Help!!! How can I loosen up my stiff body while dancing?

Stiffness often comes from you holding unnecessary tension in your muscles. As a dance teacher, I see it all the time in my students and struggled with it myself growing up. When you are focusing really hard, it is easy to end up gripping your muscles while you dance rather than lengthening them. Don't think about squeezing your muscles while you dance or "holding" a position. Even if you are standing completely still, your muscles are constantly moving and trying to lengthen, rather than gripping in a static position. In your legs, think about energy wrapping around your legs (in the direction of your turnout) in a spiral motion starting from the top of your hips and working all the way down your leg and releasing from the tips of your toes. Your tailbone wants to lengthen down towards the floor (don't tuck your hips under, lengthen them to the floor), and the top of your spine wants to lengthen all the way through the top of your head into the ceiling - try stretching your spine out as much as you can and create space in between each vertebra. Just as your leg movement should be initiated from the hips, your arm movement should be initiated from your shoulders. Think of energy starting in your shoulder blades and wrapping around your arms and releasing from your fingertips. You want to make your body as long and as expanded as possible. It takes a lot of muscle to accomplish all of this, but it is a completely different way of using your muscles. You can always speak with your dance teacher and ask for additional assistance. As a dance teacher, I can tell you that teachers love nothing more than helping their students be the very best that they can be. We LOVE when students ask questions or ask for extra help, and the best part about teaching is helping out a student and watching them finally grasp a concept after working really hard at it. Never be afraid to ask your dance teachers for extra help if you feel like you're struggling with something or want to get better in a certain area.

I agree with the answer about musicality, but I think there is another problem. If you are good at dancing then you are good at something. Which makes .e think that you studied a particular style, either ballet or modern dance. If I am correct, in that case, your problem is more physiological then mental. If you have the training of a ballerina, you are supposed to be stiff go maintain your posture. There is no simple fixe. You have to retrain your whole body, whatever style of dance you mastered

First off you don’t want to be loose. That’s just sloppy. You want to be fluid. Musicality is how your body internalizes the music. Pilates and yoga might help because it gives you both strength and flexibility. However if you can’t internalize the music to produce fluid movements all the strength and flexibility won’t help. If however you are stiff due to lack of strength, flexibility and body control pilates and yoga just may help you. That along with increasing the amount of dance classes you take per week. If you are talking about social/club dancing not a codified dance genre, then perhaps think about taking some beginner dance classes to gain more control over your body movements.

Drink a beer first

Have you tried Hatha Yoga? You can learn it from a book. An hour a day of going through the poses will have very good results in about 6 weeks.