Was dance a part of your New Year’s resolutions?
I know that some people are critical of them, but I think that they are good because they reveal what is important to us. However, there is one critique of New Year resolutions that I agree with. That’s the notion that too many resolutions are a problem.
Time and time again, I have read about:
- how humans can’t keep a track of too many things at once
- how will power is limited, and is split when you have more tasks
- how any resolution needs a lot attention to see results
- how goals need to be specific
This can mean that if you want to get better at dance, then you might be taking on more than you realise. Is it movement that you want to be better; timing, musicality, leading and following; or a bit of everything? Pretty soon you can see that getting better at dance takes a bit of work.
There is one way to make this simple. You can of course say I will simply do as my teacher says and allocate 15 minutes each day to working on what my dance teacher tells me. This is an excellent approach. It’s simple to stick to and it will give you results. The only issue is making sure that you have a dance teacher who can see what limitations you have and can formulate practice tasks for you.
If you have such a teacher, then never let them go!
Many dance teachers can see what your limits are, but they might not be able to work out what you should do about it. Also, they might not be accustomed to setting homework. I am sure not too many of their students ask for it. Some I know just take up dancing to take a break from everything else.
This could mean that you will need to take on some responsibility.
You might need to find out what your weak at from your teacher and then work out what you can do about it. That might mean on the first day your 15 minutes is dedicated to finding exercises to improve something. The others will then be following those exercises. It might be the first two days if you can’t find exercises. Worst case scenario is that you need to work out your weaknesses and then find out what to do about it.
The less direction you get from your teacher, the less direction you have and the more initiative and will power you need.
If you do need to take a lot of initiative, then you will want to have dance alone as a New Year’s resolution. Because it will become a large task, you will not be able to afford the distraction of something else – like being nicer to the in-laws.
So before you set betting better at dance as a resolution this year, stop and think about how you can do this. If it’s possible to simply commit time to practice, then it’s a pretty easy task. Otherwise, break it down into smaller tasks and avoid distractions.
