How do you practice?

[amiko]

To all the competitive dancers out there, I was curious to how you guys practice.

How many kinds do you do, how often? All together or at separate times? Musicality/timing practice, technical practice, feeling practice, stop & go practice?

[reb]

In order of priority and time spent, based in part on having learned to practice while we both were traveling apart:

Separate
Individual technique
Rounds (warmup with foot round, slow round, then full rounds)
Together

Rounds (warm up with foot round, slow round, then full rounds)
Working on specific figures/technique together (usually what DW decides needs to be worked on!)

[elisedance]

we have different ways of practicing in different locations.

The pre-lesson practice:
1. warm up/stretch/solo movements (for me twice round floor doing foxtrot leg action and then heel turns)
2. together waltz basic turns twice round floor.

The 'alone in the studio' practice w/wo music
1 and 2 above.
Whatever ails us and new ideas

The 'group practice' in rented space with music
1 and 2 above.
routines, specific figure combinations

The social dance practice
1 and 2 above if possible (turn up early)
routines (early, uncrowded floor)
random lead/follow/floorcraft (crowded floor)

The post lesson practice:
At least 30 minutes going over everything we learned.

The anytime practice (alone):
Posture, ballance, frame, leg action etc

[Nik]

twice a day, a total of about 3 hours. Sometimes Standard first, then latin at night, sometime latin twice. Warm up with a final runthrough not full power, then go over problem areas slowly and try to fix them. Then just dance to music over and over and try to fix stuff. When tired of dancing ruitines to music start doing rumba walks. Then dance full power to music again.

Sometime when I'm not really feeling it, I'll do like a 20 minute practice, then leave and come back an hour later and it will be a totally different feeling.

[Serby]

well...2 hours a day ...first worm up alone with some vienesse waltz basic steps ...and then worm up toghether also with vienesse waltz and quick step.... some times just basic steps other times with a coregraphy

[reb]

Welcome to Dance Forums Serby!

[amiko]

Wow Serby warms up with Vienesse!! Props to ya!! Full speed ahead!!

I forgot to answer my own post.

5 min warm up, stretch.

Dance together with no music, focusing on technique, then timing, until we find a problem. :argue:

Break apart to fix technique, then dance together after it is improved. Then do each dance in rounds.

Dance to music only on Fri or Sun.

[jwlinson]

Dance together with no music, focusing on technique, then timing, until we find a problem. :argue:

Break apart to fix technique, then dance together after it is improved.

Sounds like us.

...except for the whole :argue: part... that never ever happens in dance practice, right? ;)

[reb]

Sounds like us.

...except for the whole :argue: part... that never ever happens in dance practice, right? ;)
Biggest breakthrough for us - were directed in no uncertain terms, that if we couldn't figure something out right away, to write it down, to then work on something else, and take the [very long ;)] written list to our teacher and she would fix the problem!
. . . and to this day, we're happily married!!:banana:

[Dancebug]

Biggest breakthrough for us - were directed in no uncertain terms, that if we couldn't figure something out right away, to write it down, to then work on something else, and take the [very long ;)] written list to our teacher and she would fix the problem!
. . . and to this day, we're happily married!!:banana:
In our case, agreeing to move onto something else when we have an argument is a challenge itself. One of us usually gets emotional and stubborn, insisting we should and we can figure it out ourselves (if only the other listens to me). Of course it is a destructive behavior. Somehow it is hard to change this pattern. I cannot blame my partner when he does it because I caught myself doing the same thing numerous times. Fortunately we are getting better, but still not as quickly as I want.

Still I can say we are crazy about each other. I cannot remember having any argument with my partner outside of dance floor all these years.

[elisedance]

The real problem lies IMO in how to identify the, well, problem. You can tell the 'truth' "I can't do A if you don't do B". which is how much of us handle an issue - and it is honestly said. Of course, the unstated premise is 'are you doing A properly?'?

Thus, it always works better if you phrase the problem as 'I am having trouble doing A'. that invites discussion. The danger with that is that it is an invitation for your partner to say 'thats becaue you have to do A like this' without considering if s/he is doing it wrong themselves.

I know this is not going to go down well but IME (experience) the error is often with the lead - this is simply because he moves first and if the first move is wrong the second can't be right. Also, he has in many cases the more difficult step having to both make the move and initiate it. Note, I cage that with 'step. the follow often has a far harder followthrough - sometimes having to execute it well even if the lead is half baked.

