Beginning Steps

Are You Filming Yet?

By Eric Dahlman

In today’s world where we have a camera on basically every laptop and phone, it’s been easier than ever to film your dance progression. While most people know the importance of watching videos from a previous competition, many dancers shy away from using tech during their average practices. This is a common mistake. By filming segments of your practice or choreography rehearsal, a dancer is able better visualize their movements in order to improve.

What you think you look like and what actually look like are often two separate entities. We’ve all seen those memes comparing the two. While you might feel like a movement such as an arm styling looks amazing as you practice, viewers may have a completely different perception. Of course, this is why it’s important to practice with mirrors. We all know that! However, it’s harder for mirrors to help during moves and routines that involve more traveling or turning. You can’t stare at yourself in a mirror during those. You can watch it afterwards on a camera though. From there, you are able to critique your moves. What did you do well, what didn’t you do, etc… Overall, watching your short video clips creates a better vision of what your movement looks like.

So if camera are an almost ‘mirrors 2.0,’ why are people always so reluctant to film? While there are multiple answers, I personally believe that we’re just being self conscious. We’ve all had that moment where we’ve felt good looking at our faces in the mirror, only to cringe at a photo of ourselves right after. There’s a similar effect when you film yourself ballroom dancing. Another aspect that I see is that we are nervous to film ourselves because we know we aren’t perfect. We know that our movement doesn’t flow as we want it to, so we don’t want to see it on camera. It’s a relatable feeling, but it’s also a very backwards mindset. If we know that we are doing something wrong, doesn’t it make more sense to try to improve it? Filming yourself practice can help do that, but yet we’re afraid to see our mistakes. To get over this anxiety, simply remind yourself that it’s only practice. Yeah, you have you dancing badly on film, but you were still dancing that way regardless of the camera. Now you at least know what went wrong. You’ll fix it faster after seeing the video than you would only telling yourself, “I’ll improve that later.”

Filming yourself isn’t turning in a final exam. Regardless of how your practice goes, you’re the only one who needs to care. Start thinking of filming moves as you work on being as natural as when you use mirrors. There’s no real reason to be self conscious, but the benefits are immediate. We have cameras available on everything now. Use them to your advantage and get a better idea of what your movement looks like! Plus, after you’ve been filming for a while, you can always look back to your previous attempts and see how far you’ve come.