Practice Makes Positive Progress
Why should we practice?
Improvement in dance, as in all aspects of life, is achieved through consistency and repetition. This is what we call ‘practice’, which involves undertaking activities with the goal of improving performance. In dance, we need to consolidate new information that we hear, see or feel; for example when our teacher gives us some new choreography or when we learn a new skill, and therefore, practice is important in order to safely perform the intricate skills and make improvements in our dancing. Since most of us only take one class of each style per week, we are able to use the remainder of the week to consolidate what we learned in that lesson. Sometimes we may not see progress in our dancing after one class, which can be frustrating. However, when you practice, you and your teachers will notice significant progress to your dancing journey, which is vital for us as dancers!
Practice is not perfect!
Aiming for perfection is extremely difficult as there is no such thing. However, what we can do is try our hardest to get to our personal best of what we are trying to do or achieve. The old saying of ‘practice makes perfect’ can sometimes allow us to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves because ultimately there is no such thing as perfection. We can, however, strive to be the best that we can be and this is done through practice, practice and more practice. Practicing allows us to make the positive progress that is required to see improvements in everything we do. Without practice, we will not be able to see the positive changes and improvements that we are hoping for.
All that anyone can ask of you is for you to try your best, and make an effort to practice your dances and skills with the aim of improvement.
The Forgetting Curve - Over time we tend to forget information if we do not practice.
The Psychology of Practice
Let’s pretend you have just learnt how to do a pirouette for the first time. Your teacher has just told you all about ensuring your body is centred while you spin on your toes. Because you just heard this, it is likely you will focus on your centre of gravity while turning. However, after just 1 hour, you will have forgotten around half of what your teacher taught you about centring your body. It is likely that you will continue to forget this information as time progresses… unless you practice!
Practicing moves new information from our short term memory to long term memory. Rather than thinking about every single move in a sequence and pondering what comes next, we are able to focus on other aspects such as facial expressions, positions, performance and texture of our moves and transitions. This level of autonomy is only achieved through repeating the choreography or movement. You may have heard of, or experienced ‘muscle memory’, where your mind and body are so used to doing a specific skill or routine that you don’t need to think about the choreography or mechanics at all. This is achievable for all dancers through practicing it over and over again.
How can I practice?
We often have students ask us how long and how often they should practice for. There is no ‘correct’ answer to this question, as each student differs in their ability and the amount of time required to see improvement.
If you are aiming to consolidate a new skill you have learned, firstly we recommend getting your teachers approval as to whether you are performing the skill correctly. You might like to take notes of what to focus on when performing the skill so that you can remember it later on.
Next, we advise you to remember exactly what you did to get the skill correct. Let’s use the example of learning a plie in ballet, where I must: turn out my legs, keep my core strong, have even weight on both feet and pull up.
You can remember all these things by:
Writing a list of what to remember when executing the skill, and pin it up wherever you practice your plies
Pin the list up where you will often see it, such as on the mirror in the bathroom to read whilst brushing your teeth.
Learning an acrostic poem (eg: CEPT - core on, even weight, pull up, turn out)
When practicing, filming yourself can also help you pick up on choreography or technique that you may be doing well or that needs improvement. Grab your phone or laptop and film yourself doing the routine/skill/exercise and watch it afterwards - try to think about the key points your teacher told you to focus on and identify if you are doing them throughout.
It is important to ensure you consider corrections that you have been given in class. This will allow you to improve with the goal of actually improving, rather than practicing incorrect technique, and integrating bad habits.
It is good to try to make time for some form of dance practice every day in any form. This may mean running through part of a dance for five minutes, watching over a video you filmed in class during a car trip or listening to the song and running through the dance in your mind while you jog. You may also think of some other fun ways to remember your dances!
Overall, there are many benefits of prolonged practice. Not only will we see quicker and more drastic improvements in our performance but we will also feel more confident in ourselves to be able to perform various skills/moves/choreography. This will ultimately allow us to feel more comfortable in our dance classes, which not only helps us individually but our fellow classmates as well. It is like going to the gym, you can’t expect to do one gym session and have rock hard abs, it takes hours and hours of hard work and dedication, even before seeing any physical progress. The same goes for dancing, it might not come straight away but if we keep practicing, we will be able to hit that turn, land that jump or stretch into those splits! After all, practice makes positive progress!