Practice makes progress

Welcome to my third entry in the self-improvement blog series where I'll be sharing to you practice tips. Coincidentally, BjP's physie blog published a blog entry a few days ago with the same title. I have been drafting this for a while though so what am I to say? Great minds think alike.
Here are 10 tips for physie, dance and for performances in general:

1. Finding your right way to practise - Everybody is different and we each have our unique ways of learning. For some, practising one routine per day in depth can be effective while others may find that they need to go over each routine daily. Be sure that you find your practice style in order to maximise outcomes.
2. Rest and recover - Don't practise when you're tired because your body will not work efficiently. Make sure you have regular breaks and have a few days off before a major competition. 
3. Drawing or writing down your counts - This is like visualisation on a piece of paper. The example shows snippets of three of the ladies' routines. I've written in cues from song lyrics to help with visualisation. 

   

   Visualising a routine on paper
   Top to bottom: Exercises, warm up, swing

4. Observing others - This requires no effort for physical exertion. Watching others is a great way to see how others do it since it's difficult to watch your teacher/other peers when you are dancing.
5. Practise in sets of 8 counts - They say that you eat an elephant one bite at a time. As with any large task, smaller goals have to be attained in order to fit into the bigger picture. 
6. Practise until you can't get it wrong (rather than only practising until you can get it right). 
7. Slow it down - A lot of the routines are performed at a moderate to fast tempo, so slow it down in your personal rehearsal. (I know your physie teacher does this in class too because it works). 
8. Don't always start from the beginning - Going from the beginning every time will probably make your start really good, but remember that the endings are equally as important. 
9. Changing up the songs - Okay so I've taken this tip from my physie teacher. Instead of the 2016 soundtrack she used songs from previous years to test how well we really knew the moves (keeping in mind BjP renditions of songs means that tempo and number of counts are the similar year after year). 
10. Practise at the time of day when you will be competing. This is extremely important as you want to prepare your mind and body to work at that time of day. Knowing that you can do your routines at the scheduled time of day gives you one less thing to think about. I'm glad that the beginner ladies are scheduled at the same time I have my lessons. 

Above all, find something that works for you. If you don't see improvement after a while (it can take 4-6 weeks), then change the way you are practising. Everyone is different.