And before your arms, hands, legs, torso… THIS is the nature of muscle memory learning. It applies to dance and to EVERY muscle memory activity you have ever tackled in your life. Depending on the nature of the activity, this gap between mind and body learning can be long or short, but this gap ALWAYS exists. This situation can be frustrating for some learners. It is important to know that it exists and be ready for it, so that you will have realistic expectations for your dance goals and the time it takes to achieve them. If you are mentally prepared for the mind/body time-lag in your learning, you’ll be able to relax more and enjoy the process!
Why does this “learning time gap” exist in the first place? On the most simplistic level, our minds need to apprehend new concepts before we can implement them. You need to understand THAT you must step forward before your foot can actually move forward. When we are first learning a dance pattern—say, for example, the box step—we need to be told or shown that the first step is forward for the leader. After that, we need to be informed that the next step goes to the side, and our brains have to string those two facts together: “forward on the left foot, side on the right foot…” We might receive this information with words, like a teacher telling it to us verbally. We might receive this information visually, if a dancer demonstrates the action where we can see it. We might receive this information kinesthetically, if a dance partner guides us physically through the steps. Regardless of how we initially receive the information, the brain must first GET the information and UNDERSTAND this information before we are able to implement this information on our own.
However, it is usually not this tiny gap between first learning and first implementation that frustrates people. It is the much wider gap between knowing WHAT to do, and being able to do it without attentive concentration. Let’s say, for example, we receive instruction on the entire box step. We have learned that the box step pattern is forward, side, together, back, side, together. Our instructors have told us that the left foot goes “forward” and the right foot goes “back,” but many times when we close our feet on the “together” steps, we have to concentrate, or else we might step next with the wrong foot. Maybe we’re getting it fairly well, dancing it fluidly, but as soon as we get distracted, as soon as we start paying attention to something else (like leading a turn!), our feet get goofed up. At this stage in your learning process, you might feel like the step goes pretty well on your lesson or in class, but the next day, you try to practice at home and have trouble remembering it. If it’s hard to remember and do the step off the top of your head, if it’s difficult to dance the step continuously without concentrating and really paying attention, then you’re in this important time gap—the gap in between learning it with your conscious, active memory and having it available for easy access in your muscle memory.
Why does this gap even exist? As much as we would love to be able to snap our fingers and acquire any skill, our bodies and brains don’t work that way. Just like any other muscle-memory-based activity, when we learn to dance, we have to train with repetitive actions so that our bodies and brains work together efficiently. Have you ever learned a sport? How to play an instrument? How to drive a car or ride a bike? They are all muscle memory activities, and they work the same way as dancing.
When talking about muscle memory, the motor skill (aside from dancing) that often jumps to my mind is typing on a QWERTY keyboard. I was in high school when I decided that I would force myself to learn how to type. Back in those days of yore (also known as the 90’s), computers were becoming more common, and their use was becoming much more necessary, interesting and convenient. But in those days, touch screens were still mostly just on Star Trek, so the only ways to interact with computer and internet technology was mouse and keyboard. I wanted to have all the advantages computers offered, so I forced myself to learn how to type. It was incredibly unpleasant! I stared ahead at my computer screen fingers hovering over the keyboard, moving one finger at a time… and getting it wrong more often than I got it right. “And how about an ‘R’… nope, that was a ‘T’… try again…” As rough as this process was, I pushed forward and refused to glance down at the keyboard, knowing that I would revert to my old two-fingered typing habit if I did. At the time, I was an aspiring fiction writer, and so I had plenty of material in long-hand pencil on loose-leaf paper that I wanted to transcribe to a computer file. I worked at it a little each day, reaching each finger, one at a time, into the unknown, hoping that it would find the right key. During these early days, I had to concentrate the whole time, typing sluggishly with constant attention to where each finger was moving. It took a looooong time! As with any muscle memory skill, I can’t say for sure exactly WHEN it became easier, but over time, the process grew gradually less painstaking until the point where it finally became muscle memory. Now, when I type on a computer keyboard, it just happens automatically—I think about the words I want to write and they just come pouring out of my fingers. I don’t need to think AT ALL about any key-stroke—it just happens. I put my fingers on the keyboard and words come out! It amazes me when I stop and think about it. I don’t actually know how I do it, I just do it. Muscle memory takes over and leaves my conscious mind free to think about other things… like what I’m going to say next in my latest blog article about muscle memory!
