We’ve all heard the adage, “Play to your strengths.” We understand that there are some things we do exceptionally well and it makes sense to work in a way that leverages those advantages. Yet, when it comes to practice, we tend to ignore our strengths and instead focus on our weaknesses. There’s nothing wrong with… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Practice Theory
Fail Better
In a novella by Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett, one of the characters shares a thought on failure: Try again. Fail again. Fail better. When we practice, it is tempting to see failure as, well, a failure. But, truly exceptional performers know that failure is an essential part of the learning process. If you aren’t… Continue Reading
Until You Can’t Do It Wrong
Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, maintained that even the average golfer is readily able to shoot in the 70s if they are willing to work on some basic principles. The only catch was that they have to be willing to work on those principles until they were consistent. He wrote,… Continue Reading
The Cycle of Mastery
Learning a complicated ability like dancing west coast swing is not a linear process. Your learning will go through a cycle of mastery, in which you learn a concept and then repeatedly come back to it in different and more advanced ways. To take an example, let’s say that you learn about the concept of… Continue Reading
Getting More Out of Group Classes
Many dancers stop taking group classes after they have been dancing for a while. They may be taking private lessons and think that they won’t benefit from group classes. Followers may feel like group classes don’t have much to offer them; patterns are usually the focus, so leaders tend to get more out of group… Continue Reading
The Best Time to Start
Dance is a challenging activity. There will always be someone who has started learning at a younger age, or someone who learned the basics of the dance quicker, or someone who went to more events and hence improved more than you. For those times when you feel discouraged because you can’t make up that time,… Continue Reading
New Year’s Resolutions
As the new year approaches, many people make resolutions to change something about their life. Whether your resolution is to dance more or lose weight, there are some simple criteria that can help you set and keep your resolution. Make your resolution specific. “Eat better” or “practice more” are very generic, and generic resolutions make… Continue Reading
Back to Basics
It is no accident that expert performers spend hours practicing the fundamentals of their craft. Every day, NBA players shoot free throws, instrumentalists play their scales, and MLB players take batting practice. Science provides an explanation for why experts continue to drill their basics, and why dancers should as well. Because the brain continually adapts… Continue Reading
Learning by Overcorrection
Most skills require balancing between two extremes. A proper anchor involves keeping your unit foot behind the other foot without placing the unit foot way behind your body, body rolls require some movement but look sloppy if they are too big, and so forth. In these examples, you are trying to hit a fairly narrow… Continue Reading
Learning the Opposite Role
Anyone who is serious about learning to dance should learn both roles for the dance. You don’t have to become an expert in both roles. But, experiencing the dance from the opposite perspective teaches you how lots of little details—from hand position and distance to prep timing and settling weight transfers—can dramatically affect how pleasant… Continue Reading