The world of dancing is a mix of art and sport, as it involves moving your body to do an impossible step and creating a choreography according to your choice of central theme. Some people are lucky enough to be born with feet made for dancing, but not only humans, because some dogs are talented enough to dance, too, and one border collie will prove that to you.
Anastasiia Beaumont and her border collie Yuki stepped onto the dancing stage to show what they’ve got to the world. This isn’t just any dance competition; it’s the 2022 Dog Dancing Championship held in San Sebastian, Spain.
Beaumont and Yuki aimed to show that any dog can learn new tricks, such as dance moves that can wow even professional dancers. As soon as the music started playing, Beaumont swayed her arms outward, and Yuki walked forward and backward to match the sway of her arms.
The first thing that you will notice is their connection with one another. Yuki has her eyes in Beaumont. It seems like she’s getting signals and signs from Beaumont to do her next dance trick. The synchronization looks perfect as they sway to the music of Once Upon a December by Liz Callaway.
Who is Anastasiia Beaumont?
Anastasiia Beaumont is the owner of Dog Dance Mania, an online dog dancing school. For ten years, she has trained dogs to dance, or as they call it, amateur dog dancing. She is a two-place winner at the Open European Champion (OEC).
Beaumont successfully trained over 1,000 dog students, and she has conducted seminars across European countries and Israel. With her ten-year dog trainer experience, she’s ready to take any dog under her wing and be the next Yuki.
From Dog Dance Mania’s official website, you will get a series of recorded webinars regarding dog training and dancing. You can select from the following courses:
- Let’s Team Up – This course is perfect for starters when you want to improve your relationship with your dogs. This will tackle communication and finding the right approach to make your dog comfortable with you.
- Let’s Step Up – This course is made for when you want to improve the concentration and attention of your dog.
- Tricks for Beginners – This course is made for those who want to have fun with their dog and teaches them various tricks.
- Distance Tricks – This course is for those who want to teach their dogs to work far from you.
- How to Dance When You DogDANCE – Now your dog has learned different tricks, it’s when the main dog dancing begins. It will teach you about dancing for yourself as well as dancing tricks for the dog so you can dance together.
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The Art of Dog Dancing
One lingering question you might have while watching Beaumont and Yuki’s performance is how Yuki can memorize all of the steps for the whole performance. The answer is she doesn’t memorize any of it; it’s actually Beaumont who masters the performance — both hers and Yuki.
In one of her social media posts, she shared the secret of how dogs “memorize” the choreography. Beaumont said that it is one of the popular questions many of her viewers ask. In every performance, Beaumont gives out cues to the dogs she trained, and they will know what to do. It gives the dog enough time to react and move perfectly in sync with the music.
Beaumont shared that this is the reason why she thinks that Dog Dancing is one of the most challenging sports out there. The handler must juggle many elements at once, such as recalling verbal cues without mixing them up and listening to the music attentively for the rhythm and time command. Messing up would mean messing with the routine of the dog, too, resulting in a failed performance.
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From The Club
It was the first time that I knew about this sport called Dog Dancing. I say it’s the perfect bonding activity for you and your dog. Gone are the days when you’d teach them just basic tricks because Dog Dancing also involves the owners, who would be the ones to coach their dog over the next dance step that they need to do. This one’s an interesting game, and hopefully, more dog owners will get introduced to this sport.
