I think that one the most frustrating thing about learning
to dance was that I was so excited about it that I wanted to be really good at
it NOW! Everyone around me made it look
so easy and I felt like such a klutz! And
it seemed to take forever for me to learn even the simplest movement. I couldn’t even remember which foot went
where let alone put them there fast enough to keep up with my partner. Why was it taking sooooo long and why didn’t
I just “get it”?
When I started taking classes and lessons, I always wondered
why the pattern or technique that was being taught would seem reasonably
comfortable by the end of the class, but be foggy by the next evening when I
tried use it at a social dance and completely gone by the follow week when I
went back to class. Then slowly, the
earlier basic movements and techniques that I learned became second nature and
they were replaced by more complex and difficult movements that continued to
torture my self confidence and belief that I could learn to dance! The trouble is that at the time I didn’t
realize that I had accomplished anything so I continued to beat myself up on my
inability to learn and really, looking back, spoiled the joy of the journey of learning. (I really think this is why kids learn things
faster than adults…they look at the process as playtime!)
Dang…how could I be such a slow learner? Of course, the answer is that I wasn’t
necessarily a slow learner, I just hadn’t done enough repetitions to get the
movement into my muscle memory so that I could execute it without thinking and
go on to think about new challenges.
So…how many repetitions does it take to get a movement into
muscle memory? (And, while we are at it,
how many licks DOES it take to get to the center of a Tootsi Pop?)
According to a 1991 book called Motor Learning by Drs. Schmidt and Wrisberg, it takes 300 to 500
repetitions to burn a new movement into muscle memory! (Muscle memory is the body’s ability to
execute a movement without consciously thinking about how to do it.) That is just one movement…not a complex dance
pattern or technique which might include several different movements! To put those numbers into perspective let’s
consider my favorite dance: Country
2-step. A slow country 2-step that would
normally be danced at a country bar has a tempo of about 150 beats per
minute. Assume that a dance lasts 3
minutes. That would be 450 beats/dance. If a dance couple only danced the 2-step basic
(2 quicks and 2 slows, down line of dance in close dance position, leader going
forward and follower going backward) that would be 6 beats/basic pattern or 75 basic
patterns per dance. If the only movements
they were trying to master was 1) the “2 slow steps”, and 2) the “2 quick
steps” (and thus ignoring all the fine muscle control to hold dance position),
than it would take at least 600-1000 repetitions of the basic pattern to burn
the required movements into muscle memory.
At 75 repetitions of the basic pattern/song the couple would have to
dance 8-14 songs, doing nothing other than a correct basic pattern to put the
2-step basic into muscle memory!! Add in
variations like turns or syncopations, each with several movement components
and well….do the math…we just aren’t going to learn to dance in a couple of
hours!
Oh…and a bit of bad news….the number of repetitions required
to erase a bad habit and replace it with the correct movement? 3000-5000!!!
(Note to self…learn it correctly the first time!)
The good news….dancing is an amazing life long journey and
social hobby! Getting those movements
into muscle memory isn’t painful at all!
Dance of the Day: Rumba
Rumba is the slowest of the International Latin dances that
are danced competitively. It is danced
to 4-count music and has a basic pattern timing of slow-quick-quick. It is a beautiful, sensual dance of Cuban
origin that was introduced to Europe and the United States in the early
1950s.
