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learning to move freely with new moves.
I find myself learning new moves and patterns a lot, but then when it comes to free styling I end up back in the same patterns and sort of forget my new moves. What can I do to help this.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by RaveGamer on -
I have the same problems and I wish I could help but I can't....I can only sympathize with you and hope that someone can help the both of us. But at least your not alone =)
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Permalink Reply by birdo on -
RaveGamer said:I have the same problems and I wish I could help but I can't....I can only sympathize with you and hope that someone can help the both of us. But at least your not alone =)
Well i do feel better knowing i am not alone. I will watch other people and be blown away and then i watch myself and i feel the opposite. Oh well i guess that means more practice.
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Permalink Reply by Lulu on -
I think everyone suffers with the same problem. When I learn new moves I find it hard to fit it into a freestyle spin straight away, my mind just goes blank.
Nick Nomad has taught me all I know and the best thing he has every taught me is; when you learn a new move and feel comfortable with it, practice going from a move you know well into the new move, then back out, try and do this with a couple of moves you know well. I have found this stops my mental block when it comes to a freestyle spin because I have practiced getting into and out of the new move.
I hope this helps!
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Permalink Reply by Mr Joe on -
I find the best thing to do is consciously learn transitions to and from your new move. Stalls, wraps and plane-changes all help with this kind of thing. Also, it helps to make sure you can come into it from any move you already know as cleanly as possible.
This is a separate skill and needs to be practiced on its own. You can even go as far as writing all the moves you know down on bits of card and then draw them out of a hat in a sequence. Then go through that sequence of moves without going back to a 'holding pattern'. Freestyling is not so free as it seems, it needs practicing :P
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Permalink Reply by Rory Ellis on -
I definitely sympathise and agree with the suggestions above. Transitions have to be practiced as much if not more than the actual moves. Moves look great in pictures but to be able to string them together is what makes a great show. Once you have the moves down, visualize what you think would look good going in and coming out of it. Then practice, focusing on making your transistions smoothly. :)
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Permalink Reply by Alex on -
I found not only the practicing Into/out of moves from familiar ones helps, it can also teach you new moves. I found meltdowns are essential to learning BTB (at least for me) and so on. I found that a mirror really helps you learn to focus on clean transitions, it can be sort of a distraction at first but then teaches you to focus on the feeling and not the look of what your trying to do. its gotta feel good to look good.
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Permalink Reply by DyamiTK on -
birdo said:
...when it comes to free styling I end up back in the same patterns and sort of forget my new moves. What can I do to help this?
Practice, practice, and more practice. Practice movements over and over again and the transitions around them to a point where your muscles are familiar with what you are trying to do. For most people, kinesthetic memory is stronger then trying memorize information. As our movements become more comfortable, it gets easier to incorporate them into our flow. Personally, I don't even like doing moves that i have only recently learned as part of my performance. I like my dance to look seamless before i present it to an audience. Writing down moves helps me remember them. I recommend keeping a list of all the poi moves you know (moves, not combinations), categorized into families of movement. Most of all, I think understanding the foundation of a movement helps give us control with it.
A little theory about transitions: everything is everything is a different direction (simplified). All poi moves share common positions with other poi moves. The essence of transitioning from one pattern to another is finding those common positions.
A simple example is changing between forwards and backwards weave. In both forwards and backwards weaves the poi go through a point where they are unwound and on the same side (I call that position lock-out). From that neutral position the poi can be taken in either direction.
Another example I like is transitioning with stalls. Vertical stalls can be done from both same-time, same direction spinning and from same-time, opposite-direction spinning.
birdo said:Well i do feel better knowing i am not alone. I will watch other people and be blown away and then i watch myself and i feel the opposite. Oh well i guess that means more practice.
Have you watched Nick Woolsey's The Beautiful Thing About Ashes? youtube.com/watch?v=zC8pOSm-Kxs
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Permalink Reply by Danny Thomas on -
I agree on the focus on transitions. Importantly, you'll never start doing the move while freestyling if you don't know how to get into it from a move you already know.
I am however perhaps the opposite. When I freestyle I end up doing the same moves I've recently been working on, and forget the old ones. I generally try and make sure I don't stick on a move for too long, or repeat a move I've already done. That forces you to do something different to the usual. In order to help this, as DynamiTK said, understanding the foundation of movements, and therefore their families, is important - I'll 'explore' a family for a while, and then switch family. As simple example, do a lot of weaving (forward, backward, fountains), then a lot of butterflys (over the head, thread the needle, turning), and then a lot of stalls. You can make up your own 'families', or perhaps instead 'themes' if pertaining to a performance, depending on how you like to spin. And then lump your new move into one of your themes. Remembering 3 themes is easier than remembering 20 moves, and if you can remember 3 themes and practise transitions between the similar moves, your muscle memory will take care of the rest.
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Permalink Reply by Stu on -
I think writing down moves and putting them in a hat sounds like a very good idea. I shall definately give it try.
Mr Joe said:I find the best thing to do is consciously learn transitions to and from your new move. Stalls, wraps and plane-changes all help with this kind of thing. Also, it helps to make sure you can come into it from any move you already know as cleanly as possible.
This is a separate skill and needs to be practiced on its own. You can even go as far as writing all the moves you know down on bits of card and then draw them out of a hat in a sequence. Then go through that sequence of moves without going back to a 'holding pattern'. Freestyling is not so free as it seems, it needs practicing :P
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Permalink Reply by Isa "GlitterGirl" Isaacs on -
I run a workshop on this specific topic because it's such a hard one for people. the very brief summary of the 3 hour workshop follows thusly:
- combos: as mentioned, develop transitions into and out of the move. once you have these, create them into combos.
- begin learning/integrating the combos as moves
- to actually integrate, select a set of patterns (moves, transitions and combinations) you want to integrate
- notice what aspect you need to work on: the skill itself, flowing into the skill, or expression/style with the skill (or some combination of those)
- create physical placeholders (i started out using paper, but don't any more) for these patterns and place them AWAY from your comfort zone/center/core moves
- begin from your core moves and get in your flow
- from your best flow, move away from that toward your edge/less integrated moves/the placeholders and do the new move you're looking to integrate -- physically moving toward it will both help you integrate more movement into your performance (reduce "tree trunk syndrome") and have the things that are your core moves and not your core moves come, literally, closer together
- as you lose your flow, move back toward your center/comfort zone/flow moves
- repeat
- integrate this into your practice regularly
it has been my primary practice for 7 years and helps me to integrate more and more moves.
the one things i notice through time is that as i'm integrating new moves, some of my older moves slip away. i have forgotten more moves than i remember at this point.
hth!
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