Ways To Practice?

[DancePoet]

Hi folks!

Laura wrote on the "General Audience Appeal" thread:

My partner and I practice in several different modes. In one mode we dance rounds, where we program the music machine computer at our studio to play as set of music exactly as if it were a competition -- song length, song order, fade out, break between songs, and so on. When we're dancing rounds I turn off my obessessing about technique thoughts and instead just concentrate on the feelings that the music and the act of dancing bring up in me. I try to make eye contact with people while I'm dancing, and give them special smiles and so on. You might feel self-conscious doing this at first, but that's what practice is for.

What other neat ideas do folks use when practicing?

[JoepiE]

Start every dance practising alone. This way you learn your step better. it's great for training balance and direction. You can concentrate on small parts of the figures or techniques much better when dancing alone. Also this increases your conciousness of what you're (supposed to) do(ing)

[Chris Stratton]

Practicing the dance in general alone, or a specific routine alone?

[cl5814]

Practicing the dance in general alone, or a specific routine alone?

I think the term separate comes in here........understand alone as separate. Partners practice separate for a few minutes.

[JoepiE]

Jep that's right!

[Chris Stratton]

Yes, seperately. I was asking if your seperate work is mostly general skills, or if it includes practicing specific routines that you intend to do together.

[swan]

Yes, seperately. I was asking if your seperate work is mostly general skills, or if it includes practicing specific routines that you intend to do together.

I'd warm up w/ mostly basic figures. I typically would always do non-stop feather finishes around the floor! I find that to be the easiest way to find my own weight & alignment at that particular moment of the day. I'd try to move around smoothly at first to get my movement & swing going. Then I'd add more of the sway. I also like to do change steps. Same focus.

My partner on the other hand would do regular warm up & he often would go into the routine by himself.

Perhaps that's just the difference between follower & leader. I sometimes (not often) would dance the routine wall by wall, not non-stop.

[dTas]

my partner and i warm up by playing. just put on a song, dance together, and do whatever comes to mind. not just figures, but let yourself go and do , feel , dance. whatever the music says, whatever i feel and interpret, and whatever she feels and interprets.

it gets us in a good dance mode where we're thinking of each other, our conneciton, lead, follow, music-ness, etc.

[and123]

This might be a dumb question, but who knows - someone else might be wondering the same thing. I'm a follower. Most of the time, in Standard, I'm going backwards. I do not have eyes in the back of my head. I trust my partner not to run me into anyone or anything. How does one practice Standard alone, safely, in a busy dance studio? Yeah, I could keep checking behind me, but that certainly ruins the flow of things, not to mention it distorts one's poise.

Melissa

[tacad]

Carry a mirror in your left hand? :wink:

[delamusica]

My partner and I would always start our practices by just walking through our routines in a loose hold - no music, both of us counting out loud (but sort of quietly). It was a nice warm up just to get used to doing the movements in an understated and under-tempo sort of way before dancing all out. It also made it apparent early on when we weren't using the same timing for steps because we were counting together and listening to that instead of the music.

[smoozer]

I always see people practice primarily by running routines and maybe doing sections of routines repeatedly. This is a manner of practice which is unique to partner dance. All other physical skills generally are more dependant on skill related drills. Does anyone else have thoughts regarding this.

[Chris Stratton]

Acutally, I would think that running routines is less fundamental to competition partner dance than it would be to performance dance.

[swan]

Acutally, I would think that running routines is less fundamental to competition partner dance than it would be to performance dance.

Well, it all depends...Markus & Karen Hilton kept their routines for 10 years & just kept perfecting them.

I believe in running thru the whole routines & be very familiar with it. But I also believe in practicing in groups & then mix & match. Also always practice the 'lead & follow' a bit, allocate some time in practice to go over that. I remembered the first competition out, my partner was so rusty in comps that he practically forgot all the routines & all 4 dances (thank goodness, there's no routine in VW!) he remembered & executed only the 1st long wall, and then everything else was Lead & Follow on the short wall & he'd repeat the 1st & only long wall as many times as he could till the music finished!

Now that was frightening, but because we used to fool around quite a bit just dancing to music w/o routines, that was not so much of problem. By the time we got into next round, he was more focused & could remember what he's supposed to do.

I also remembered I heard Pino once mentioned in a private seminar that he & Alessandra would have these groupings filed away as in library cards/computer. They'd practice these groupings daily & be so familiar with them that as soon as the music started, he could make it look like they're 'improvising'.

[JoepiE]

Yes, seperately. I was asking if your seperate work is mostly general skills, or if it includes practicing specific routines that you intend to do together.

Excuse me for the last responce. I was bussy dancing the entire weekend!

The answer: Both. Off course practising seperately is the most usefull for general skills, but it's good to use it for the rest too. Especially for the lady it's good to practise the routine alone, so she practises her balance. Alone she can't depend on her partner to keep her from kissing the floor :wink: Also it's usefull for both partners to get the routine and all the variations really fixed in the memory to be more comfortable at a comp when it's crowdy on the floor.

[mamboqueen]

I practiced yesterday in one of the aerobic studios at my gym. I needed to work on some of my backward motions (basically, letting your body continue to go after your feet have stopped) and found that using one of those resistance bands wrapped around a pole really helped a lot.