The Art of Learning

About This Post

The following are notes Kathy Warwick and I created in preparation for the "Art of Learning" class we taught at BluesSHOUT 2011. This more of a rough draft of a presentation than an essay, but I wanted to share it anyway since I know I'll never get around to polishing this.

Introduction

I’ve been in the dance scene for 11 years now and teaching for maybe 8 of those years. During that time I’ve seen many students learn at different rates. I have a strong belief that most people can learn faster than they do if they learn how to learn. From our class description:

Achieving the same level of excellence as our role models can be an elusive journey. We see the end product of the artist we admire, but the process the artist uses seems hidden from us. We want to create beautiful movement, intriguing texture, fluid partnerships, musical moments and personality in our dancing, but there seems to be a missing link. It takes more than taking classes, attending workshops and dancing until 4am. We believe in the idea that excellence is achieved through hard work rather than innate talent. We believe almost anyone can achieve excellence if they develop the desire and knowledge of how to learn. In this class Shawn and Kathy will give guidance on transforming how you learn so you can achieve the level of excellence you desire.

Desire for Achieving Excellence and Belief That it’s Possible

Presumably people are attending this lecture because they have a desire to achieve some degree of excellence, but that’s a prerequisite to achieving excellence. It takes a lot of work so you have to have the desire. I think the bigger issue is believing that you can achieve excellence. This leads into the next section:

Hours = Excellence (approximately)

Know that you can achieve excellence by working hard rather than requiring talent. The following article is an interesting read: (http://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert/ar/1)

Quotes I want to pull out are:

research indicating that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine

And:

So what does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly from Bloom’s work: All the superb performers he investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years.

Let’s examine those things:

• Practiced Intensively - Malcom Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours. 
• Studied with devoted teachers - Zone of proximal development to be discussed later. 
• Been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years - This one is interesting. Most of us working on social dance are doing so after we’re in or out of college. Our families have less influence on us, but the dance community itself can provide encouragement. The more encouragement you get, the more you’re inspired you get and so creates an infinite loop. 

The article also mentions:

Later research building on Bloom’s pioneering study revealed that the amount and quality of practice were key factors in the level of expertise people achieved.

So, lots of practice is great, but the type of practicing matters. How to practice efficiently is the majority of this talk.

Zone of Proximal Development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

Someone once described the Zone of Proximal Development to me as the idea that, if you’re surrounded by experts, you excel much faster at learning. The surprising thing for me, at the time, was to hear that it was mostly the proximity that helped rather than hours of instruction. The idea is that people can be very self directed in learning but, without an expert nearby, they don’t learn efficiently. With an expert nearby, anytime the learner has a question, they can have it answered in a short amount of time.

I talked a little with Joe Demers about this. He's actually a trained school teacher so he's studied more about the zone of proximal development than I have. If I understood correctly, he was describing the zone of proximal development as the zone in which you don't need help to learn. "Scaffolding" is the process by which you can be pushed to learn faster with help from experts.

My dad was a professional trumpet player which put me in the zone of proximal development for learning how to play the trumpet. I improved the most as a software developer after I started working, when I was surrounded by good software developers. Being around Amanda has been good for my development as a blues dancer. :) Having instructors like Julie Brown and Josh and Devona move to Boston has been helpful as well.

So, what does this mean for us as blues dancers if we didn’t grow up with blues dancing parents? You want to surround yourself by experts as well as peers also working on their dancing. How can you do this? Travel for workshops and take private lessons to get to know teachers. Take classes and private lessons from your local teachers. The harder you work the more teachers will be interested in helping you. There’s the other element which is getting along with your peers. Try to fit into the community so that your peers are inspired to work with you and help you. Make friends with the advanced dancers by working hard as a dancer.

Some dancers who consider themselves intermediate are disappointed that they are not entrenched in the circles of advanced dancers and teachers. I think there is an illusion that there is a magic way to break into those circles. The solution is simple (but not easy). Advanced dancers are advanced because they worked really really hard. Most advanced dancers respect and want to be around other dancers that work really really hard.

