Practice, practice, practice. Practice, with and without your dance lesson DVD, will begin to establish the necessary muscle memory to transfer the dancing basics learned from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Practice in the comfort of your own home, practice tapping rhythms to various radio stations as you drive around, and practice your alignment and carriage as you stand, sit, and ambulate about your daily activities.

Putting It All Together

Effective learning starts with a confident and motivated mindset toward the material at hand. If you’re not relaxed and open to the material, the best teaching techniques in the world won’t help you. Next, you’ll want to absorb the dance training in the way that best suits your learning preference, whether it’s visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or a combination of the three. After absorbing the material, you’ll want to explore the material to the extent that you turn your newly learned skills into a deep understanding. You can do this by digging deeper into each subject area and by asking questions of those around you. Look up information online or go to local classes or dances and ask questions. The more your mind is involved, the easier it’ll be for your body to pick the dances up. Memorizing key sequences, numbers, facts, or steps is another way to quickly turn this dance-training program into a long-term foundation. Most of all, you’ll want to demonstrate that you know the material. Get out and dance. Practice, practice, practice, as they say, but do so only with the right information because muscle memory is hard to break.  Dance with others and continue your learning. You’re embarking upon a whole new world of opportunities, and you don’t want to go into it the wrong way.

To make the most of your learning experience, go through your dance lesson DVD methodically, perhaps taking some notes the first time through to get your mind in a learning mode. Combine your reading with the first lesson on the DVD and get your first taste of the visual, audio, and kinesthetic styles working together. From that point forward, it’s best to just dive into each dance and spend time understanding it, watching it on the DVD, and then dancing it yourself. Celebrate your successes along the way, and you’ll keep the momentum up through your final dance. Finally, start with the basics. If you skip the foundational dance concepts explained and shown in the beginning, it will dramatically increase how long it will take you to pick up the more advanced moves and combinations taught later.