It's time to begin the Dancing With David Even Though We're Not With David Mini-Challenge, yahoo! Read on to discover today's strategy for improving your dancing from home . . .
Now I know you may not want to, but please, look in the mirror.
Por favor.
This is essential.
Especially when you're at home with no teacher there to correct you, other than the David (for the purposes of this mini-challenge) inside your head.
You must look in the mirror
Allow the mirror to become your imaginary teacher, and listen to his corrections.
Once you’re finished reading this, I want you to get up, go the the closest mirror, do a move, and notice,
How do you look?
If something doesn’t look right, consider your basic technique,
How are you holding your elbows?
Do you need to move your arms farther away from your body, or closer perhaps?
What could you do to improve the lines you are creating with your body?
Could you change the angles of your body?
Let the mirror tell you what needs tweaking, and make adjustments accordingly. Play around until you find the look you want.
Experiment.
And also, let the mirror tell you what looks good.
Notice the good, give yourself a pat on the back, and do more of that!
Allow the mirror tell you what to keep doing, and allow it to tell you what to change.
A Side Story
Until I met Ricardo I was very resistant to correcting myself in the mirror.
(Siiii, I understand that David is our imaginary teacher this week, but the truth is just about any teacher will tell you to look in the mirror. And besides, Ricardo and David are friends.)
So back to the story . . .
I didn’t want to look in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. Perhaps one thing would look good, but something else would not.
Why couldn’t Ricardo just fix me?
“Watch yourself in the mirror, and find positions that look good,” he told me.
Looking in the mirror was painful at first, it still is at times. It often seemed to take forever to find a position that I could bear to look at. At times I couldn’t find one at all.
But, after awhile, I started to see results.
I was actually able to make myself look better.
It required spending time looking at myself not looking good, but it was empowering. I didn’t need to wait around for someone to give me a magic formula. (Really, if we’ve studied body technique, we know the magic formula, to follow the technique, to be ‘colocada,' in position. It's actually quite simple.)
This is like any problem in life really,
We can ignore it and pretend that it will go away. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done this.
Or we can look right at it.
And while taking that first look can feel overwhelming and make the problem seem bigger than ever (it almost always does), we can’t make it better unless we look.
Ok, ready to get started with today's mini-task?
Step One Choose one flamenco move or exercise to focus on. (You could even choose a part of dance.)
Step Two Find a mirror.
Step Three Do the move in front of the mirror. Notice what looks good and what doesn't. Make changes accordingly.
You can spend three minutes doing this, you can spend fifteen.
Just try it out.
You might also like to watch David’s interview at 4:45 where he discusses the importance of watching yourself in the mirror. Mercedes also addresses this in her interview about two minutes in.
Okay, it's time
Please get up, go to the mirror, do that move, notice what looks good and notice what needs to change. Then let me know how it went. What did you discover? Do you have aversions to watching yourself dance in the mirror like I did? Leave your comment below!
How would you like to take an actual class with David or Mercedes?
Join me this fall for one of the Flamenco Tours to Spain.
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Day 1 of the Dance As If You Were in Class With Mercedes Holiday Challenge