When I started dancing, there was definitely a crowd of advanced dancers that seemed to have an impenetrable social circle. Instead of being bitter that I couldn’t break in, I was attracted to the beauty of the dance, studied from some of those people, made my own friends, worked with my peers, and the advanced dancers eventually started seeking me out without me pushing it. (Two years after I started dancing). Of course, this was Boston back in 2000, a scene with hundreds of dancers. It might be easier to be noticed as a hard worker in a smaller scene.

Prioritizing the Arts (A willingness to spend time and money)
This might sound funny, but a willingness to spend money is important. Put another way, you need to prioritize the pursuit of art to achieve excellence in an art form. My parents were musicians so considered spending money on self improvement in the arts as a very good thing. If you think about the meaning of life partially being about beauty, it might make you more willing to spend money. Money can get you private lessons (zone of proximal development), classes, workshops, etc...

Of course, money just represents value so, if you don’t have money, you can try trading value you create (trading skills you have) for private lessons. It’s just that money is the most flexible way to reward someone since they can use it for anything.

Self Awareness

One of the things I most often see holding people back is a fear of getting feedback. Fear manifests itself as either not showing up for classes, not taking privates, or being very defensive when a teacher tries to change something about their dancing. Some people want to be great but are mortally afraid of being told their weaknesses. These people often have trouble learning.

The people who accelerate the quickest, are those who actively seek out accurate appraisal of their weaknesses. Something I like to tell my students is something my trumpet teacher (Barbra Butler) at Eastman school of music told me. I think I was discouraged about something she told me I wasn’t doing right and she said something like, “Whenever you discover you’re doing something wrong, you should be excited because now you’re aware of what you need to fix.” In my own learning, i’m often disappointed to discover people might consider I’m not as good as person X at subject Y. This still happens to me and can be harder for me to hear now since I teach nationally. But, if I can accept it as true, then I can tackle it and become better through the process.

Remember to listen to other people and examine what they say rather than dismissing. Take everything everyone says openly. In a class setting, try to hear everything the teacher says and see if you can apply it to yourself. In a private lesson setting, don’t spend time trying to explain why you do what you do, try to understand what the teacher is saying and figure out how to do it.

You can ask other people to reveal what you need to work on, but you should also be introspective and do what you can to find your own areas that need improvement. Video taping is good.

It’s also good to make sure you know your strengths. If you’re too self critical you won’t take advantage of your strengths. As Julie Brown said, know where you are but know that you can change.

Unfortunately, you don’t know what you don’t know. This is related to the idea that you should be excited when you discover you’re bad at something. It can be daunting at first when you discover an entire dimension of the dance that you’re missing. But again, these can be moments after which there’s a great acceleration in your improvement.

Self awareness can only hurt if you’ve been lacking self awareness for a long time. If you’re in the scene for a long time and never ask your partners or teachers what you feel or look like and never video tape yourself, your self perception will be severely lacking and when you finally ask the truth can hurt. If you’re constantly asking for feedback, you’ll have a good idea of where you are and can enjoy moments when you improve.

Julie Brown also mentioned something a while back that’s changed what I tell students. I used to tell students to practice outside of social dancing and when out social dancing, just try to have fun. This is mostly good advice, but Julie pointed out something that I do myself that I didn’t realize. Like Julie, while social dancing, I usually have a piece of my consciousness focusing on one or two things I’ve been working on in my dancing. Sometimes it’s a new move that I try to use once per dance. Other times it’s something about my basic that I want to fix. Sometimes it’s a new concept I want to integrate. Instead of making social dancing less fun, it makes me more focused without inhibiting my fun.

Julie says: When you talk about this, try to emphasize that it’s only part of my/your/our consciousness that’s paying attention to those details. Part is totally free and goofy and intuitive, but part is also paying attention to things that we’re working on. People say to “let go” during the dance because you don’t want to be 100% in your head, and that’s good advice. You want to be present in the moment as well. You want to be like 10% in your head maybe. Or sometimes 10-20% and sometimes 0%? I think it depends.

One last thing, try to be patient. It takes time to excel. I’ve come to realize that I need to be patient in my various endeavours and that, if I’m disciplined over the long run, it will eventually pay off. 

