practice motivation

C

cl5814

New Member
I was so revved up today to show my instructor how hard i practiced while he was in europe. It turned out to be a disaster. ok, i was as nervous as can be.
I can really dance our routine by myself aka i really know what i am supposed to be doing, yet when i had a physical partner (a perfect pro partner), it just threw me for a loop. I couldn't do what i practiced. I even asked him to dance a slower quickstep so that i can "keep up".
I am not going to give up practicing by myself.

How can i make practice by myself and then dancing the routine with my instructor more "compatible" ? It felt like i practiced waltz but dance quickstep with my instructor, if you know what i mean.

I am so disappointed in myself..... Surely i can't be the only one to have ever gone through this.
 
Hey, don't feel frustrated! I'm in the same boat! It's always difficult when you practice by yourself b/c you don't have to worry about lead/follow. You're doing it at your own speed. Having an extra person in front of you also affects your balance and is also quite distractive (for me personally).

Hopefully, someone who has been in this position and has gotten over it can provide more useful info....
 
cl5814 said:
I was so revved up today to show my instructor how hard i practiced while he was in europe. It turned out to be a disaster. ok, i was as nervous as can be.
I can really dance our routine by myself aka i really know what i am supposed to be doing, yet when i had a physical partner (a perfect pro partner), it just threw me for a loop. I couldn't do what i practiced. I even asked him to dance a slower quickstep so that i can "keep up".
I am not going to give up practicing by myself.

How can i make practice by myself and then dancing the routine with my instructor more "compatible" ? It felt like i practiced waltz but dance quickstep with my instructor, if you know what i mean.

I am so disappointed in myself..... Surely i can't be the only one to have ever gone through this.
Click to expand...
Your case is exactly what happened to me today. my coach went to somewhere for several weeks, leaving lots of homework for me. I practiced my routines hard. I was waiting for my opportunity to show her how hard I worked. Today was the day. As soon as we started the routines together, my mind went completely blank and could not remember anything. I was really disgusted.
 
I think perhaps your mind worked against you. It happens with me ALL the time. It's my worst enemy. I put too much pressure on myself rather than just going with the flow and not worrying about perfection.

I don't think it could ever possibly hurt to practice by yourself. There are some things I feel I do better in practice by myself (spins and turns) and I stomp my feet and tell my instructor "I can do it by myself, just not with you!" And he says, "you could if you would just relax".

Keep your practicing up. If for no other reason, it's financially smart -- if you repeatedly go over your trouble areas in practice, you should have less work to do on them in your lesson. If you are learning new stuff and can get the footwork and patterns down, that will keep you from having to "pay again" for what you learned last week.
 
Thanks girls (and guys ?).

I was afraid of what my instructor was gonna say yesterday, else i would have talked to him about it. Gentleman that he is he didn't say anything aka he wasn't impressed at all. Now, i will have to deal with that conversation next week

I have new stuff to practice this week - body alignment to partner as part of close body contact. How on earth am i suppose to practice that with my imaginary partner ? Maybe if i start arguing/ talking to my imaginary partner ( :shock: ) he will become real and cooperate with my practice :D . I think my imaginary partner's name is Ryan. Just the right height too. One advantage, he is always available for practice. :lol:
Feet and body and brain is gonna have to work hard this week.

Will practice later today.....
 
Well, yes, there are some things that are not as practical to practice by yourself. Perhaps some of our smooth/standard friends here can advise you on that.

As for Ryan, I'm sure he'll be a very cooperative, willing partner. I should know, I practice with his brother, Oscar :)
 
cl5814 said:
I have new stuff to practice this week - body alignment to partner as part of close body contact. How on earth am i suppose to practice that with my imaginary partner ?
Click to expand...

Go through figures really slowly and think about where your partner's body will be in relation to yours. Do you know the routine well enough to walk through it in the other role? Often the shapes are fairly complementary - outside partner for example you both have more or less the same shape, which lets you fit together.

Don't get too obsessed with the close and contact either... a lot of teachers push it to the point of demanding a constant pressure at the hip as it's easier to do this and assert greater physical control rather than develop a full set of reflexes in the student's own body, but it really doesn't have to be close enough to constantly feel, as top champions demonstrate from time to time. If you are keeping your frame in front of you, staying aligned in the spine, and making an informed effort at the stretches for various positions (closed, outside partner promenade, etc) then you are well on the way to learning what is really important.
 
