So you put in the time to take lessons and practice but how do you really know if you are getting better? We’ve all experienced that time when we think we did something right, only to hear from our teacher that it’s still not quite there. See it’s really hard to know how something REALLY looks… So in today’s podcast I reveal one way you can finally get instant feedback!
[Transcript]
Hello. My name is Leon from Passion4Dancing.com and today I have another video podcast for you.
So today I wanted to talk to you about how you can get instant feedback on your dancing. I mean how do you know if you’re actually improving? Well, there is a simple way. You just videotape yourself.
That’s right. All you need to do is videotape your practice. Yes. So just put a video somewhere on the side. You can tape your lesson or tape yourself practicing solo. You can tape your lesson if your teacher is OK with it. I think most teachers are. They want you to improve. So why wouldn’t they let you tape their lesson?
That way you’re going to get instant feedback as to how you look on the outside, because we all know that sometimes something feels one way but it looks completely different. So you want things to look the right way and in order to see if it is, you need to kind of have some feedback. So that’s going to give you instant way to know how you look on the outside and to know if you’re doing it correctly or not.
So two ways you can use it is to see if your technique is improving. So for example, let’s say you’ve been working on brushing the feet in the cha-cha and you want to see if you’re actually doing it or not. You can put the video recorder or your phone, whatever records video, and dance your piece in cha-cha and then have a look. Are your legs actually brushing together or not? That way you will be able to improve.
Same thing for posture. Posture is something that a lot of people struggle with because they think they’re standing up straight. But as soon as they start dancing, they start collapsing their neck and shoulders. So this is another one of those things that you want to see on the outside how it looks and that’s going to improve you much faster if you go that route.
Now that’s improving the technique. On the other side, it can also help you with seeing how your choreography looks on the outside. I use this a lot for myself. Let’s say I do achoreography either for a student or for myself or a showpiece and it can feel great. But sometimes I don’t really know what it really looks like until I see it from the outside.
So, I videotape myself and I see if I really do like it or not. So it really does help when you’re coming up with new choreography or you want to see what your choreography looks like from the outside. Yes?
So I hope this is useful to you. Let me know if you already videotape yourself. Please let us know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. What kind of feedback does it give you? Did it improve your dancing?
[End of transcript]Related:
Why we teach American style on Passion4dancing
Essential dance elements
Do you dance enough
Leave a comment below and let us know if you ever video taped yourself? Did it help?
Karen Sykes says
I often video my lessons. I see errors I could have sworn I didn’t do, because in my mind I was sure I was doing it correctly! For example, I would tip my head during underarm turn, looked like I was ducking instead of holding head up. I make a list of one or two main errors for each dance to share with my instructor at next lesson. We make sure I know correct way. Then I can focus on that move, making sure I do it right, and he can watch for that move in mirrors to affirm/correct. I want to do my best and video really helps!