How I Jazz Alone
Not Ultimate Guide To Surviving Absence of Social Dancing
Lindy Hop is a 100% social activity to me. It’s all about enjoying communication with music and people around, not only about movement. Even if I was doing solo jazz, I never did it alone until promised to learn or create choreography. Maybe that’s why I still have not become a pro, though dancing for quite a long time, and still do not like watching myself on video.
Anyway, I never miss a chance to dance. I feel the need for this type of communication and common joy. But since December, I’m kind of deprived of it. The thing is, my husband and I moved to Asia for winter and our first stop was Weligama, a surfer village in Sri Lanka, with no chance to dance. We stayed there for a month, so I had to find the way to survive without any social dance activity.
During the first week I was adapting to the new environment, surfing, eating strange food, blogging my impressions and missing my social life. But then it became painful not to dance. So I had to reconsider my concept of body movement and the perception of myself in a mirror.
“We often tell people that an hour spent in front of a mirror is worth a dozen private lessons. In the end, you need to strive towards enjoying what you see in your own dancing” — M&K Bal Swing Pro
Here is what I did, what I’ve learned from practising alone and what I’d love to bring further into my dancing life.
1.Schedule.
It is easy for me to be always on time when there are other people involved. But when I have to agree the time with myself, it gets a bit frustrating. However, that’s what has to be done — schedule, set a specific time to dance and remove distractions for that period like it’s a meditation session.
As the weather is pretty hot in Sri Lanka, I danced in evenings two or three times a week, not more than half an hour, as after this time I was totally sweaty. The whole practice took about 1.15–1.30:
30min —get inspired, watch some performance or instructional videos, figure out what you want to learn or practice now;
30min — warm up, practice and record;
15 min — review.
2.Dress Up
Need to say that I’m pretty shy, so this is very important for me. If I like myself in a mirror even without dancing, it means I would dance a way better. Clothes matter, they help me to get in the mood.
3.Start with boring staff.
Too much inspiration is as bad as no inspiration at all. So if I do not know what exactly I need to do, I recall the Alphabetic Jazz Steps, start with the Apple Jack or Suzie Q and do it until I like myself in the mirror. Then it comes to trying things with different sides, counts, rhythms, length, body lean, whatever it feels in the music; paying attention to arms, head and face expression. Then the next move. And the next. And then relax and combine.
If I did something that catches my mind, I record it immediately.
4. Listen to feel the mood.
As a DJ, I can’t stress the importance of listening enough. But there is a difference if you are listening to swing music in the background, counting to figure out the structure or listening it emotionally. The last one is my favourite. I try to hear the attitude of the song, dance in imagination and even create the story behind it.
5.Create, record, review
When I find the song I would love to create something to, I use Music Speed Changer to loop a part of the track, and dance to it as many times as I can until get totally sweaty.
Then I put the camera and record whatever I did. Usually, it’s quite hard for me to watch that video afterwards, but I’m working on it. And then the next practise session may start with reviewing it again and trying to make better.
6. Make it social
Of course, it’s all about solo jazz, when practicing alone. You can pretend like you are leading or following, but that’s not the point. However, you know how solo improves the partner dance.
When we were in Weligama for two or three weeks, a Ukrainian surf camp came, including one of my fellow dancers Nastia. I had some choreography made up, so we decided to do the I Charleston together. At that time, the owner of our villa took away my mirror for an unkown reason. So it was twice as good to do it together. First, I need to break everything out to teach my partner what I’ve done. And second, we recorded and reviewed it together. Here’s what we’ve got.
Of course, there are tons of other ways of improvement while dancing alone. You can learn all the solo routines, cross train to have a better body, start a 100-days challenge, ask a teacher to help you via skype and so on. But what seems the most important for me is this point:
7. Be mindful
As a social dancer, one may learn to follow the music without really thinking what he or she is doing. At some point, it becomes a problem. So next time at a party or practicing alone just think: “Now I’m doing rhythm variations.” or “It’s time for better twisting” and do it on purpose. Pay attention to your own body, not only to connection.
And the last one: you may never be satisfied. But do not stop.