Chris Stratton said:
cl5814 said:
I have new stuff to practice this week - body alignment to partner as part of close body contact. How on earth am i suppose to practice that with my imaginary partner ?
Click to expand...

Go through figures really slowly and think about where your partner's body will be in relation to yours. Do you know the routine well enough to walk through it in the other role? Often the shapes are fairly complementary - outside partner for example you both have more or less the same shape, which lets you fit together.
Click to expand...

I don't know the leaders part. In practice today, I could see and touch my imaginary partner as we danced, him being real to me, helped a lot. Yes, going through the figures slowly and really seeing your partner there helped a lot. I had to coordinate my upper body and feet which were challenging, but enjoyable to practice. My instructor did it with me quite a few times and we only covered a few baisc quickstep figures so that helped.

Totally off topic question........at what point did your teacher introduce close body contact to you ? I had a "crazy" ex-instructor who refused to cover figures/syllabus stuff with me (that is what group classes are for he said) and instead introduced close body contact stuff to me at bronze level. I would think it is a fairly advanced concept not meant for bronze level......... there is too much else that could be fixed and done.
 
cl5814 said:
I don't know the leaders part. In practice today, I could see and touch my imaginary partner as we danced, him being real to me, helped a lot. Yes, going through the figures slowly and really seeing your partner there helped a lot. I had to coordinate my upper body and feet which were challenging, but enjoyable to practice. My instructor did it with me quite a few times and we only covered a few baisc quickstep figures so that helped.
Click to expand...

That's great! I'm still working on the mental block of pretending my imaginery partner is real - maybe giving him a name would be a good start!

Something off-topic, I think it would be useful for followers to know the leaders' steps. I've talked to a couple of instructors and they agree that if followers learn how to "lead", it also helps them with their following skills as well.
 
just started close body contact with my instructor after 7 months of instruction....more precisely, about a month after learning the basic footwork for beginning standard and bumping up to full bronze in american...I am so very glad that this is happening at this time and almost regret it not happening sooner as it is making me far more sensitive to my "partner"...though I can see how a certain comfort level with the instructor is a good idea before doing this :oops: ....agree that it is so very difficult to practice alone...but making me a much better dancer...beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel
 
cl5814 said:
Totally off topic question........at what point did your teacher introduce close body contact to you ?
Click to expand...

My experience has kind of gone in the reverse direction - in the first year or two, like most other competitions students, I really depended on a body connection in order to lead. But as I started to work with more advanced teachers, this was cast in a more dubious light, until a former world champion flat out said that trying for contact was probably the number one most common mistake in standard. Now the priority is on more fundamental requirements: aligned posture and an unbroken frame that can provide communication with the partner. While these things are not ultimately incompatible with contact, preserving all of them and creating contact too is quite a tall order. When I watch dancing with those issues in mind, it seems that that a sparsely built couple who could reliably create contact and the associated flowering shape without compromise in any of the more fundamental areas would have a pretty good shot at the Blackpool final.
 
Our tango teacher stepped up the first lesson with his partner and said "now y'all, ok- looka here. We're gonna do this..." basic to a quarter turn... "Then this..." promenade into a quarter turn "this right here.." promenade to a butterfly "and finish with this and this" back to basic closed, promenade, quarter turn, stop.

"Ok, now- let's try it, c'mon"

Me: :shock:

J: :cry:

Instructor: :!:

Everyone else: :D :o :roll: :P 8)

An hour later:

Me: :oops: :cry:

J: :shock: :?

Instructor: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Everyone else: :idea: 8) :idea: 8)

We couldn't get it. First of all, it just didn't sink in- we couldn't remember the combination. It just breezed by. Then, we got it, piece by piece- painstakingly, horribly slow, to our teacher's well-concealed chagrin, and finally we got it.

We got better AFTER practice when we tried it in the driveway! With nobody to watch and say "wow, they aren't dorks afterall, they FINALLY got it"

D'oh! Stupid short term memory! :oops:
 
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