I have so much to say.

But first, one thing about staying away from something you always do is that you start to digest experiences and reconcile them with your own personal touch. For this fanmeeting, everyone moved differently, like each one's style became more refined after they left their hot skills to cool down. It's like the vacation helped them all marinate their styles outside of choreography.

For Seungmin in particular, there were 3 areas I think he majorly improved on, all of which are quite intertwined/flow into each other: Dance line, texture, "swagger".

Dance line can loosely refer to the aesthetic, or the appealing angles and shapes the body makes in space. We can use his ceremonial pitch as an example of how his body's perfect textbook angles were praised by non-kpop fans of the sport as "great mechanics". The angles someone makes, how wide, narrow, balanced they are, can say a lot about energy efficiency, sharpness, and texture. It's a very specific element of dance that can largely contribute to how much you are set apart from other dancers. Someone who just follows choreo, only follows the suggestion of movement.

Someone who "feels" their body's natural dance line and how it looks to others figure out how to negotiate that appealing AND efficient movement with their body's range of motion, making it look natural and effortless, and ultimately "groovy", upon mastery. They will look balanced, sturdy, or artfully off-kilter. The shapes, angles, and arcs that the body makes respect the dancer's own body and the audience's own perception. I think Felix is a great example of how someone can use their dance lines to maximize stage presence and oomph factor even without a lot of fancy flairing. Think of the way he moves throughout Megaverse.

Seungmin's body lines are clean. The stability and aestheticism of his movements have come a long way from awkward foot placements where he followed the suggestion of movement but not made it his own. He is stable, but now he's starting to make it exciting. Think of a square being slanted into a trapezoid with the exact same measurements: It's deviated from the blueprint in a new and exciting way while retaining balance and stability. Seungmin gave the impression in the fanmeeting that he is growing into his dance style rather than stopping at learning the moves.

When you're starting to venture outside of what is taught, when you're secure in your ability to hit the lines just right, it's when the body or dance textures have the most impact and appeal.

A hard resin cube is cool, but a soft jelly cube wiggles is fun and eye-catching.

I feel like you will strongly understand when I bring up Hyunjin, who just outright embodies and owns textures like his bones are made of tteokbokki. Think of his Play With Fire dance. Textures in dancing refer to how the move feels on your body (when you do it) or how the move feels on the eyes (when you watch it). Body waves, the acceleration and deceleration of your moving arm rather than just swinging an arm at an equal pace. It is what makes graceful movements compelling and vicious movement striking. It's an element to "feel" that once again needs a certainness and awareness of your body, and how comfortable you are driving it to do things outside of your normal everyday movements.

Particularly for Seungmin, I think the exposure to the countless body rolls across 5-STAR and ROCKSTAR choreographies forced Seungmin to fix the closed off that "shyness" into utilizing his torso for textures he used to be more conservative about. (Recall his total inability to body wave with the same finesse in Thunderous 1:08).

Note his performance in their Sherlock cover. For his torso, he got rid of the hunched back, the huddling into himself, the closed-ish posture, and opened his chest to commit to the movement. For his arms and legs, he's started hitting hard at the start of a movement and relaxing into the next position before the limb reaches the point they were supposed to be, like the Booster choreo with his hand gestures. His stiffness is gone. Believe me, it looks incredibly awkward if you try to move your arms to that same pattern while engaging all the muscles in it the whole time. He lets himself whip his arm and his wrist into their positions rather than forcing them into their spot.

When you combine the increased sense of body lines and textures, it's quite a step forward to mastery. When you finally pin down all the fundamentals and are comfortable with them to the point where you don't even have to think about them, you get the headspace to make something more out of them. This is where "Swagger" or "groove" comes in. You see this in many street dancers, and a very select number of idols, usually the dance leader. In our case, Lee Know, whose sense of rhythm and groove has been honed to perfection after years of being into it. Think of his solo dance for "Back Door," and his cover of "Smooth Criminal" and "Finesse."

Swagger isn't really a formal term, but I know that people would have a particular image in mind with that word, which is what I'm going for. It's like "groove" (which is a more commonly used term, but with a more reserved criteria).

I like to believe finding the sense of "Swagger" is the precursor to developing your own sense of Groove. When we say groove, we look at bonkers amazing dancer-at-the-core artists like Lee Know himself, Wooyoung from 2pm, J-Hope from BTS, Kai from EXO. The ones who have literally had a lifetime to master technical fundamentals and therefore have the headspace to inject their personal touch into movement (I'm repeating myself, oops).

Seungmin has breached the barrier of swagger, a delicious step above being a loyal follower to choreo. Most of the fanmeet dances hit a bit differently now because he's starting to make them his own in general. He dances like he owns the dance, like he conjured those moves up. He looks natural, like everything he's doing is what he's supposed to do rather than just what he's meant or instructed to do. He isn't as rigid anymore, nor is he as cramped into his body awkwardly.

He's utilizing his long, lean limbs the way only he can, and he is genuinely on the right track.

I'm really excited to see how much more he could improve himself all around. I'm squealing myself silly just thinking of how he's up there now in the eyes of rookies and trainees who want to aim for the top, just like the heights they've climbed in their careers thus far, and all the rest they will continue reaching throughout their careers as a group and as individuals. It drives me crazy seeing how much he has already improved, just as much as seeing how much more he could improve, knowing he will absolutely improve on them in time.