[skwiggy]

I know this is not going to go down well but IME (experience) the error is often with the lead - this is simply because he moves first and if the first move is wrong the second can't be right. Also, he has in many cases the more difficult step having to both make the move and initiate it. Note, I cage that with 'step. the follow often has a far harder followthrough - sometimes having to execute it well even if the lead is half baked.

While it is important for the lead to get their half right first since he is the intiator, you would be surprised how much a follower can help him to get it right by focusing on improving herself.

The follower doesn't have to wait for the leader to do his part exactly right before she can do hers right. If we all waited for that, we would all be waiting a very long time. ;) I'm not cutting on the leaders here, just saying everyone always has room for improvement and the more we improve, the more our definition of doing it "right" expands and changes.

So while it's important to open up the discussion, I find that even when it feels like the leader is causing the issue, if I try to fix myself before I bring things up, I can help improve on the problem a lot just by improving my half of things. Not to mention, sometimes that feeling is deceiving and the issue was coming from my side all along.

[skwiggy]

As far as how we practice - we usually dance to music. Sometimes we'll just dance through things and try to fix any issues that come up. I like practicing this way when I've had a long day and need to "just dance". Sometimes we'll discuss what we will work on specifically. We'll say - this time we will focus on our frame. This time we will focus on our movement. This time we will focus on our feet, etc. I find this method to be very effective in improving the focus of our practices.

[elisedance]

The follower doesn't have to wait for the leader to do his part exactly right before she can do hers right. If we all waited for that, we would all be waiting a very long time. ;) I'm not cutting on the leaders here, just saying everyone always has room for improvement and the more we improve, the more our definition of doing it "right" expands and changes.

So while it's important to open up the discussion, I find that even when it feels like the leader is causing the issue, if I try to fix myself before I bring things up, I can help improve on the problem a lot just by improving my half of things. Not to mention, sometimes that feeling is deceiving and the issue was coming from my side all along.

Isn't that a double edged sword though SKGG (how DO you shorten skwiggy??). If you fix it for the lead - though being able to is key else competitions would always be a disaster since all leads can not be perfect- how will the lead ever learn to do it right. After all, we are talking about practice here.

Love to hear from some of the leads here. During practice, would you rather get the step to work by the follower adjusting to a non-ideal lead, or would you rather it fell apart to work on its 'innards'? I hope I did not stack that question. I'm guessing its a bit of both (hard to practice if there is not some compesation) but leads will tend to the latter.

[skwiggy]

I don't mean I fix it for the lead. I mean I try to fix myself so that it makes his part easier for him to fix or do correctly. I don't wait for him to get it right before I try to get it right myself.

[elisedance]

Oh I see - I think I read something into your post that wasn't there.

Still, I find it hard to get clost to 'right' unless the lead is right. For example, if there is no CBMP in the lead try as I might I can't do it either and if his rotation is too much I can't rotate less...

[skwiggy]

I used to completely agree with that philosophy.

And of course there are some things that we will be unable to fix first.

At one point, I realized the fact that there were many things that I could fix without waiting for him to fix his half. And once I accepted that fact, the rate of my own improvement started moving a lot faster.

That's all I'm saying. I spent a long time waiting for the leader to fix his half first before I figured this out. ;)

[samina]

(how DO you shorten skwiggy??).

skwigs. :cool:

[Peaches]

skwigs. :cool:Lol. I find "skwiggers" comes most easily, but that's longer instead of shorter...and I doubt she's appreciative. ;-)

[nucat78]

I'd rather get chewed out for a bad lead than have a follow compensate. I want to dance a pattern correctly (by whatever syllabus you elect to use).

[skwiggy]

I never said anything about compensating.

[skwiggy]

Lol. I find "skwiggers" comes most easily, but that's longer instead of shorter...and I doubt she's appreciative. ;-)

It's all good. :D

[chocolatchica]

twice a day, a total of about 3 hours. Sometimes Standard first, then latin at night, sometime latin twice. Warm up with a final runthrough not full power, then go over problem areas slowly and try to fix them. Then just dance to music over and over and try to fix stuff. When tired of dancing ruitines to music start doing rumba walks. Then dance full power to music again.

Sometime when I'm not really feeling it, I'll do like a 20 minute practice, then leave and come back an hour later and it will be a totally different feeling.
I love it! I wish I could dance that much! With work and school, I sometimes find myself doing rumba walks to class and waltzing to help customers at work (not kidding either! I do dance at work).