tanjive
New Member
Great you both agree with the idea, and how it can be beneficial to improving your dance. Do you have ideas for practical implementation in tango?
Deliberate Practice
- Thread starter tanjive
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Great you both agree with the idea, and how it can be beneficial to improving your dance. Do you have ideas for practical implementation in tango?
I can't tell you how to practice, because the practice has to specific for the specific problems that you are having, and I don't know you as a dancer. The literature suggests that you would have a teacher or expert to help you identify problems and suggest drills for you. Lacking that, you'll need to do it yourself.
Here's a method:
1) Identify a specific problem that you, personally, have.
2) That should lead you to a skill that you personally should improve upon.
3) Devise an exercise/drill that will focus narrowly on that skill and do the drill.
4) Notice how you do each time you repeat the drill. If it does not work out well, identify why not.
5) Make a correction and do it again.
6) If you do it well, recognize the success and congratulate yourself, but keep practicing.
If your drill/exercise (3) doesn't prove effective, then you need to get more granular. Zoom in and get more specific about what the problem is. Do the method again from the top, but revised. Keep drilling down until you get to the core problem. You have to identify the problem before you can work on it.
When I was a child I took music lessons. I was supposed to play every exercise for that week – maybe 8 of them - three times, by the end of which my 30 minutes would be expired. I did that, but made meager progress in retrospect. I wish I would have know that if I had a problem with only one phrase, I could practice it 16 times in the same 30 minutes. If I had a problem with a certain measure/bar, I could practice that 96 times in the same time. If I had a problem with the transition between two specific notes I could have practiced that 386 times in the same 30 minutes. If I had understood the value of deliberate practice I would have made orders of magnitude greater progress than I did.
The whole idea is to focus your attention narrowly. That skill - focusing your attention – is, IMO, one of the most valuable in dancing Argentine Tango.
This thread absolutely reminds me why I work for 5 hours (if you take tax NI etc, etc) to pay for an hour of my dance teachers time.
It's their skill and experience that informs my deliberate practice and as AndaBien says its so specific to my needs, I'm not sure how helpful it would be on a general forum.
However, the drills given in group technique classes are often worth doing on your own. Ladies Technique classes are particularly worth looking out for! (Any man who is willing to turn up - if allowed - gets a huge welcome and will learn loads).
It's their skill and experience that informs my deliberate practice and as AndaBien says its so specific to my needs, I'm not sure how helpful it would be on a general forum.
However, the drills given in group technique classes are often worth doing on your own. Ladies Technique classes are particularly worth looking out for! (Any man who is willing to turn up - if allowed - gets a huge welcome and will learn loads).
newbie
Well-Known Member
Rejecting invites by the leaders you don't want to dance with.
Stand in front of your mirror. Say "no". Again. Louder. Now non-verbal: sigh, facepalm. Repeat.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
tanjive
New Member
The methodology is useful. A bit of common sense thrown in. Having a narrow focus is key to this method of learning. I completely agree.
I am not asking you to tell me how to practice. Everybody probably goes through the same at problems at different points in time. We just stick with longer more than others. You do not need to know my background to post any useful drills that exploit this learning method. If they are not useful to me they maybe to someone else. This is even more likely if they were of benefit to yourself at some point. After all you may come up with testing methods I may not, that could be even better.
passiontango
New Member
When somebody pointed the areas of improvement and you start practicing - how do you know that you are making progress? You can make progress or you can keep practicing doing same errors again. Do you have any suggestions?
You have to let time elapse while you practise, then go back to the same person that critiqued you and ask for further feedback. Hopefully, they'll be able to remember how you danced before and what they said to you.
I have found different teachers will focus on different areas for improvement. If I find that several people have commented on the same weakness then I begin to take it really seriously. Some areas for development I might think of for myself, based on past lessons, are keeping a very light right hand or using disassociation to power pivots - these features are something that might be glaring obvious to a highly trained and sensitive leader but far less so to the kind of leader I generally dance with.
Some things are also down to the personal taste of the leader and another might be wanting something slightly different. If you want to get a sense of continous improvement stick with the same teacher for feedback. However, you might then be learning only the style and tastes of that particular teacher.
If I ask for feedback from people I dance with in practicas they usually say "It's fine", even though I know that is not what will be said to me in my next private lesson. So, essentially, I'm working in the dark on my own much of the time. It's a long haul.
One example that recently helped me was a follower said my dancing felt a little "jerky or rough" (in a Latin dance. I don't remember which one.) We talked about it and she suggested I practice sliding my feet instead of lifting them. I practiced in front of a mirror, both my foot positioning and sliding my feet for a couple of weeks. Last night, when I danced with her, she said she noticed a big improvement.
The thing I like about improvement is that it's incremental, like compounded interest. A little bit of time spend gives you something that will remain for the rest of your dancing days. And, a pile of little improvements grows to be quite worthwhile.
newbie
Well-Known Member
When the same person tells you that you have improved in this area. Proviso: it must not be the teacher with whom you took the private. Because then, it always go like
"- I would like to work on my <whatever>
- Sure. Let's see. [After one dance]. Omg your <whatever> is terrible.
[After one hour of private]
- See? Your <whatever> is much better now. Give me $150 "
Dave Bailey
Active Member
I think that's a little harsh.
When I do privates, I always try to identify specific areas to work on, and I always hope that after 1-2 hours, my student will have improved on that area, and I usually finish by congratulating them on improving, and demonstrating to them how they can now do something they couldn't at the start.
I mean, if they've not improved, why go to privates? And, sometimes we can't easily tell if our own dancing has improved much, so it's helpful to have external feedback.
If possible, I'll also video the person before and after, so they have some objective evidence of their progress - however, some people aren't keen on that.