Videorecording: an Amazing Tool

Last week, two days before the Student Gala, I decided to videorecord myself performing the two choreographies I had learned for the Gala.

Boy, oh boy, do I wish I had done it earlier! In the future, I will start making videorecordings of my routines several weeks before the scheduled performance, so I have time to correct all the problems I see.

This post may sound a bit negative, and I don't mean for it to. In watching myself dance, I saw a lot of things to be proud of. There are a number of things I do well. But of course, those are not the things that need to be fixed. And what jumped out at me, when I watched the videos, was how many things I was dissatisfied with!

My hands -- oh, my hands! My arm positions and movements have come a long way since I started taking lessons, but not until I watched the latest videos of myself did I realize how I am holding my hands most of the time! My fingers are stiff and splayed. One of my teachers last session told me several times in class, "relax your hands." I thought I understood her point then, but I understand it much better now!

Unfortunately, the hand thing was just too much of an ingrained habit to fix two days before the gala. I tried to focus on my hands while practicing the choreographies, but found that during some moves, it caused me to make other mistakes. I ended up deciding to just dance the gala the way I had practiced, and devote some serious effort to improving my hand position afterward!

The other major embarrassment was my "head slide." I thought I was doing it correctly. I had even seen myself in the mirror. But evidently, the mirror lied, because the moved looked awful on the video! I did my best to drill it and improve in time for the show, but I know I still need to work on the move a lot before it will look right. Oh well, I'll just add it to the list of moves I'm drilling lately.

My mayas...where do I start with my mayas? I can do mayas! I've seen myself in the mirror many times. I've even been complimented on doing them well. So why, when I was performing the actual choreographies, were my mayas so bad? Again, I did my best to patch up the problem before the performance, but I know I need work before my mayas will be consistent whether or not I am watching them in a mirror while doing them.

The last nasty surprise was my transitions. Granted, I have come a long way with transitions since I started. But it was in this area that I realized I could have made the most improvements, had I just had the time, and known where the rough spots were!

In terms of getting feedback on my performance, a picture is worth a thousand words. I now suspect that taking videos of myself will prove to be almost as useful in preparing for a performance as getting feedback from my instructors. I know enough about how the moves should look by now to understand when they look wrong, and most of the time, I can see what I need to do differently.

Lesson learned.