[Kitsu-chan]

I'm trying to learn some dances since I'm planning to cosplay Miku from Vocaloids. I'm finding my ADD is making it a extremely difficult task. I haven't been on any meds for ADD in the last near 10yrs & the joys of home ownership leaves me without the money to try getting on them again.

I was hoping people here could share any tips & tricks they use when they have to try & memorize things.

[GITS SAC Motoko]

Well for me, to memorize, I'm all about repetition. Repeating things for me (especially for learning dances) gives you muscle memory, and you remember the motion and how it feels when you dance. It's weird, but that happens for me.

Also, what you can do is "chunk" it. You can do this with memorizing anything--even dancing. If you break down the dance in parts it seems more achieveable to memorize and focus on little parts, master them, them put them together. What I do is I learn one part, learn the new one and then try to remember the first part--as I was focusing on the 2nd part so much.

And try to do and go over your dance before bed. Even if you run through them, your brain will interpret the information because it was recent and that during the night your brain is hard at work determining what information needs to be remembered, and what needs to be "thrown out" and forgotten. If you keep repeating and repeating and do it before bed, it will help your brain determine to remember the dances and help your muscle memory.

Oh and to help control your ADD, isolate yourself in a room where nothing can distract you or have the house silent so you can clearly focus. I've seen a few studies that chewing gum helps you focus by doing a subconscious action (the chewing). Sorry I can't too much with this because I don't have it myself so I don't know from experience. But I am VEEEERRRYYY easily distracted and these two things help me. Time constraint also helps me focus so it makes me get whatever i need to do done. Like you can say "okay so by Saturday I want this half of these dances down" or something.


hope this helps. Good luck YOU CAN DOOOOO IIIT!

This post has been edited by GITS SAC Motoko: 17 February 2011 - 08:01 AM

[Amelko]

Excellent points. I also break up dances into chunks to make them easier to memorize. Usually I only memorize a few seconds or a verse at a time to make it easier. Then I just practice the CRAP out of that part until I can do it without even thinking about it. Then I add the next chunk, practice that by itself, and then practice everything I have up to that point.

There are probably some excellent tutorial videos out there on YouTube that you can use to help you, also. I used a slowed-down and mirrored version of Hare Hare Yukai to practice that dance, and before I knew, the dance became second nature. The key with this is just to practice, practice, practice.

Wax on, wax off.

[sammy-45]

When I was in high school a very long time ago, we had to memorize a poem for one class. We learned by doing one line at a time for every day of class. We would go over the line 5 times by itself, then add it to what we had done before and go over that 5 times.

To this day I still know most of that poem. For some reason the 3rd stanza never stuck with me but the other 3 stanzas I can still repeat by heart.

So repeat and repeat. Then add to the part you had, and repeat that. Doing it at the same time everyday should also help. Because the association will make it easier to remember.

[Aiko☆Noble]

Not to beat a dead horse, but it /is/ all about breaking the dance down.
When I was on the Drill Team (EONS AGO LMAO), we would always
focus on a few movements first, practice them until we had that short
part down, and then add on from there. It becomes very easy if you
think of it as a list, like, 1.) quarter-turn left 2.) clap 3.) stomp left foot
...or whatever XD I just made that up.

And yeah, it does become like second nature eventually. Your body
starts to remember the movements. :3. Good luck with the dance!

[Rukariou]

Yeah, what everyone said, break the song down. Break it down in sets of 8. Count the beats out and when you're trying to learn the dance count it out loud when you're doing the moves. It really helped in high school when I was on Drill Team or in dance class.