How do you learn?

This is a subsection of self awareness. Teachers often learn about multiple intelligence and learn to target the multiple types of intelligence. Usually a good teacher will present material with words, visually, and kinesthetically.

Kathy wrote the following:

You are responsible for your own ability to process information.

What type of learner are you?
Learn by watching.
Learn by hearing.
Learn by doing/repetition.
Learn from concepts or comparison to other things... “When done right iit should feel like bla bla bla”
Learn only when under pressure.
Learn only when there is no stress.
Learn best in a one-on-one situation.
Learn best in a big group trying the move with lots of different partners.
Learn only when several things are in place... (ie: Hearing, seeing, and pressure to perform.)

Knowing your own unique learning style can help you focus your energies the right way while in and out of class. For example, if you know you learn best by seeing a move, don’t be chatting with the person who just rotated to you... watch the instructors, watch others who seem to be getting it. Hold yourself accountable for your learning style.

Shawn writes:

Understanding your current learning style is very valuable, but you can also work on developing aspects of your learning style that are lacking.

As a dancer it’s incredibly useful to develop your ability to learn visually (by watching, trying, watching, trying, trying some more, etc...) Developing this ability will allow you to rip off moves from videos as well as from people on the social dance floor. However, you have to develop your ability to learn by hearing as well. There are many aspects of dance that are invisible or deeper than what you see. The way a move feels is hard to convey visually. Sometimes the movement that’s created is a result of a dancer thinking or feeling something abstract. As an engineer I first found it to be unspecific when teachers talked about “energy shooting out of your fingertips”, or being “rooted to the floor”, or “blowing in the wind”, but I eventually realized it’s easier to dance when thinking metaphorically than it is to think of every muscle that needs to be involved in the equation.

Julie says: I like the point about learning to think metaphorically. I agree that that’s a good skill because it helps you tap into your intuitive (rather than logical) side, which can help you do something new & better without getting trapped in your head.

Levels of understanding.

Kathy writes the following:

You may need to hear something several times from several people before you actually “get it”. There are levels of “getting it”. A beginner’s understanding of pulse is quite different from an expert’s understanding.

Many times in my beginning (walk in) swing class a student will come up and say something like this. ”I know your entire class script. I’ve been bringing friends to the class for 6 months and this is the first time you ever said (insert random technique here). You should say that every time.” Well, I do say it every week, several times. The student just could not hear it because she was focused on some other aspect of the dance every time I said it. She was not ready to hear about the technique until 6 months into her education and well after she thought she was doing it right. It will take another 6 months for her to actually get proficient with the technique and utilize it in lots of moves. In fact she might never get it in my class. She may not fully understand it until she takes class from another instructor or dances in another city.

Shawn writes:

Another way to say this is, assume you will never perfect any aspect of anything. You can always learn new things about even the most basic components of the art. No move is ever learned completely.

Understanding the Instructor/Student roles.

Julie says: Another way to frame this section & the previous section would be: “How to get something out of every class you take, even the most basic”

Kathy wrote the following:

Understand each instructor has a style of instructing.
Sometimes that matches your style of learning sometimes it does not.
Teaching a concept or move, in several learning styles is a teacher skill. Some are more skilled at this than others. No instructor can be perfect for each student.
It is the student’s responsibility to get the most out of each class.
Instructors are there to present material in way that facilitates learning.
It is the student’s responsibility to do what he needs to do in order to absorb, process and learn.
Practice learning... go into a class and just watch. Pay attention to how you process the information. Pay attention to how the students process the information. How would you present the material, what questions do you have. What questions do you see that other students need to ask. People are afraid to ask questions even though they would learn so much faster if they did.

Shawn: Figure out the teacher and get what you can out of them rather than just dismissing them if you feel like you already know it or they’re teaching it poorly.

Practice What You’re Bad At
This is related to self awareness but deserves it’s own section. If you want to improve quickly, the most effective way to do this is to systematically practice things you’re bad at. It’s often tempting to practice the things you’re good at because that’s usually fun. It’s often hard to figure out how to practice things you’re bad at. Teachers can help you with that, but you can try to invent your own ways.