I’m not an expert in the neural or cognitive processes involved in creating muscle memory, but as a dance teacher, I pay attention whenever I run across some interesting or enlightening information about the subject. As I understand it, the brain develops muscle memory to take care of complex, repetitive tasks that would simply steal too much of our attention if we had to perform them with conscious intent every time; having to dedicate too much attention to these tasks would actually interfere with our ability to do them well, and it would certainly interfere with our ability to do other, more pressing activities that demand direct focus. I have heard the brain compared, in this regard, to a large corporation. The “active” part of your mindscape—the dimension of your consciousness that you’re aware of presently and at all times—is like the CEO of the corporation. Your conscious attention is “steering the ship,” running the show, managing the entire corporation that is your brain and your activities throughout the day. But in order to perform these daily tasks efficiently, the CEO has to delegate most of the smaller responsibilities to the employees of the corporation. Otherwise, the executive functions could not feasibly happen. If the CEO had to take a break from negotiating the big merger to make every photocopy the company needed… well, nothing would get done! In a corporation, the company delegates that responsibility to an employee, whose job it is to make the photocopies. The CEO is not aware of photocopies being made, but if the employee is a good one, the CEO can trust that all the photocopies necessary for the running of the business will be produced on time and in sufficient quantities. Likewise, our muscle memory takes charge of numerous actions every moment of our day so that the conscious brain doesn’t have to worry about them. If I had to think, consciously, every time my finger reached for a key on my computer keyboard, this blog article would never have been typed! I’m glad I have muscle memory to make my fingers flicker across the keyboard with speed and accuracy, even if I don’t understand exactly why or how they’re able to do it.
Likewise, I am frequently amazed at how easily and fluidly I can do many dance moves, thanks to my muscle memory. The role of the follower is very heavily in the muscle memory realm because it is a reactive skill. I frequently respond to my partner in ways I cannot explain and that I’m not consciously aware of—my responses frequently “just happen”; I describe it sometimes as having a “Spidey Sense” for what’s coming next, but it’s actually just muscle memory. I am able to respond to my partner quickly and efficiently enough to keep up with the leads because I have done so many similar actions so many times in the past. Leaders deploy active attention more often while dancing, but it’s still a “blend” between their active, conscious thoughts and their underlying muscle memory. Over time and with practice, leaders build a fundamental bank of muscle memory skills with the most frequent and repetitive actions they do in any particular dance. Remember that box step? While it might require the leader’s complete concentration on Dance Lesson #1, it probably doesn’t demand much attention at all after 3 months of weekly practice. Leaders experience a consistent cycle while learning to dance: as basic steps enter the muscle memory, new items—steps, leads, patterns, techniques, etc.—demand the attention of their active concentration. The leader’s active attention is always occupied, at minimum, with planning what elements to lead next. Often that mental planning also involves remembering what patterns the leader knows and how they start (see our related article “The catalog and the gateways“). Once you’ve been dancing for a while, you’ll have a lot of moves in your catalog, and most of the work will simply be remembering which ones you know and deciding which one to do next.
When you’re new to dancing (or when you’re experienced, but learning a brand new step) you will experience this gap of time between knowing what you’re SUPPOSED to do and actually feeling like it’s easy and comfortable to do. This is a natural and expected part of learning to dance, and the more often you experience this cycle of learning, the more familiar it will become. You will probably never get to the point where you LIKE the learning gap, but it is important to understand why it happens so you can TOLERATE it as part of the process. It’s not because you’re a slow learner, it’s not because there is something wrong with your memory, it’s not an indicator that you are uncoordinated… it’s just the normal process of gaining muscle memory. It is important for each dance student to understand that this natural process will accompany anything new that you learn. It is also important for dance teachers to communicate to their students that they understand the process; teachers should let their students know that they will experience this time gap between the “mind” learning and the “feet” or body learning, and that this time gap is normal and expected. Anyone (including yourself!) who expects you to remember and implement new material right away does not have a realistic understanding of how the muscle memory learning process occurs. It is also important to understand that this process does not unfold the same way for everything you learn. Some things will become muscle memory more quickly, others will take longer, and it is hard to predict. For this reason, the most efficient way to learn any dance, technique or style is with a personal lesson instructor who can teach customized lessons at your pace of learning. However long it takes to ride out the muscle memory time gap, a personal lesson teacher will be with you 100% along the way, keeping you on the right track.
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