We’ve all been there. You get home exhausted from dancing for four hours at a belly dance workshop with some outrageously talented belly dance artist and you cannot remember a bit of what you just learned. Sure, it was worth it to just soak in the presence of a belly dance master for a few hours, get a good workout, and network with your belly dance friends. But how can you make that time and money spent in a workshop with a master teacher benefit you in the long run? Here’s a few tips for getting the most out of your belly dance workshops:
1) Take Notes- Bring a belly dance notebook where you can take notes at all of the bellydance workshops that you attend. Take quick breaks throughout your workshop to take notes on what you’re learning (even if everyone else is still dancing!). Try to write down as much you remember during your water and lunch breaks. You will have these notes to refer to years down the road and they will jog your memory to what you learned that day.
2) Ask Questions- Most instructors appreciate students who are engaged with the material and ask questions. If you don’t understand how to do a particular move or didn’t quite get a transition during a combination, ask your instructor! If the instructor does not have enough time to fully answer your questions, he or she may be able to help you after the workshop. Especially if your workshop teacher is an expert in a particular style, don’t be shy to ask questions and learn as much as you can from them in the little time you have together.
3) Film with Permission- Many instructors will permit their students to film the choreography that they are teaching at the end of a workshop if they promise not to post it on the internet. Ask your workshop instructor for permission to film beforehand and respect their wishes. I think it is most helpful to film the choreography from behind so that it is easy to follow at home. Having a video of what you learned at a workshop is the ultimate tool for mastering the material down the road.
4) Buy Your Instructor’s Music- Some of the best belly dance CDs I have are ones that I purchased from a workshop instructor. Not only do workshop instructors tend to have good taste in music, but it is critical for you to get the music that the instructor used if they taught a choreography. Try to purchase the music from your instructor if you can afford it because it helps your instructor to make a living. If you can’t afford to purchase the music right there and then, make sure you find out the name of the song your instructor used so that you can download it later.
5) Practice at Home ASAP- It is most effective to practice what you learned at home as soon as possible while it is still fresh in your muscle memory. Even if you aren’t able to return to the workshop material for awhile, if you have the workshop material filmed, you’ve got it made! The ideal way to retain what you learned in a workshop, especially if it was a choreography workshop, is to break down what you filmed into bite-size chunks. My strategy is to analyze a combination from the choreography that I filmed and then write it down in my notebook in my own words. Through the process of writing it down, I’m figuring it out in my own body to make sure I understand the technique and transitions. This also helps me see nuances in the instructor’s movement that I didn’t catch the first time.
I go combination by combination, analyzing the instructor’s movement, writing it down, practicing the combination alone, then practicing the choreography from the beginning. It may seem like a painstaking process, but I find it to be a satisfying and effective way to completely saturate myself in what I learned.
6) Perform What You Learned- Once you have fully analyzed the choreography you learned at a workshop, you are two steps away from being able to perform it! The next step is to drill any technique or transitions that were challenging to you from the choreography. Don’t shortcut this step or your performance will look sloppy and unpolished.
Then, start rehearsing the choreography over and over for weeks and weeks until your technique and transitions are clean and the choreography flows automatically without thinking. Now you’re ready to perform what you learned! Be sure to credit the original choreographer if you perform the piece in a show. If you learned movements and combinations at a workshop, find ways to integrate what you learned into your own dancing and choreography for performance.
7) Review- Why abandon what you learned after you worked so hard to get it just right? Run through any choreography, combinations and movements that you learned from a workshop at your home practice sessions. Keep it alive in your muscle memory and continue to improve on what you learned during practice and in performance.
By following these tips for getting the most out of your bellydance workshops, I hope that you will be able to retain more of what you learn at workshops so that your skill and enjoyment of bellydance will grow! Let me know how your next workshop goes!
www.adrianedance.com
Adriane and Mychelle's Workshop April 2010
