Oh, the Horror.

Any suggestions for remembering the combinations better? I swear about half the time, I can't recall half of it, and the other half the time, I've remembered elements that aren't there.

I was only half-joking the other day when I said I was going to sit a class and just take notes.

Thoughts?

The following procedure was suggested at my school, and it worked for me:

1. Get the floor pattern right. If you move in that pattern, at least you won't bump into anyone.

2. Get the body positions right. Every moment in the combination, you will be in one of the 8 body positions (or 9, depending on how you count). You must know these to be effective, and you must practice them daily. Croise, efface, ecarte, etc --- these need to be second nature to you. If you don't know them, get someone to show you, they are very key (and not taught systematically enough, early enough).

3. Get the direction of the head and eyes

4. Get the steps

5. Add whatever the arms are


Notice that remembering the steps is pretty far down the list. I've found that once I'd analyzed and understood the body positions, that the rest comes pretty easily.

Interesting. I'll consider it, thank you.

My advice is to practice the parts you don't understand, not the parts you do. This goes for learning dance steps and I have also found the same when I was learning the piano. When people have a problem with part of a dance or a song, we tend to start from the beginning and work through allll the stuff we already know how to do and then get stuck on the part we don't know, stop, and start again to try to get it. This will not help you as all it is doing is teaching your muscle memory to stop when you get stuck and never go past that part. I was taught to find the place you are having trouble and go through that part a bunch of times until it is more clear. Then, tack on the steps (or bars of music) directly before and after the hard part so you can get a feel of how to flow into that part. Then start from the beginning and the transition will be much easier.

Another tip is to make sure you are doing the exercise (marking it) while your teacher is teaching it. Don't just stand still and use your hands a little bit to figure it out. Use your feet and your arms and by the time you go to do the exercise for real with music it will not be the first time your body has felt the combination of steps.

Do not sit out and take notes as a way to learn a combination. Learning combinations is about the connection between brain and body. Our brains learn it first and then it makes it's way to our body and eventually after doing it a million times you find you don't even have to "use" your brain to actively think about what you are doing. Sitting out won't serve your muscle memory at all, and if your exercises change each class (most do) than writing them down won't help. What would be helpful, if you find writing things down serves your memory, is to write down all the exercises you can remember from class immediately after class ends or when you get home. Having to recall the the exercises after the fact will help you.

The more you dance with the same teacher, or just dance in general, you will get used to the common patterns that exist in each type of dance or type of exercises. I'm getting really good at anticipating what might come next. When I take classes with my childhood teacher it's really funny to see that a lot of the combinations she uses are very much the same as they were 10 years ago, haha.

Hang in there, I used to be dreadful at learning combinations and would work myself and cry and it just wasn't worth it to do that. Just try again and you'll remember a bit more each time!

An easy trick is to film yourself and/or the class doing the combinations. That way, you can watch it and practice at home on your own. At least you would get more exposure and memorize the routine.


It is especially useful in getting used to more common positions or trademark moves that the teacher uses. You can also watch how you look and know where your strengths/weakneses are that you can work out and fix.

*Do note though, ask permission if filming is ok prior!

And of couse, for obvious reasons, it is not recommended to do it all the time. Once in awhile for key reasons should suffice. You also don't want to be entirely dependent on it and loose instant memory forever.





Additionally: Don't panic! Take a deep breath and relax prior. Worrying or stressing or getting too nervous can easily affect your memory, confidence or jus make your entire body tense (And that is not good in ballet!)


And Coccinella made good points up there^



You will do fine! Best of luck


(You probably read this already, but here is the sticky thread that is devoted to helping those remembering combinations www.dance.net . . .)

I am also a slow learner when it comes to combinations! What works for me is to watch the teacher showing the class and NOT mark it while it is being shown.

That might help!

Keep on dancing

Kev

hi! one thing I do is watch youtube variations that have relatively simple choreography about 3 times and try to memorize it! I also have a youtube channel called thebroadwayballerina with a whole video on remembering ballet combinations if you want to check it out!!

There is a sticky at the top of the ballet general board that I wrote on this topic. Hopefully it will help you.

www.dance.net . . .