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how to freestyle
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@scarlettthoney – you do have some amazing freestyle vedeos 🙂
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Why thank you LillyBilly! I happen to be uploading another one as we speak! Talking about freestyling got me in the mood and I had to go spend an hour dancing! 🙂 xo
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@Scarletthoney, you are the complete opposite of me! Wanna trade? Just for like an hour. lol.
I NEED choreography. I am an amazing mimic. I can watch videos a handful of times and repeat them wonderfully. Leave me to my own and its gone. My teacher sadly doesn't keep the same thought for a moment let alone choreograph. That's one of my pet peeves to be honest. I crave structure and repetition like i had in dance and she's far from it {besides warm up}. Oh well. Hopefully come Xmas, my own pole will change everything.
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LittleEngine…. how wonderful that you can learn and memorise dance steps so easily! Remembering routines must be a piece of cake for you…. I can repeat a routine a million times and I will forget something or add an extra something… I had SO much trouble preparing a routine for a recent performance, I ended up changing a whole bunch of tricks mid performance anyway!
I think it's just a mental difference though. I mean, the neurons in your brain that communicate with your body must be super responsive from all that dance training, so maybe psychologically you feel like your body can't move smoothly without that instruction? But in freestyle there is still that connection between mind and body… it's not total random movement. As much as aim for "free" and "unplanned" movement, our bodies are going to want to move in ways and combos and tricks that it's comfortable with. Muscle memory and instinct will kick in and come to the rescue. So even though I don't decide before hand what I'm going to do, I am still makin some decisions in my freetyle. When I'm dancing I'm thinking things like…. "hmmm I think I should stay on the floor for a little longer, it suits the song" or , "Oh man, big climax/crescendo coming up, need to get spinny quickly"…. I mean, they aren't always full on conscious sentences, but I'm reflectiong on the music and making split-second decisions…
So maybe it's just a confidence thing…. because I am sure your body has just as much muscle memory as me. So when I let myself just go "weeeeeee" spinning around the pole, I will automatically move into some kind of combo, and your body should be able to do that too…. I mean, I'm not a scientist or doctor or whatever haha but that's my optimistic opinion anyway! 🙂
What has helped me with my fluidity is pacticing in combos. In fact, I can count on one hand the times I've practiced a trick in isolation. I ALWAYS practice while dancing… Knowing combos like the back of your hand helps make everything fluid. Transitions are essential too – Practice getting from one trick/move/combo to another. SO it all looks like one piece….
I just htoguht of this metaphor: Imagine dance moves were words. You and I both know the English language, the full alphabet, we have a similar word count in our vocabulary. You are used to reading a story and repeating it. I am not. Freestyling is like someone saying "Make up a story on the spot, right now, go!" So I just go "Blah blah blah blah and then this happened and then this happened" and I don't worry if it won't make any sense, I just let the words fall out of my mouth, I just say the first words I think of". …. Im an English and History teacher and I come across sooo many students who REFUSE or just seem unable to start a story or add to an existing sentence…. but they CAN. They just don't know they can. It's about trusting yourself. There are no rule in freestyling or in creating. No right and wrong. So just let whatever comes out of your mouth or out of your pen or out of your body just flow.
I get it must be hard to let yourself go in front of a class… Having your own pole would probably make a big difference. But I hope my weird analogy helped somehow! I really think it's just a mental thing…. 🙂 and it's practice. I wish I had your ability to remember steps so easily! 🙂
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I had a conversation about this with a colleague once. It seems like there are two types of people – those who are really calculated and orgenized, and are good in learning patterns an repeating tedious tasks in order to learn, an those that are spontaneous and jump between things and ideas, and learn and advance in sudden "bursts" of action.
We observed that people of the first type will often be good "technicians" – they will learn fast and have perfect technique in whatever they do, but when asked to improvise they will freeze or be lost with all the options, and their results will always feel "forced".
People of the second type will usually be brilliant freestylers, but will have a hard time focusing and learning things that require precision and repitition, so their technique may be sloppy at times.
(Of course this is a spectrum everybody is somewhere between those ends).
I am of the first type, and it has always frustrated me – no matter what kind of art I try to create, I can never stop being calculated. When I paint, I can copy the most realistic pictures, but I cannot paint an abstract. When I played the guitar I could play all my scales and the most complicated solos, but in 6 years I never managed to improvise to a song. When I pole dance, I learn the tricks really quickly, but play a song and tell me to express myself, and I will spend half the time standing in the corner looking silly.
I think that most people expect that when you improvise, you will do it like a person of the secon type does it – this is what you wrote, scarletthoney – that you will "let go" and the creativity will flow.
But for us calculated folks, letting go is the problem, and I find it often helps to practice letting go intentionally. One way I find very useful, is to let go in small steps – you keep some rules, and improvise within these rules. The fact that you still have some structure really helps the "too many options" fear. Once you get used to that, you remove some limitations and repeat.
So for instance, you could start by working only with 3 moves that you like, and play with transitions between them. Then, when you feel comfortable, limit yourself to grounded moves, and decide that you must use these 3 specific moves in your freestyle, but you can add other things as well. You get the idea. This gives you some structure to work with, while still allowing a degree of freedom to be creative.
I know that some of the more spontaneous people feel this method kills their creativity, but we all work differently.
I also find it very helpful to practice just letting go before I freestyle – maybe doing stupid and grotesque moves on purpose with a song I like, maybe dimming the lights and rolling on the floor feeling sexy, mayby smearing all my colors in my pallete with my fingers on a fresh sheet of paper, whatever.
I think that perhaps instead of telling your students they can let their words flow, you can help them ease into it by turning it into a process using similar kinds of exercises.
Just a thought 🙂
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We teach a how-to class on freestyling at my studio and its much like what a previous poster (sorry, typing on my phone and can’t see the thread yo.put your name) said… We have catgories of links & transitions – so the movements are split into things like: poses, direction changes, kicks, turns, floor to pole (or vice versa), dance – etc. We then teach one thing from each category and then put it on a set sequence (just to get using to doing them in the flow, with simple pole moves between).
After that we put on music and encourage people to use those new transitions however they like between their favourite pole moves and if they totally blank they can just use he previous choreo – the only rule is you’re not allowed to stop moving! Then we repeat the process. Once students have learnt a variety of ‘transitions’ from each category, then we make the set sequences a bit looser – for example: some set choreo then INSERT ANY KICK, followed by set spins and INSERT ANY DIRECTION CHANGE, THEN ANY POSE. etc etc. We find this semi structured class plan is a great way to easy people into freestyling.
Finally, we do a freestyle challenge, which other people have also mentioned. So it might be no climbs or inverts allowed, or we might yell out instructions like ‘floor work only’ during the music.
Even the clumsiest, most shy students walk away from this 4 week course with he ability to freestyle confidently to a 3 minute song – so we must be doing something right!
Although you don’t have the luxury of an instructor to teach you a repertoire of linking moves, poses etc – maybe watch some YouTube videos and note some down yourself – split them into categories and then follow our lesson plan above.
I’d love to hear how you go!
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