The Magic Ingredient: Curiosity

A couple weeks ago, I felt like every time I opened Facebook or Instagram, there was a new online program for learning flamenco. Every program promises to up your flamenco game - you’ll walk away a better flamenco dancer, and you can usually do it on your own schedule too! Doesn’t get better than that, right? 

Unfortunately, there is no magic or quick way to learn flamenco! And, like so much on the internet, I think a lot of these programs can be distractions from the practice and study we must do on our own, and/or in-person with live music. It’s easy to keep signing up for these online classes rather than deepen the tools we already have and apply them. 

I am not against online learning - I’ve taken online flamenco music lessons that helped me tremendously. I even recently learned a new solo online. But I still had to apply and investigate what I learned in these online classes - incorporating them into my body. 

Practice then v. practice now:

Believe it or not, when I started flamenco, we would record class or choreographies on a handheld cassette tape recorder. I would go back and listen over and over again to the sounds of the steps. There was a llamada I learned por alegrias from Adela Campallo when I was 15 or so that I forgot the mechanics of, but had the sound recording, so I invented my own steps to make those sounds. 

Practicing was a totally different process. Sometimes I’d find ways to write down the steps. I never went back to those written steps - I think it was the process of writing down the mechanics that helped me learn. 

I say this because it was a lot easier to be forced to dig in deeply because we didn’t have youTube or recorded classes. With less information, we were forced to figure things out on our own. (Or with a compañera). 

Stop adding more info (just yet)

It’s easy to end up with a heap of useless information if we’re not digging deeper into the information we already have. Piling new information on top doesn’t help us build a structure or foundation on which we can stand.

If you’re in the studio and you start with what you know, you will deepen that practice and make discoveries. You don’t need to do anything fancy or to invent new steps. 

Studio time is about distillation and awareness. Here are my tips for deepening your practice - spending time alone integrating what you already know will help you grow to fluency more quickly.

Make studio space/time a priority:

Getting studio space is step #1. That’s work within itself. 

When first learning flamenco, I would do whatever I could to get studio space to drill steps. Whether it was sneaking into the university studios even though I was in High School or cleaning studios in exchange for space - I did what I could to have access to studio space. 

In Spain, one of the best parts of being there is studio space that costs between 3-5 euros an hour (as opposed to $20-$50/hr in the U.S.)

We should all be desperate to get our hands on studio space so we can practice, alone in an open space with suitable flooring. It changes your mentality just to be in a proper space. 

What about with a study buddy?

A study buddy is great - you can figure steps out together. Maybe they remember one aspect of a step and you remember another. Great! But the other person can’t make a step feel natural in your body - only you can do that. 

In the Studio:

Now you’re in a big open studio, all alone - what the heck do you do with yourself? 

Be curious!!! 

Warm up:

First warm-up. DO NOT skip this step! Even if you’re paying an absurd amount for studio space and you want to dive into the more complicated stuff for which you need that special floor, do a warm-up. You’re not just getting your body ready to dance, but also your heart and your mind. You’re allowing yourself to “arrive” in the studio, to leave what’s outside the studio outside the studio. 

Know why you’re in the studio:

This is hard to answer sometimes. A lot of people might just say because you’re supposed to practice. Well, why? What are you practicing? Are you trying to get fluent in flamenco? Are you there to create new steps? To work on steps you already have? To drill technique? Something else? 

ASAP (As Slow As Possible):

Start with going through basic technique as slowly as possible. Let me repeat that: as slooooooooooooooowlyyyyyyyyyy as possible. Think about the corrections you’ve received from a teacher - do your best to understand and apply those corrections. As you repeat things slowly, you usually grow awareness of how your body feels. Use the mirror to see if you look the way you want to look. Go even slower. Face away from a mirror to see how movements feel when you don’t have the visual feedback. 

With footwork, USE A METRONOME (not solo compás) and go slowly and clearly through basic patterns. Listen to your feet - are they clear? Are you lifting your supporting heels as much as you can? Are your legs in alignment? Are you in time? Repeat. Repeat some more. Go even slower. Go faster (only as fast as the sounds are clear and in time). Go even slower again. 

Those basic three to six sound footwork patterns, simple weight shifts, and basic arms are your scales - just like a pianist practices the basic scales to know the keys of the piano, to move swiftly and evenly up and down the keys, so we have to go through basic footwork and postures to understand where we are in space and time, and to know how much energy we use to create the intention we want in a step. 

Explore:

Be curious: explore other ways of doing the movement. Know what it feels like to do it wrong. Is there a more efficient way of doing the movement? Is the movement cluttered (i.e are you doing extra movements along with the main movement). Distill a step into its basic elements (if there’s a twist and an arm, separate those two and make sure you know both alone and then together, for example). 

Our bodies are so amazing! The more aware we are of every movement that’s happening (often at once), the more clear we become in those movements. Alone time in the studio is like meditation for me because of this. I can become more and more deeply present to the movements as I take apart the layers and then add them back together. 

If you’re working on a specific choreography:

Take the steps apart. Know the intention/purpose of every step. Is it a marcaje, remate, llamada, etc.? Within each step, where is the tension, the transition? 

Find the accents:

Where are the accents? This is a big one for me in the alone studio time. No one taught me to accent my footwork. Unfortunately, my initial training focused on loud strong footwork, not on nuance or musicality. But one day, drilling a remate over and over and over, I started to discover I could make certain parts louder and other parts softer, and it made the step a lot more interesting. This is why studio time is important - if you drill with conscientiousness and curiosity, you will make discoveries. 

Footwork is like a conversation - play with the footwork patterns you have (once you have the strength/mechanics/timing). How can your footwork sounds be like words rolling off your tongue in an exciting conversation? What if you accent this count, or that count? How does that change the feel of the step? I’m getting excited just writing about this - there’s is always so much packed into one step if we take the time to unravel it! 

There’s a place for running dances in their entirety too - but for me that’s about endurance building in the final weeks leading up to a big show. Until then, it’s about distilling and deepening for me. 

Other practice tools:

Take one marcaje, remate, or llamada and try it in different places in the music or letra. (This presupposes you have some understanding of the structure of letras. But, even if not, there is an intuitive element to flamenco - some steps will just sound better in certain parts of the music. But if you don’t know much about flamenco’s music structure, this is where online lessons can be a big help).

You could take one track of music and one step and spend an hour finding different ways to fit the step into the music. One compás later, and the step has to be done in a different way to match the music. One compás after that, it doesn't fit at all with the music. Why? What’s happening in the music that makes a step feel right or not right somewhere?

Analytical vs. creative practice:

The above suggestions combine analysis and creativity. But that’s a lot at once. So, you could also put on a track and move however you feel with the music (flamenco moves or not), just move how the music moves you. This may open up ways to listen to the music since you’re not worried about fitting certain steps within the song. Conversely, just listen and chart the music: how many lines is the verse, what’s the overall structure of the track, of a single verse, where are the caídas in the verse, how do you know they’re coming…etc. etc. etc. 

Find what works:

There’s no one way to practice. However you practice, it’s about building awareness. The more you practice, the better you get at the practice of practicing. So, dive in. With curiosity. Something is bound to happen.