We've all heard the saying, "Practice makes perfect".
It's not true.
Well, it's sort of true.
What practice achieves is creating a "muscle memory". It's not really the muscles remembering anything, it's more that your brain and nervous system learn to remember the sequence of nerve twitches that power the right muscles to make that particular move (or combination of moves). The more you do a move, the more the nervous system learns that "neural pathway", so that in the end, the nervous system doesn't need much conscious brain input, it remembers the sequence well enough that you can go straight into it.
Repetition means you are creating those neural pathways, so that the brain can delegate decision-making to the lower nervous system. That's why it's hard to learn a new variation on a move you already know. Your brain, for the sake of efficiency, wants to leave everything to the nervous system. The nervous system defaults to the old move, because that's what it has learned. You have to make a strong conscious effort to make the changes for the new variation, so that the brain overrides the default.
But back to Practising...
You can see that if you aren't working a move correctly, all the repetition in the world isn't going to make you better at that move. All you are doing is learning the move wrong - when you have to relearn it, it's going to require more conscious effort to overcome the default that's been wrongly set up, and more repetition to set the correct move.
The saying really should be: Practice Makes Permanent.
So when you're practising, you do need to be sure you're reproducing the moves the right way, so that you set the correct neural pathway.
- Try to remember the suggestions I make in class, about foot positioning, about where your weight should be, where the move starts, where the energy for it comes from, how it flows...
- Use the practice videos to help you remember what you're doing.
- When you're trying to practise something new, work slowly. Give yourself time to think about what you're doing. Fast moves may feel satisfying, but they often lead to the nervous system using its established shortcuts, rather than learning a new set of neural pathways.
- You can always ask me in class for more feedback, or to check what you're doing.
Finally, don't worry! I'm not expecting Perfection. If I give you feedback or corrections, I hope they make the technique easier for you, or make the moves look better on you. I want to give you the chance to dance, and enjoy moving to lovely music, in a way that will work well for you. But it's always your dance.
