Ballroom Dance

J M (Mike) Nelson
Email:jmnelson@cloudnet.com
Phone: 612-810-0157

Lock in those lessons!

Research has established that our brain has limited capacity for retaining new information. An insidious aspect of our limited capacity for learning is, when experiencing information overload, we are likely to retain less than our normal capacity; thus, more presented can result in less retained.

Some instructors take pride in how much they can cover in a dance lesson, and some have lessons so well designed that almost everyone retains the entire lesson. Each of these teachers sincerely intend to give their best, and they do. One provides the joy of replicating numerous complex variations, the other provides something a student fully learns and takes home to use outside the studio setting.

We retain only that which we apply regularly following its introduction to short-term memory, and, if we don't apply it, it never gets into long-term memory and is forgotten. The solution? Make an effort to learn individual steps and repeat them several times in the hours, and regularly in the days, following the lesson so that you can incorporate them into your current repertoire.

Lock them into long-term memory and they are yours forever!