That's a good point... makes them "think less". Maybe more right side of the brain into it.
The more you think about movement, the worse it usually gets.
That's what I'm getting at. Dropping thought and just going with the flow doesn't always come natural to people who are used to actively engaging their concious brain in everything. Alcohol can help temper down an overactive frontal cortex which tends to make movement singular and mechanical. The hindbrain (instinctual brain) is where you want to be for bodily movement . A few years back LBS's hero Lyle Mcdonald would even drink Vodka before he skated with the goal of taming his overactive frontal brain so he could become less mechanical on the ice.
that's funny about lyle, didn't know that. only came to nutswinging on the tail end of his speed skating days so i missed most of what he wrote about his own training. closest thing i could find in a quick look around his forum was a joking suggestion to add "russian"-style events to speed skating meets, where you'd take a shot of vodka between every lap. would love to see where he actually talked about drinking while training, that would be funny.
you're still wrong, though. overactive frontal cortex* does not equal "intelligence"**. and anyway, you didn't contradict what i said. lowered inhibition and reduced overthinking are close to the same thing in my experience, especially when it comes to dancing. what does any of this have to do with "intelligence"?
back to your original question, though, and even taking "intelligence" at face value, where on earth did you get the idea that more-intelligent people tend to be worse dancers than less-intelligent people? that doesn't make sense and is not at all true in my experience.
petey0109, since when are "people that go with the flow" less "intelligent" than "overthinkers" or "overthinkers" necessarily more "intelligent" than everyone else?
also, since when did the bar for "good dancer" get set at "not being really jerky"? i can move in time to music, even sober. my movements get looser when i'm drunk, i think, but that doesn't make me a good dancer. in fact, trying to do any kind of coordinated dance gets HARDER when i'm drunk. i do care less that i'm not good at it, though. so there's that.
*relative to what? what's a normal level of cortical activity? what's subnormal and supernormal? why do those states exist? do they exist to a greater degree or more frequently in some people than others? why? how many people fall into each category? what effect do those differences have on movement? honest questions for which i'd be very curious to see answers.
**"intelligence" doesn't exist as a singular trait that you can isolate and measure, so is completely meaningless for any kind of comparative purpose. what do you mean by it?