Stellae has written an article about her own experiences with personality, (extrovertedness/introvertedness) and dancing. She writes about her being the more introverted personality “in real life”, but that changes on the dance floor, where she is starting to shine and really reach out to the audience.
On the dance floor, however, and in the dance world, which is sort of a bizarre microcosm, I am more extroverted than he is by far. When dancing, I’m the one who is engaging and charismatic while he prefers to appear calm and aloof. He walks onto the floor with an attitude of ‘here’s my dancing, take it or leave it’ where I play to and engage with the crowd. Which is probably why I describe the self that exists on the dance floor as a character of sorts. She is my ‘inner diva’ who loves to be the center of attention, a contrast to the self who would generally let other people shine and contribute quietly in the background.
On a parallel blog, shallwedance seems to have written something about “When dancing, a person’s personality changes.” (where I could not find the details of that statement ar at least I could not find any justification for her proposal). Nevertheless I believe she is correct. In a way. And Stellae does make this point as well, even though she may not see it the way I do 
My experience is that dancing can change a person - but not everyone is affected as much by it. It all depends on the why in a person’s dancing. Let’s take my ballroom partner (or better: de facto ex-partner, more on this later): she was a shy, less secure and “soft” person when I met her, but I have seen her change through the two years we have been dancing together. I have seen her become more and more the “show-off” with her dancing, as we progressed up the dance-ladder, our successes in the first months did make her more aware of her skills, and more aware of the lacking skills of other people. She did take pride - but also did like to show it. Her reason for dancing became that “show off” — which is very good if you want to do exactly that: dance at competitions, where performance is everything and skill or technicalities do not really get you that far. She has become (or has further expressed) being an “external dancer”, a dancer that is motivated more by what an audience or a judge will see. She does have a very valid internal sensor as well — the feel of the dance, but I believe here motivation is mostly looks. I have tried often during practice to work from a physical/motional standpoint, where she always thought in the external picture.
On the other hand: I am that “internal dancer” — what counts for me most is the feeling of motion, music and musicality. I do not care much about external looks, and competing was a valuable experience, of course (especially for someone who does have those introverted tendencies), but the competition never was much of a motivation for me. My thoughts here are “We will dance as we always dance - and if our level is good enough, if we have the techniques down in our bodies - we will win”. Winning by being the best. Not winning by performing best, or being better than others, none of that feels natural to me. When I started ballroom/competetive dancing I had one goal: become a good dancer, and since that is only possibly through training and lessons provided for competitive dancers. So I did that, worked hard, and got my successes, advanced from the entry level D to C to B, but now this is it. I do not have the time and energy these days to continue, and I do not really need to advance any further or compete. But what is even more important: I have re-found the pleasure of argentine tango, where the internal feeling is what you strive for, where musicality, improvisation and movement is the nirvana of dancing. Here I am at home.
And back to “personality changes”: I tend to believe that when dancing for performance, when doing “external” dancing, people can change towards that direction. There are quite a bunch of girls I know who have started expressing the characteristics of Latin dances in their “real lives,” there are guys who have gained a level of machoism that was not natural in their “non-dancing former life”. And I have seen people who are “internal dancers,” like myself, to become more secure with their bodies, their expression, their emotions. Just the training of smooth movement, coordination = i.e. the technical aspects of dancing will change people, change their appearance and self-consciousness. Add a certain level of musicality, improvisation, emotion to this - which then is practiced often in (mostly) social dance situations — and you get a pack of experiences that can forge and change a personality: add security, modes of expression, habits of expression… It might not be the dance itself, it may be the exposure to certain people, certain expectations of behavior (performing), the exposure to a certain style of music. Have you ever noticed there are different kinds of people doing the different disciplines? Salsa, Tango Argentino, Ballroom, Latin, Swing, Boogie, R&R, Ballet. You can feel/smell their background, birds of a feather flock together, but also “you are who you associate with”. Yes, dancing changes you — much more than other sports — there is that added emotionality and subjectivity to it that lacks in other competitive sports.
I know this is by far a complete and universal statement, but nevertheless applicable for many people. I tend to classify the types of dancers (by their motivation for dancing!) — a classification which might make the personality changes more clear and applicable. But (maybe) more on that another time.
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