Are your routines typed or written?

DanceMentor

DanceMentor

Administrator
So when it comes to your routines, do you (or your teacher) maintain a written copy of the routines?

I'd love to see some too, but I'm sure often people don't want to share. Any reason you wouldn't want someone to have access to your routines?
 
I've tried writing down routines and taking notes. However, I've found that it's very difficult for me to reconstruct a routine from written notes. So for anything I want to save, I shoot video.
 
I make notes more than in the past. I didn't start my dance career as an organized person. :) (couldn't see the floor in my room at times). But I have improved greatly in this area!

And cornutt, don't take that as me saying we can or cannot see the floor in your room! haha
 
I write them down to learn them, names of steps (with alignments where relevant), and counts. Once I know them, I don't ever have to go back to the written form though...

For me, my poorly executed videos are much harder to decipher and learn from than a written script I can clearly visualize. Words hold a lot of power over my dancing in general. My PW is the opposite, words and numbers mean nothing to her, she has to see it, hear it, feel it, so videos have been helpful to her, even if it's a poor video of me dancing it for the first time to music with our instructor.

For showcase routines, our instructor will often write them down for us, though while we're learning it she'll make changes, and I may end up typing up a clean copy of the final version for us to refer to, though I've been needing that less and less.
 
That's a fair point. Particularly when I was dancing standard, I used to get my routines written out. Video is just particularly helpful for me these days since the verbiage is much less strictly defined.
 
My standard coach writes down the routine to help her to remember the weekly changes. When I am at home, I type out my perspective of the routine so far to help me remember lesson notes.
 
I used to. I have notebooks will all of my (open) syllabus routines, all the way through. Steps, timing, alignments, technique notes... I'm sure they'll be useful someday.

My current ones: No. It would be a mix of syllabus figures, named open figures, and things like "tick-tick into shape in corner"... likely not all that helpful!

I think my first truly open routines were video-ed, but now they pretty much only get taped as they get competed. (Hooray, FF finally learned to memorize quickly!!). I might tape segments now if there is a piece that is really complicated, but I haven't had to do that in a while.
 
used to write it all down...helped me to get it onto the hard drive, so to speak....now we record them on my phone
 
Written.

First pen & ink, then typed into a spreadsheet where I add columns for all the aspects: alignment, timing, partner position, footwork, CBM. Even tho it is all syllabus and already in the book, I like to write it out from memory and then double-check against the book.

Of course video notes are useful for how to execute the patterns, but unnecessary for which figures in what sequence. We have the class routines written out before the first week of class so we can spend class time on technique, not memorizing choreo.

It baffles me how anyone could study standard w/o knowing figures by name. That seems like learning a song by spelling out the letters of the words.

I admit the showcase routines need video because those have some non-syllabus fancies. But even those get names in my notes, names that only mean something to me, like "doggie at hydrant", "look ma no hands", "the flying mirko", and "me do".
 
Video, and I have always had good muscle memory. I learn by seeing it and feeling it. Some move I know by name but many I don't... sorry if that makes me a bad student, but I know what I feel and I am a good follower.
 
I never write down my routines, but I am blessed with a good memory. I've done showcases and promptly forgot the showcase routines when I ddidn't need them anymore, but I have videos in case I ever need them again, which never happened so far. Same goes for competitions, once we move to new/advanced routines, I threw the old ones out my memory.
Another point: with my current pro, we have routines for every dance and I am able to follow each of them smoothly, but if you asked me to write them down, I wouldn't be able to do it. I am sure eventually I will memorize them all, but for now I find it very liberating to dance my routines without being able to repeat them on my own. I see this as a progress, because I was accused of being a bad follower more than once in the past.
Maybe it's more important to write down routines for leaders?
 
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