Muscle Memory: What You Need to Know About It for Dancing
One of the most effective ways to master a full dance routine and execute it with near to full perfection is by committing it to muscle memory.
Muscle memory is an alien concept especially if you hadn’t attended a single dance class in the past. So let’s discuss what muscle memory is, its importance for pro cheerleading aspirants, and how you can develop it for audition preparation and as a bonafide member of your dream squad.
What Is Muscle Memory?
Muscle memory is the process of mastering a movement or series of bodily movements based on repetition. It’s similar to plain practicing but with a deeper and fundamental understanding of motion, energy release, sensory perception, and the laws of motion.
Simply speaking, one must memorize all the movements, effort applied, and the feeling of a perfect dance move execution in order to repeat it with the same quality of perfection.
Why Is It Important for Dancing?
Anyone can dance. Although not everyone can do so with equal levels of finesse. A student may be able to imitate a dance move but cannot perform it as smoothly as their teacher. This is where muscle memory comes in.
Instead of just following the “monkey see, monkey do” formula of dancing which often leads to mediocre performance, developing muscle memory allows the performer to learn dance routines easily, quickly, and execute techniques accurately.
As an aspiring or current pro cheerleader, you’ll be able to make quick changes to your audition choreography when necessary, execute the final routine well as the judges expect during the preliminary rounds, and avoid slowing the progress of your squad during practice sessions.
How to Develop Your Muscle Memory as a Dancer
1. Train your body first
You’ll never learn how to perform a dance move with the right technique and accuracy if your body won’t allow you to. So before anything else, increase your stamina, endurance, strength, and improve your flexibility through workouts and stretching exercises.
2. Study the different forms and techniques for every dance move
Each dance move has its proper form of execution. If you don’t follow it, your balance will be off, causing you to fall to the floor or have an injury due to a sprain. A good piece of advice would be to download a clip of a specific dance move, observe it closely (best if played in slow motion), and patiently practice it to perfection.
3. Focus on your senses and awareness
As you practice your dance routine, pay attention to how your body and clothing interact with gravity, friction, and the air around when an effort is applied. This is one of the most important lessons to remember when doing pirouettes, turns, jumps, splits, and other techniques.
Without paying attention to your senses during practice, you’ll never figure out how much force you need to apply to get the right kick, jump height, number of turns, and facing direction when you stop turning.
4. Improve your bodily control
Know when to let your muscles loose, stiffen up, or be in between. This tip will allow you to move your body fluidly at the right speeds and land softly from jumps without losing your balance or spraining a joint.
5. Be patient as your practice
At times, you will be frustrated, especially if you can’t perform a routine accurately after a thousand tries. Always take time to breathe and calm yourself. Remember that a serene mind retains memories better than one that’s filled with anger.
6. Be consistent
Stick to your dance practice schedule and never miss a session. Keep your progress fresh. Muscle memory is easily ingrained through regular repetition and not through on and off scenarios. Keep tips #1 to #4 in mind as you practice.
7. Stay active by learning new moves
After you’ve mastered your choreography and feel like there’s no way to improve your performance any further, don’t stagnate and master other dance moves. These new moves will add up to your dance muscle memories which makes it easy to learn future choreographies and routines.
Muscle memory for dancing, just like any retention strategy, requires a deep understanding of concepts to be remembered well. So treat your pro cheerleading career as if it were a vocational course. Be serious as you learn lessons for dancing and what it takes to be an arena performer.
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