now, you may have a reason to believe that having a drink will help you such as:

You are stressed coming to dance class because it is all new to you. This is quite understandable. Most people experience a certain level of apprehension when coming to dance class the first few times. But that tinge of stress you feel coming to class is simply the way your body prepares to give its best effort. So, don’t try to overcome it. Embrace it. Just remember, that it is a dance class. Every student is here to learn. If you knew it all, would you need to come to dance class in the first place?

Everyone else in class looks like they know what they are doing and you don’t. Many students suffer from undue stress because they think they are supposed to know everything the teacher talks about, which is absurd. So, instead of falling prey to anxiety, ask questions. When you ask a question, you will see that all of the students learn something new from the answer, even those who already seemed to know what to do. But you need a clear mind to ask even simple questions and to benefit from the answers.

You want to have fun. Trust me, you will begin to have fun as soon as you begin taking your lessons. There is no need to wait until you are a perfect dancer, whatever that may mean to you. And dancing is one of the most fun things you can do. It’s addictive, exhilarating and good for your body and your mind. So it kind of defeats the purpose to put a toxic substance into your body that will actually make it more difficult for you to enjoy the learning process.

A good teacher will create a positive, inclusive, safe and fun learning environment. And you will benefit greatly from being your true self in class. Dance can help the person you are to meet the person you want to be. So, no matter which way you look at it, there is absolutely no advantage in consuming even one alcoholic beverage when you come to dance class.