Scientists reveal the exact reason why you're a terrible dancer

Go to any nightclub, in any part of the world, and watch people dance: you will very quickly find out that people have either got it – or they don't.

Being a terrible dancer has several damaging repercussions on your social life. Not only will your gangly flailing limbs deter the interest of potential mates, they may very well cause injury to innocent bystanders.

In ground-breaking new research, brave scientists from Northumbria University have gone deep into enemy territory and attended a nightclub in order to understand what makes a good dancer.

According to lead researcher/head dance master Nick Neave, the science of becoming a good dancer can actually be broken down into easy-to-read, practical information.

"In women the degree of hip swing and asymmetric movements of the thighs and arms contribute independently to a perceived higher quality of dance," wrote Neave.

Well, there you have it – all you have to do is move your thighs and arms simultaneously independent to your hips, like a wacky inflatable man you see at car yards.

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Reaching this conclusion wasn't as simple as having the scientists dance themselves – in order to gain their data, Neave and his colleagues attended a local dance school with equipment in tow.

Using complex 3D-motion video cameras, the researchers recorded 39 women as they danced (it's not what it sounds like) and then rendered this videos into computer-simulated, genderless figures.

Then, the researchers invited an audience of 57 men and 143 women into the lab to give their thoughts on whether the computer figure was really getting' down – or whether it was pruding it up in the corner.

The results, perhaps unsurprisingly, showed that everyone preferred the dance moves that had high energy; simply bobbing up and down failed to ignite sexual tension in any of the observers.

As Neave and his colleagues concluded, the reason why humans prefer good dancers comes down to our most primal urges – the more you can swing your hips, the better you'll be at breeding.

"In women, there is some evidence that dance attractiveness might reflect fertility: women’s dance is rated more attractive during high-fertility than low-fertility, and female lap-dancers earn more tips around ovulation," the researchers noted in the report.

"Hip swing is a trait that identifies female movement, and the ability to move limbs asymmetrically may attest to well-developed motor control, so long as this limb independence does not verge into uncontrolled pathological movement."

So there you have it. Next time you're in the club, don’t concentrate on the lyrics of the song or who you're dancing with – funnel all of your energy into swinging your hips, moving your arms independently of each other at a speed that's not too slow and not too fast, and making sure your legs aren't doing the same thing at the same time.

Simple really.

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