[Ogden] Perhaps go a step further and even learn to LOVE what you are bad at. A part of this is understanding why whatever it is you hate is important to your future goals. I can’t think of a dance-specific example of this for me, but I can provide a non-dance one that may help if you want more info.
Never Stop Learning

When I was hanging out with Jay Abiling (a Tango instructor at the San Diego Fusion Exchange in 2010), he was telling me that he got the change to speak with one of his Tango idols. (I forget his name). He said he asked him if there was any advice he could give him on the subject of teaching. Apparently he said something like:

Three things:

1. Always teach the music. (My interpretation is that dance that is connected to the music is infinitely better than dance that is disconnected and you should always teach elements of that in your classes) 
2. Only teach what you do. (My interpretation was that a lot of beginner teachers have a tendency to teach things their teachers have told them without understanding why rather than teaching what they themselves do. Or sometimes teach things they just learned but haven’t mastered. Both of those things are dangerous) 
3. Never stop learning. 

Why is this important? Some ideas: Art forms evolve and change; If you don’t evolve and change with them, you’ll be left behind. Also, I was surprised to watch a video of myself several years ago. I realized I did some things back then that were cool that I no longer do. It was painful to discover that if you don’t keep working, you can lose skills. Up to that point I just thought you were filling a plugged bathtub, now I know the bathtub has a leak.

I think the most important reason not to stop learning, though, is that it keeps you engaged and excited. It’s hard to remain excited doing the same thing over and over. Excitement keeps it fun for yourself, your partner and an audience. One of the most impressive thing to me about my favorite jazz musicians is how every note they play is played with conviction.

[Ogden} Teaching, in and of itself, is also a learning experience. Communicating what you do to someone else involves gaining a deeper understanding of how you do what you do. Many times, while working out how to teach something, I have realized that I don’t do it the way I initially think I do it.

Willingness to Fail

Some people are frozen by the fear of not being perfect. It’s better to try and fail than not try at all. Commit to performing before you feel ready. Start teaching before you think you’re ready. I learned a lot from one of the leaders of a band I was in. One of the lessons I took to heart was, “book the gig first, then figure out how to play it.” I had a tendency to strive for perfection before committing to a performance or trying something in public. The unfortunate reality is perfection is impossible. If you commit to a performance, teaching, a lecture (like this one) before you feel ready, you’ll get something done and, in the process, you will improve.

Never Turn Things Down

I’ve been told this by several great musicians. My father is a professional trumpet player in NYC and plays on Broadway as well as with orchestras like the New York City Ballet. He, among others said, if you want to be a musician, never turn a gig down. This relates to dance as well and it relates to being a student. If you want to be the best you can be, never turn things down. Don’t over think whether a gig pays enough or whether it’s too far. Just do it. Only start turning things down when you have better options.

Take as many classes, go to as many workshops, travel as much as possible, take teaching gigs even if you don’t think you’re ready, do performances before you think you’re ready. But be humble and work hard.

Unexpected Things That Can Help

Cross train

Kathy writes: (Eary 2000’s Hip Hop influenced swing was the thing. A bunch of middle age white people in hip hop class was funny enough but we did learn how to move in ways that helped our Lindy Hop)

Shawn writes:

Maybe everyone knows that cross training is useful but I think it can be surprising exactly how helpful it is.

I’ll repeat myself several times on this issue, but learning solo dancing is probably the most effective cross training you can do. When I examine who has achieved excellence in partner dancing I see trends. Most of the people I respect most have:

Studied solo dancing intensively (often before learning to partner dance)
Already excel at something else

This is not meant to be discouraging. I strongly believe it’s possible to excel at partner dancing without those two things, it will just take a lot more work. The first item requires time and effort because you have to learn solo dancing while learning partner dancing. The second item is more subtle. People often believe there is a lot of talent or intelligence behind those that excel and so if they don’t excel they are lacking in intelligence or talent. My goal in this talk is to downplay the genetic argument behind intelligence and talent and focus more on the following:

Believe things are possible if you keep at it.
Always focus on learning how to learn and you’ll learn faster and can apply those skills to any pursuit.

