Ok I'm curious. How do you dancers know if you're doing your steps fine when you're practicing alone? Do you always perform in front of mirrors? And are you really able to see your moves in the mirror while focusing on dancing and your steps etc?
In class when we do mistakes like skipping the beat or if the body alignment is not clear, the teacher corrects us and we keep practicing it then and there for a few times to keep it in our muscle memory. So when we go back home, we are aware how the incorrect style looks or feels, so we consciously keep practicing it to do it correctly.
Now I am happy that we have phones and cameras. For me, I record myself and then see. I remember how my teacher did the step in my head so I match myself with that. If it matches, it's good or if not, then revise it.
And this is I think a very dancer thing ig. We know that there is something wrong when we do the step incorrectly even if we don't see ourselves. Mostly you get to know that you did the step wrong, if you missed a small beat somewhere in flow or the leg or hand movements don't go the way like they do. Eg: We have a step where you need to jump on both the toes of your feet, but sometimes due to the speed of the music, there is a minor gap in the jump which we can notice very well while someone who is not from a dancing background might skip the minor error.
Mostly we practice in front of a mirror. But for practicing expressions I skip the mirror because I get weirded out sometimes over the expressions I do. And once I feel I have it ready I do that once in front of the mirror or record it.
As for nritta or the movement, I use the mirror to check my alignment and posture. And while we are going a full dance piece that is around 5-10 mins long we aren't able to fully look over the steps, but we can definitely pinpoint the places we did wrong. Something what I do, I always break the pieces, like a 5 min piece in 5 parts where each will be for a minute, and while doing this switch off the speaker, and sing it inside your head and do so you know where you were off beat or where the hands were loose. Do it once or twice and then play the original music and check again. Once you are satisfied runthrough the whole piece and keep practicing until you attend your next dance class.
I have over 200+ videos of myself including the bollywood ones which I posted here lol. So camera zindabaad, and I use my window and camera as a mirror for now. If you have observed well in the videos I posted here, I don't look into the camera but forward because that's where the window is. Though I have a full body mirror back home which I will get to use from the next month.
