When I tell people that I write about dance, one of the first things they ask is (more or less): “Are you now, or have you ever been, a dancer?”

The answer is no, not remotely. I did study ballet rigorously before high school. And the childhood experience of having technique drilled into my head did help when I started to review performances. The feeling of doing the steps was quite far back in the memory bank, but there are things you don’t forget.

What’s been more effective has been getting back to classes as an adult. I take one or two classes a week, mainly to stay in shape but also to have a greater connection to what I’m watching on stage.

And I’m not alone, as I recently discovered. In almost every field of the arts – performing, visual, and literary – there are many critics and reporters who practice, or have practiced, the art form that they write about. While firsthand experience is not necessary, there is something enriching for the writer, the reader, and (possibly) the industry when critics are more than observers.

In dance, a fair amount of writers have at least taken classes, even if just out of curiosity. Clive Barnes, who writes for the New York Post and Dance magazine, took ballet classes and tried his hand at choreography. “I took dance classes just to get some idea of the technique. It was classical ballet, for a year or so,” he told me.

In 1949, Mr. Barnes choreographed a ballet with fellow critic-to-be John Percival. The ballet was for “Iphigenia in Tauris” as presented by the Oxford Opera Society. But the review in the Times of London (which both men would later go on to write for) wasn’t encouraging.

“We were very influenced by Balanchine,” he said. “When your choreography is called ‘Disney-esque’ and you’re imitating Balanchine, that in itself is a lesson.”

He points out that there is a Russian tradition of criticism provided by dancers. And that Dance and Pointe magazines are edited by exdancers. “Generally speaking, most critics have not been dancers, but then few drama critics have been actors,” he said.

Which may be a good thing. Dancers or actors turned critics can get caught up in the minutiae of technique. A critic’s focus, he feels, should be broader: “The real apprenticeship is the other side of the curtain: putting your bum in as many seats as possible. The consumer experience is really what you’re evaluating.”

As he puts it succinctly, “One doesn’t have to be a chicken to know whether the egg is bad or not.”

Wall Street Journal dance critic Robert Greskovic started taking ballet class around age 25, when the idea of writing was in the back of his mind. “But really in the back,” he said.

The idea of taking class sounded “preposterous” to him at first: “It was odd for me to do anything physical. I hated all sports.”

But after getting started, he found himself taking three to four classes a week and absorbing a new kinetic understanding. Though he feels that dance training is not necessary for a critic, it did help him.

“I have to know how to see, not how to do. My seeing was better because of it,” he said, adding an observation about another industry, “I don’t think a food critic has to cook.”

In other fields, the story is just as interesting. Jed Perl, art critic of the New Republic, obtained an M.F.A. in painting from Brooklyn College, but was always a writer, too. “Through the 1970s, I was both painting and writing,” he said. “In the 1980s, I came to a parting in the roads. I felt that I couldn’t give my complete energy to both. Writing seemed more consuming.”

His formal study of painting has influenced and informed his writing, to some degree. “There’s a dimension of my criticism that follows interests I had as a painter,” he said. “Sometimes when I look at something close, I have a sense of how the paint was put on.”

But there might be other ways to acquire that kind of knowledge, he suggests. “In writing about any art form, there’s some kind of shop knowledge that is helpful to have. I don’t think you necessarily have to get that as a practitioner.”

For instance there is a sensitivity that comes with watching the creative process closely: “A lot of people who write about the visual arts have been very close to artists and spent a lot of time in their studios.”

The situation is a bit different for Robert Berlind, a painter and professor at SUNY Purchase who sometimes writes about art.

He took up the pen because he loved writing, but also: “One can only complain for so long about the state of criticism.”

“As a painter, I pay a lot of attention to the physical and optical facts of the painting,” he said.

And he carries that over into his writing. “We’re in a kind of mode where theory rides very high. What used to be connoisseurship, or paying a lot of attention to the work, is not so much done.”

Mr. Berlind’s works – large-scale paintings of nature – are shown at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. When he writes, it is typically out of extreme curiosity. “Usually it’s because I find something extremely interesting, or newly interesting. Writing becomes a way of exploring that. It’s not that I begin with an opinion.”

Perhaps the most well-known examples of critics who “do” are in the theater: George Bernard Shaw tops the list. George S. Kaufman was the drama editor of the New York Times in the 1920s and meanwhile wrote or co-wrote some 40 plays. The Village Voice’s Michael Feingold is also a successful playwright.

The crossover surely has much to do with theater’s being, in part, a verbal medium – and the case is similar in poetry. “There’s always been a tradition of people writing and also writing criticism,” said the Sun’s own Adam Kirsch, who has published a book of poems and a book of criticism. “Most of the important critics have been poets themselves.”

As he describes it, a poet-critic can bring a level of sensitivity to the material he is reviewing. “It’s maybe a feeling of familiarity with how it’s done. More than anything else, it is a personal concern in the way things are going in the state of the art.”

Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and author of two books of poetry, sees it slightly differently: “One needs a deep knowledge of poetry, but I’m not sure that one needs to be a poet. Poet-critics are wonderful and they have particular insight, but sometimes they’re bound up with their own practice.”

For Mr. Wiman, there is no shifting back and forth between poetry and prose. He’s been editing the magazine for two years, which he finds rewarding, but it limits the creative urge to write poetry.

“I try all the time, even now. For me, it would take several months of silence and trying to write,” he said. “I have a long period of writing poetry. And that’s all I can do.”

“Being an editor has changed everything. I’m surrounded by contemporary poetry all the time. It’s not good for one’s art to be surrounded by contemporary art. You need to be surrounded by great art.”

I’m inclined to agree. Because even though I love my jazz class, it’s “Giselle” that feeds the soul.