This may seem like it’s a little of a tangent from cross training, but it’s not really. Cross training is about learning something to be applied to blues dancing but it’s also about learning how to learn. The more you practice learning, the better at it you will be.
Go away and come back

Kathy writes: (I always improved after an injury that made me sit out for 1 to 6 months. I kept volunteering at dances and classes so I stayed in the game with my head. My body learned in the process.)

Dancing in a new scene. Moving. Traveling

I think Kathy wrote this.

Thinking

Julie Brown described the following fun exercise to me: For an entire day, every time you move, pretend you are dancing. When she moved her head, she would be aware of the movement. When she stopped to pick something up she would extend her arm to make a nice line. She said it was really hard but it helped her body awareness.

This story shows how much Julie thinks about dance which allows her to come up with creative ways to improve. If you are passive in your learning and wait for teachers to tell you how to improve, you’ll go slower than those that are more active and try to discover how to learn on their own as a supplement to everything else mentioned.

I quit music school because of an injury that made it impossible for me to play the trumpet for several years. When I started playing again I couldn’t practice very much but I wanted to improve as a jazz musician more quickly. I started doing a lot of mental practice. I would learn a line or a technique in one key on the trumpet then, while riding the T to work, I would practice all 12 keys in my head. Depending on how hard the technique was, I’d be able to play it in all 12 keys by the end of the day or months later without having to actually play it on the trumpet all that much. When I have to perform choreography, I run the piece in my head several times a day before the performance.

Enjoyment

I took a year off from work in order to study music and dance when I was 25 or so. During that time I started taking private lessons from a guy named Miles Donahue. I think I might have expressed my frustration at being so far from my goal of absolute awesomeness and he said something like, “Enjoy the process of learning because you will never achieve perfection.” Now that I’ve played with some really great musicians, I realize that no musician I’ve met has considered him or herself to be where he/she wants to be.

As a result, if you aspire to create the most beautiful art possible, know that you’ll never achieve the level you desire. It will always be out of your reach. So you have to make sure you continue to enjoy the process of learning and your current level as much as possible.

A quick Google search “life is about the journey” reveals:
"Life is a journey, not a destination."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Specific Blues Dance Things
So far we’ve talked a lot about general concepts, but we can talk through the list of things specifically related to Blues dancing. The following is a list of things that help you improve not necessarily in the order of importance.

Social Dancing

I put this first because I consider this the most important thing about Blues and Lindy Hop. They are indeed beautiful art forms but I think much of that beauty comes from the improvised partnership. You can spend a lot of time learning and practicing off the social dance floor, but there’s no substitute for “miles on the dance floor” as my friend Carlos Moreno says.

Ideas on how to use social dancing to improve:
Social dance a ton at camps and workshop weekends. I find a lot of my improvement comes when I’m super tired, my inhibitions are down and I’m willing to try new things. I’m not afraid to jump into the stupid pool.
Try to apply what you’re working on at social dances. Classes are worthless if you don’t try to apply them.

Local Classes

When taking classes, you will get out something proportional to what you put in. To get the most out of classes you can:

1. Take notes. Video notes or written. 
2. Listen to every detail the teachers say and really try to understand what they’re saying. 
3. Try everything the instructor says with your partner. 
4. Ask the instructor for help in class. 
5. Ask the instructor for help after class. 
6. Practice the material by yourself. (either solo dancing or visualizing) 
7. Practice the material with peers. 

The dangers of compensating for others. Kathy writes:

Compensating for a partner in class can help or hurt your learning curve.

If you truly understand the move/technique/movement, fine tuning your own technique in ways that help your partner “get it” helps you learn to be a better social dancer. Leaders be more clear in your lead and followers keep better balance, really wait for the lead, don’t ever assume or anticipate the move.

If your partner cannot do the move, do not “fix it”. Do not do it for him/her.

I was in Fox Trot Class and if the leader did not lead, I did not do the move. The leaders got very frustrated with me, complaining that I was not skilled enough to be in the class. (The other ladies were simply doing the memorized footwork pattern and basically the leader just hinted at the pattern and the ladies would just do it.) The instructor had to explain that “Kathy follows. If you do not lead she will not do the move.” Some of them got it, some did not. But those who did, all of a sudden, could lead the move and the movement properly. The ladies all started smiling when they rotated to the leaders who would actually lead the move.

