Practice is an essential tool for anything you do in life that you would like to improve. Not only does practice have a direct effect on the level of your dance technique and knowledge, it will help you become a better dancer and and overall student. It will also help you become responsible to the rest of the dance students in which you perform with.
Practicing will…
1) Increase your flexibility, agility, strength, and fitness.
2) Improve your dance technique in speed, accuracy, and difficulty level.
3) Strengthen the muscles you need to jump higher, leap farther, spin faster, and support a partner.
4) Help you learn a new skill and refine skills you already have.
5) Help you discover what you’re doing wrong and unlearn incorrect habits.
Practice tips
1) Visualize a move or dance phrase in your head before you attempt moving. Visualizing any movement with correct form will help you focus and improve your performance.
2) Watch yourself dance. Whether it’s in front of a mirror or a recorded performance, self observation from an audience perspective will allow you to identify areas in your technique, choreography, and performance that need improvement.
3) Use what you already know to create new choreography. Whether you use dance vocabulary you acquired from past experiences or a new dance phrase you just learned last class, practice dance steps you already know and then work ahead by changing the order to create new choreography.
4) Always work on your flexibility everyday! Stretch in the morning to help wake yourself up. Play soothing music while you stretch before you go to sleep to help your have a more relaxing sleep. Try stretching right after a hot shower or soak in the tub. This will allow your muscles to relax and stretch further without injury.
5) Find a quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of life. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing and let yourself drift away in meditation. Even 10 minutes can help you focus better before you dance!
6) Warm up your body! Prevent injury by warming up your body before you start dancing through a series of stretches, rotations, or low impact cardio moves.
7) Work on areas of dance you need to work on first and then work on areas you are already good at. Typically, dancers work on technique and flexibility before working on dance choreography. Start slowly and then gradually increase the speed of dance sequences you are having difficulty with.
8) Once you have achieved your dance goals, don’t stop practicing. Just like anything else in life, you must practice to maintain these goals.