Creating a freestyle routine/Remembering moves on the dance floor

[tavy]

Hi

I am an Improver/Intermediate dancer wanting to compete this year Sept 2008.

I've done lots of dancing before and competed once. With 3 months out to competition, I am trying my hardest to remember moves.

I write them down, step by step, including all the signals. Renaming moves to try and make it easy to remember them.

Trouble is, everytime I get on the dance floor, no matter what I am doing, I can not remember the moves and I do the same 8-10 moves over and over again. It gets a little boring, especially when I am putting all this time and effort into remembering a long list of moves.

How do you remember moves on the dance floor? Teachers have told me, even if you have the same 4 basic moves in your mind, so when you can remember, just go back to those four moves.

But when you have a list of at present 40 moves, and you go blank, it is rather frustrating.

Any tips on how to remember the moves on the floor?

Really appreciate your help.

Tavy

[drathzel]

My big piece of advice is to take you fave 4-5 beginners moves and learn some nice variations.

For example. I often find when dancing with someone I slip back to doing the "first Move" without realising it. So with that in mind i took the time to learn some first move variations so that if i could feel myself first moving i could change the end or the middle.

[Lory]

Take a look at this thread, I think it answers some of your questions

Stringing moves together, help!

[dave the scaffolder]

Baby you is trying toooo hard relax , smile, enjoy it and slow down.

You is on a journey of dancing, do not rush the journey, but savour every step and do not stress yourself out over it.

DTS XXX XXX

[ducasi]

How long have you been dancing Ceroc tavy?

For competitions you do need some flashy moves, but between them simple musical dancing is what is important – at least at Intermediate level.

My advice is to work on maybe half a dozen flashy moves with your partner, and then just work in using at least one or two of them every time you dance together.

Also spend plenty of time making sure your other moves flow well, and that your dancing fits the music.

September is a long way away, you've got plenty of time to get some special moves together.

[tavy]

some good replies thanks. Lots of info on that Stringing together thread.

2 and a bit years Ceroc off and on. Very much on now.

I used to Rock and Roll and compete for about 3 years. Thing with Rock and Roll was, doing competition you could write your routine down on a white board at practice time.

[Andy McGregor]

There is a big difference between freestyle dancing and competition dancing. In freestyle dancing you are dancing for the pleasure of you and your partner - it's about how it feels. In competition you are dancing for the judges - it's about how it looks. Two very different dances.

For the competition dancing I advise you not to have a routine. If the judges think you are dancing a routine and not leading it they will mark you down. My advice, if you must have routines, is to have some mini routines of 3-5 moves and work with your partner on getting them slick and flashy. It is much easier to remember your routines in small blocks rather than trying to remember enough to fill a track. Also, the routine will not fit the music if it's a long routine.

The next competition after September is Britrock in October. For this competition the judges sit at a judging table. This means your moves need to be aimed at the same place. You need to practice this if you don't want to finish a drop in a dramatic pose and find that you both have your back to the judges table.

[Martin]

Originally Posted by Andy McGregor

My advice, if you must have routines, is to have some mini routines of 3-5 moves and work with your partner on getting them slick and flashy. It is much easier to remember your routines in small blocks rather than trying to remember enough to fill a track.

It is all very well banging on about musiality etc. BUT you do need some moves to remember.

If you lump them in groups of 4 - i.e. when I start with a yoyo, I will do these next 3 moves - then you remember more. Then practice these a lot, in sets of 4.

If you have 40 moves, this then means you only need to remember 10, the rest follows.

Of course, this is just for the memory, the times when you go blank. Other factors being;

1/ Be prepared to change temo or the next planned move at any time

2/ play with the moves

3/ if the judges are all in one place - try to "display to the front"

4/ have lots of fun

In the fact that you want to give it a go.

[johnnyman]

One thing that has been pretty useful as a reference is to dance most of the time freestyle with the moves that you know, but from time to time throw in a hand-change and a technique you want to develop i.e footwork, spinning or interpretation. I look on this as 75% freestyle and 25% experimentation.

Sometimes even observing the more advanced couples can trigger a memory of a move you did in a class some months back.

best
johnnyman

[MartinHarper]

So is it important in a competition to never repeat a move?

[Steven666]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

So is it important in a competition to never repeat a move?

Are the judges going to watch only you when their are several couples on the floor? They may not notice the odd duplication.

Otherwise I don't think you should. But I ain't into competitions in the slightest so what do I know!

[David Franklin]

Originally Posted by MartinHarper

So is it important in a competition to never repeat a move?

Disclaimer: this is what would matter if I were judging - the judges may well see it differently.

If you're talking about "normal" moves, then I don't think it matters (and I suspect you'd struggle to find a couple who don't do several travelling returns during a comp!). I've certainly never noticed a couple(*) and thought "they're repeating moves, OMG!".

If you're talking about "flash" moves, then I find they lose a lot of impact if you repeat them too often. It's surprising how quickly it goes from "Wow, how did they do that?" to "Ho hum, it's the quadruple spin into a somersault death-dive again".

But the worst sin is repeating a sequence of moves, because it becomes very obvious you're dancing a routine and not freestyling. I often notice couples doing this in comps and it grates on me (though I must say they often seem to do quite well nevertheless).

(*) Discounting the rare occasion when you get a couple completely out of their depth who only seem to do about 5 moves the whole round, but I don't think that's the kind of repetition you hand in mind.

[Gadget]

My approach would be to find a couple of moves that looked impressive (How many heats are there likely to be if you placed?* Four? Make it four moves.) and then work out ways into and out of them from all the basic moves.

When dancing I would probably look to the music and try and fit these moves into dramatic points within it. In-between I would just be trying to work out my orientation on the dance floor and fill in the bits between these moves using my 'normal' social dancing... or an 'expanded' version to give more presence on the dance floor. I would rotate the four moves during the competition; once I'd used one, start thinking on the next one and then repeat. (Unless I thought one would be particularly apt at the time.)

But it's academic - I only dance socially; competitions are the root of all evil and lead to insular dancing and exclusivity which is contrary to the MJ ethos.

(* thinking you'll do poorly is often a self-fulfilling prophecy)