Private lessons

In my opinion this is one of the most important aspects of learning to social dance. Unless an instructor dances with you, it will be hard for them to truly asses the subtle connection issues you may have. In addition, good private lessons are focused on diagnosing and figuring out how to improve the elements of your dancing that can use the most improvement to achieve the goals you desire.

Take private lessons from many different instructors to see the broad range of approaches. Take lessons from someone in the opposite role so they can most accurately diagnose your connection issues. Ideally take a lesson from a teaching pair so that you get both the expert lead and follow’s perspective.

Have ideas on what you want to work on but be open to working on whatever the instructor thinks you need the most work on.


Workshops

The same thing I wrote for classes applies here:

1. Take notes. Video notes or written. 
2. Listen to every detail the teachers say and really try to understand what they’re saying. 
3. Try everything the instructor says with your partner. 
4. Ask the instructor for help in class. 
5. Ask the instructor for help after class. 
6. Practice the material by yourself. (either solo dancing or visualizing) 
7. Practice the material with peers. 

Practice Solo Blues

A repeated theme of this document is the importance of solo dancing. The ability to move your own body is a prerequisite to partner dancing. Advanced leading involves your entire body. Advanced following involves your entire body. Dancing to the music requires solo dance ability. etc...

Peer practice groups

Peer practice groups can be hard to organize but, when they happen, they can be amazing. It takes time and energy and sometimes money to organize regular practices, but they can be cheap and effective. Things to do in a peer practice group:

1. Work on choreographies.
2. Present material you learned at workshops so that you can refine it yourself while teaching it to others
3. Ask for freedback for material you learned in classes.
4. Try fun exercises.  As an example: one couple dances while everyone watches.  Anyone can say stop when they say something cool or something that has the potential to be cool.  People can work together to figure out how to make it cooler or reproduce it.

Learning the Music
Dancing is so much more enjoyable when it’s equally connected to the music as it is your partner. It’s more enjoyable for you, your partner, and an audience if they’re watching.

1. Listen to the music we dance to.
2. Learning the musical genres
3. Learning the roles of musical instruments
4. learn to play an instrument or sing

Julie says: Any time you spend with music is time well-spent (for dancers & DJs). Even just listening to blues music you like, or asking a DJ what a song was, just to get it and listen to it. This is kind of like zone of proximal development: If you’re around the music a lot (and pay attention to it), you will be more musical.

Discuss dance and how to learn dance with others

Watch videos

The more you see, the more you realize what’s possible. Try to see the subtlety in what others are doing.

Cross train solo

Again, solo dancing is one of the most effective ways to be a better partner dancer. Observe that almost all great follows have extensive solo dance backgrounds. Again, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be great without having learned solo dance before partner dance, it just means you have to learn solo dance while learning partner dance.

Just learning solo blues is useful, but learning more diverse/challenging solo dance forms can accelerate your ability to learn solo blues

• ballet - Incredibly good for balance and lines. 
• jazz 
• hip hop 
• tap - Great for rhyhm. 
• modern 
• martial arts - If you already have a martial arts background and approached it as something you wanted to make visually awesome, realize that it’s very related to dance and try to draw from that. 
• sports - Like martial arts, the ability to use your body to accomplish something is related between sports and dance. 
• any movement related thing - Generalize the skill of being able to control your body to accomplish something. 

Cross train partnered

Learning new dances can be fun but can also be incredibly useful. Learning multiple ways to approach similar things can make everything easier.

• Lindy Hop - Incredibly useful for understanding momentum and open position moves. 
• Tango - Useful for exploring the space of complex close position partnering. 
• Balboa - Surprisingly useful for blues dancers. There are a lot of interesting balboa moves that transition between close embrace, open, and back again. 
• Every other dance imagineable 

[Ogden] Cross train with non-dance physical skills. Anything that increases your body knowledge and body awareness will help you with your dancing.

