Honestly the credit to this topic should go to "Haresh Karkar" who made me think and write on the topic. Yesterday he mentioned about dancing in front of the mirror which inspired me to do research and think about it more in detail. Let’s have a look at the advantages but before that I must say something – “Thank you Haresh!”
We must have heard the phrase a million times that goes “practice makes a man perfect”. Very true, there is absolutely no doubt about it. But what is Practice? It is repeating any act or lesson over and over again to master it or to learn it good. But why is it that we need to repeat things to be able to master it? Well, 1) when we learn something new, it sounds or makes us feel foreign to it. 2) By just looking at it once, there is a very good chance that we might forget especially at the time of performance 3) even if we remember; we bound to mess it up either by including our own version or forgetting half way through and making the act look bad. And so, we must practice not only in the beginning but also when we are fluent so that it can flow easy, flawless, without any interruptions and also look professional.
Now that we talked why we must practice, let’s talk how can we practice or what are the ways that one can practice their dance. Here is a scenario – When we go to school to learn a lesson either in person or online, we are given home work and our duty is to practice that lesson so that next time we are able to perform without any interruptions and just the way it was taught. Normally people end up doing one of the below to practice:
Practice on your own playing music
Practice in front of a friend or partner who can point out if there are any mistakes.
Practice in front of a mirror so that we can judge ourselves and rectify any mistakes.
Practicing on your own is good and requires a good amount of confidence. When a person practices, he or she will have their teacher, choreographer or mentor on mind. They try to use the same type of expressions and steps. Unconsciously they imagine themselves to look similar like their teacher in expressions and steps. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. There is a big chance that one might end up practicing the wrong steps thinking it to be right as there is no way to correct at that moment. Yes but if you have a dancing partner who attended your same class then while he or she perform you can judge and vice versa. That does help. But the best way that is normally followed by a majority of the dancers is dancing in front of a mirror. Why? Let’s have a look at it.
- Dancing in front of mirror helps a person come out of his or her shyness. A lot of times we fear audience and go weak in our knees. The best way to overcome the shyness or fear is to role play. Dancing in front of a mirror looking into our own eyes and also watching our every step especially while giving expressions can help in big way. Unconsciously when we are in front of mirror we start to imagine there is audience on back of our mind. And the practice that is done in front of mirror helps us overcome our shortcomings of shyness and fear.
- They say we are our biggest critic. Before we can hear what others are going to say about us, we start to judge ourselves with a hundred faults. And so when we dance in front of a mirror, we tend to practice it better as we can see ourselves and hence the chance of picking harshly on us becomes less.
- Evaluation becomes easy when practicing in front of mirror. When we practice in front of a mirror, we will be able to evaluate our every move. We correct the wrong moves and practice it till the time we are satisfied. And as they say “if we are satisfied then there is a good chance of others feeling satisfied too.”
- A mirror gives us instant and true feedback and we don’t have to wait to know how we did.
Whether you talk about dance or sports or playing music, practicing in front of mirror always helps a person. A mirror shows us if our hands were in the right position, if we were balanced and also if we were leaning too much forward or backward. When we start to practice in front of mirror initially we may realize that what we feel is not comforting. We may feel there is still a long way to go to reach our full potential as a dancer. As they say bad habits die hard so a mirror practice is must to keep a self check and to make sure we don’t stay comfortable with the bad habits.
Once there was a man who was a great artist and he made many wonderful portraits and one day he realized that he should make a self portrait and so he started to sketch himself. He was busy for days completing his sketch and when it was finished he was thoroughly satisfied. He placed his new portrait next to a mirror and stood in front of it only to realize that there was a world of difference. The man he drew was the man he was 50 years ago. He had aged and the real man that he had turned into had very little resemblance which according to me is not wrong. But the world would see it as a different man’s portrait. Plus his intention was to sketch the present him not the past him. But if you ask me, even though the sketch had nothing to do with the present reflection as it was a reflection from the past but I see it as a positive thing. It only signifies that he is young at heart. It also means he is alive and lively. They say the day we start to imagine ourselves old, we have very less interest in life which is not good as it signifies that we want to near our end. Anyway, the reason why I brought this story here is to say that sometimes we might practice thinking its perfect but what we actually practiced may turn out to be completely different from original so having a mirror check is must.
And last but not least, any method that can help you improve your performance can never be wrong especially if it’s a proven one. Go ahead and practice your skills – make your mirror your friend – he sure will be an honest friend!
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