7 tips to learn dance faster
I was practicing at Dance Underground yesterday with a friend of mine who has rock solid technique, and she noticed that I wasn’t moving as a single unit. During my trip to Buenos Aires, I took 3 private lessons in 3 weeks, which can be seen as ambitious. I think my dance will make a quantum leap, and yours can too, provided we follow these rules:
1. Record yourself
Often times we have no real idea what our bodies are doing, and how our thoughts translate to real world movement. It’s a lot easier looking at someone else and deconstructing their dance. If we take a step back and put our egos aside, we can improve quickly by recording our practice.
2. Use a mirror
This is an extension of the previous idea, but useful in different ways. We can see how we’re moving, and course correct mid movement.
3. Watch other dancers
I personally have the habit of just looking for the next amazing dance of the night, and sometimes I’m not feeling the room, or looking at how people are dancing. If you can choose someone to model, it’s a lot easier to take that style on, break it down later, and incorporate elements into your dance. As a fringe benefit, it makes it easier to figure out who you want to dance with on a given night.
4. Practice a little bit each day
The subconscious mind is a very powerful thing. If you feed it just a bit, it will do a lot of the work for you throughout the day. I would reccomend half an hour every day over a couple two hour sessions during a week.
5. Have specific goals
If you have an image of what you want, or a skillset you want to learn, it makes it much easier to achieve. Instead of just haphazardly picking things to learn, try tracking your progress in different areas and learn how your learn.
6. Small chunk your goals
This one is advice to myself. I have about 10 different things that I want to work on in terms of the quality of my movement in the next 6 months. While it’s possible to remember it all, if I practice it all at the same time, I get confused. Pick one or two things at a time to focus on, and watch as your results skyrocket.
7. Avoid beginner syndrome
If there was one thing I would like to say to myself over 4 years ago, it would be to focus even more on mastering the basics before moving on. I already had a martial arts background and knew how to learn physical things. Most newbies want to learn the flashy stuff first, and have a million moves. After a while they learn how important the basics are. I’d rather have a master of basic movement then mediocre skill with a million moves.
Hopefully this will help your efforts to become an amazing dancer. If I could get every beginner at my level in half the time it took me, I’d be a very happy man. Enjoy that practice!