I would also add that training, like in a gym, can also be a huge benefit. People, particularly people for whom dance is the first truly physical activity that they have tried to master, may find a physical limit ot their dance ability. They may not be strong enough, agile enough, or have the stamina for certain parts of the dance. If they truly want to master that area of the dance, they may have to step outside of dance altogether to address that roadblock.

Competitions
Competing can be very different than social dancing. Competitions require good connection but also require very good awareness of how your dancing comes across visually. If you care about the visual aspects of dancing, competing can give you feedback on how your dancing comes across visually.

I used to think it was rude to ask judges why they placed you the way they did. Most judges are happy to discuss it. If you want to do well in competitions, ask judges why they placed you the way they did and you can get a very focused understanding of what you need to improve in order to place better.

Find a Partner (or multiple partners)

This was not covered in the lecture, but it occurred to me recently this can be a big help. Finding someone, or multiple people, to work with on a regular basis can be incredibly helpful as it means getting feedback on a more regular basis. I've had many partners over time. You have to be willing to receive feedback from your partner and ask for it often. Multiple partners can be good as you get different perspectives. With a partner you can work on choreography, teach, talk about teaching, and practice.

Learning solo choreography
Learning partnered choreo
Joining Performance Groups
Choreographing
Teaching privates
Teaching classes
Video Taping Yourself
Learning Both Roles
Dance SlowDance Fast

Watch comps and try to guess placement and observe things you like

Watch So You Think You Can Dance
Copy lots of people

(don’t copy one or you will be them) and don’t worry about being too similar.

Artist StoriesSkye Humphries
http://jsalmonte.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/q-a-with-skye-humphries-pt-1/

Jerry Almonte - Skye Humphries

TODO: To fit in somewhere
Learn from everyone but learn from the best. Learn from the best but don’t forget to learn from everybody (more advanced, peers, less advanced)

Where does developing good taste come in?

Julie’s idea of learning from classes in which you’re more advanced than other people

Include ideas from discussion with Rif. Maybe be careful not promise the guaranteed posibility of excellence.

Possibly include Rif’s article: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-performance-secrets.html

Rif's thought experiment: "imagine that you start practicing really hard, and get a lot better, but so do 5,000 other people in the scene, so you're no more likely to win competitions. Are you happier than you were before?" This is a good one. The point is to make you aware if you're interested in the journey or the goal. It's healthier to be interested in the journey.

The Lecture
The following is the order in which we presented the material in the lecture.

• Belief 
• Desire 
• Priorities 
• No fear 
• People 
• Self Awareness 

Discussion

There were many interesting discussions during the lecture class. I'll try to capture some of them here.

One person mentioned that the lecture makes a strong promise that anyone can achieve greatness. I admitted that I'm not a psychologist and can't say where true limits are in individuals. I can't promise greatness to everyone but I can almost promise that with time and effort, people will improve at least a little bit. I also mentioned that my own strategy is to act like I have no real limits and I often find that meets with success. Damon mentioned a Lindy Hopper who got really good even though he was in a wheel chair. I know of a few good deaf Lindy Hoppers as well.

In regards to my comment that you should do things before you feel ready, someone brought up the fact that she tried to teach and the local organizers told her she shouldn't be teaching because she was not yet experienced enough. Kathy suggested they ignore that. Damon mentioned she should have tried to figure out why the organizers were doing this. This lead to a discussion about always trying to receive feedback. I tried to summarize by saying that this is an example of the relevance of self awareness and "no fear". I suggested she could have tried to talk to the organizers and teachers to determine why they were shutting her out. This could have lead to an understanding of what they would want to see her do differently.

Related to this was a conversation about politics. Once you get into organizing or teaching, you invariably run into politics. There are usually multiple organizers and teachers who have different goals and are often competing for the same students and dancers. I mentioned my goal, when interacting with other organizers and teachers, which is to communicate as much as time allows and to try to understand where they're coming from.

There was also a discussion about getting support from your family. One person mentioned their family used to see their interest in dance as silly or a waste of time and they eventually came around to understand and support it. Another person mentioned her parents might never understand and you have to accept that as OK and get support from your peers instead.

Let me know if you were in the class and remember other conversations. There were a lot of good ones.