7 Valuable Tips to Help You Really Learn Faster

Learning to dance takes time. During your lessons some things will come easily and other will make you feel like a klutz. Here are 7 tips to help you become a better dancer faster:

1. Focus: Staying focused is difficult. Especially nowadays you have so many things coming at you non-stop from all different directions. Unfortunately,multi-tasking is a myth; we are really switch-tasking which is very inefficient.
2. Start with the basics:  If you get the basics down first then the more difficult moves will be easier. For dance, coordination is the most important athletic skill. Coordination is firing the right muscle fibers at the right time for a physical task. Balance and stability are aspects of coordination.
3. Listen:  Listen to the music and move your body, start by tapping your foot. Listen to your instructor, while you watch their movements and you do them at the same time.
4. Feel: Try to feel what the movement feels like. The steps you are learning are just a means for you to learn what it feels like to MOVE. Learn what it feels like to change your weight from foot to foot. What do you feel when twisting and turning (besides pain and fear)? What does it feel like for the different parts of your body to work together in different ways. It is about dancing not just a bunch of moves.
5. How do you learn? We all learn differently. Watching, doing, listening, asking questions, figuring it out on your own are just some of the ways you might learn. Try as many different ways as you can and figure out which are the best for you.
6. Stop, Look and Learn: Visualize yourself doing the movement. You might need to take a break from trying to physically do it and just watch someone else for a moment. Then imagine yourself doing it.
7. Don’t Quit! No one is born a dancer. Dancing is a learned skill, just as none of us were walking on our first day here. Dance is fun and is about enjoying the moment. To become a good dancers, we want to learn to enjoy the process of learning to dance. You will always have more to learn, so you might as well enjoy the ride.

The key to learning is repetition. With frequent, regular practice you can learn quickly. For most of my students, this means stay consistent your lessons. With busy schedules, it can be difficult to find time outside of the studio to practice.