Tips on Picking up Choreography Quickly

If music is the colors of our lives then learning new choreography is your way of coloring it. Learning choreography can be interesting. Picking up moves quickly is an essential skill if you are dancing for a living. You must have wondered why some competitive dancers pick up moves so quickly. Here are some tips for you to learn quickly without having to attend dance choreography classes:

1. Watch carefully before attempting to imitate

Many people have kinesthetic intelligent and just want to move their muscles right when they see the new moves. But if you try it right away, your eyes will lose focus, and you will forget important details. Resist the temptation to dance and watch all the moves from start to finish.

You need to get the information into your head before you can do it. The reason why children can learn things so quickly is that they observe and absorb the information.

You can try to picture yourself making the moves before actually trying. This will help you to have a better photograph memory of the moves.

2. Keep your eyes off the choreographer when you are dancing

It is a natural thing that we keep our eyes on our teacher as we dance. But you might have faced the feeling of “don’t know what to do” when the teacher stops dancing for you to imitate. This is why observing and imagining ourselves making those moves is so important.

The best choreography moves are made when you try to do it your way, not by copying from others. This doesn’t mean that you change the moves themselves. It means that you have your feelings toward those moves.

Try to watch the choreographer carefully and remember the techniques as well as the timing required. After you have got that for yourself, stop depending on them and try making moves on your own. If you forget, you can look up. This will help you fill the blanks in your memory better than watching them the whole time.

3. It’s totally fine to make mistakes

Just like when you are writing. Some people just close their eyes and write till the end. After that, they start editing their works. Your choreographer is the ones who set those moves, and you are expected to make mistakes the first times trying that.

Resist the tendency to make every move perfectly. That will prevent you from learning the moves at the end. Instead, try to get all the moves into your head first and later improves all those moves.

The reason why you are progressing so slowly is that you try to make every single move perfect. Don’t stop when making a wrong move, keep moving on.

4. Try telling a story in your mind with the choreography moves

The dance choreography ideas are to tell a story and to give meaning to the music. When you can connect all those moves together, it will be much easier to remember. It’s same as trying to memorize two sentences with 15 words rather than memorizing 15 words alone.

Most dance choreography has their distinct moves and phrases. And a lot of the steps come in groups. So, try to learn these phrases and groups of steps rather than memorizing them separately.

As a beginner, try starting with no more than three phrases a time. As you develop your dance skills, you will be able to absorb more phrases at a higher speed.

5. Be slow and relax

Don’t pay attention too much to the pace at the beginning. What you are trying to do is to absorb all the moves so that later you can make them better. Not to make the right moves at the beginning. Going through the steps of your choreography slowly is a way to remember them quickly.

You might find the similarity between this and reading. If you read slowly, you tend to remember both the words and idea. But if you read quickly, you remember the idea but not the words.

6. Be opened to more styles

Don’t be reserved and think that you have known enough. Dancing is just like learning a new language. The more you expose to new vocabularies, the easier it is to memorize them. There are a lot of dancing styles out there. Getting used to all those styles can help you to learn faster and don’t get lost in the moves.

It is important to expand your choreography “vocabulary.” It is always an overwhelming feeling when we start learning a language. But after time, you’ll get used to it. Start with simple choreography steps and build up your vocabulary.

7. Repetition

To move those steps from your short term memory to your long term one, you need to repeat them enough. For instance, if you learn those moves in the morning, try practicing them later on during the days. Repetition helps you to memorize things.

Before going to bed, picture yourself dancing in your head before falling into sleep.

Repeat the moves after the lesson immediately. Take a short break and repeat them a few more times.

Repeat the moves the next days and even in the next weeks. Getting used to the things will make even the most complex moves familiar.

8. Take it personal

Don’t rely on your coach or your mates to memorize the moves. They won’t be able to help you in the competitions or on the stage. No one is going to be there and count for you to dance. So take it personally and spend some time dancing without any music or help from others.

Lastly, keep in mind that the more you try, the easier it gets. People can do impossible things not because they are good at in the first place, it because they are not stopping. Don’t be afraid of choreography, step up and take control of your body.

From or Source: myunistles.com