Hello everyone. I'm a high schooler and one of my elevtives is dance. Well I have a hard time remembering the steps. My teacher will go so far to help then its on my own. Arw there any tips how I can remember steps in a routin?

You are so lucky - what a great elective!

Have you tried writing down the steps immediately after class? Also practicing the same day and the day immediately after could help; the steps will be fresher in your mind than if you wait a few days. You can also buddy up with someone in class who has an easier time remembering and make a point to practice with him or her between classes.

Repetition is the most important part of remembering any dance. You want to perform each step enough times that it is in your muscle memory and you are not mentally trying to remember.

It will get easier as you dance more.

Have fun!

If you don't repeat what you have learned within two hours, bits will get lost. So you must write them down, and either physicaly or mentaly run through what you have learnt. Before you go to sleep run through your steps in your mind. The part you get stuck on, in the morning look up your notes.

A bit of advice on remembering- based on many years (dammit!) experience, not just at dancing.
1)When you're shown the steps, watch actively. What i mean by this is imagine yourself doing the steps while your teacher/instructor explains them. Shift your weight onto the appropriate foot if you can, even move around a little to match the teacher- this may not be feasible. In any case, don't watch passively. You're not watching a soap on TV. This will get the information deeper into your memory at the start.

2)Write down the steps, as others have said. This is ESSENTIAL. I'm amazed when dancers go to private lessons and don't write down anything. Exactly how you write them down is another matter (which we could discuss for a long time).

3)Go through the steps as soon as you can, and later that day. Someone mentioned visualising them - this is a good technique too.
We travel many miles for our classes, and share a car. When we've been given new steps or a subtle change to existing steps, we practice when we get back to my car (a couple of hours after the class). It's in a hotel car-park, and one dark evening, somebody saw us practising some steps, and came up to us and asked were we giving classes! Life's full of little hazards!

As you improve, you will find new material easier to learn, since you can relate it to steps you already know.
Make sure you learn the names of the figures (groups of steps) too.

The most effective way is to learn the steps while counting with NUMBERS. Not with pam, pam ,pam or quick, quick slow.
In this way your brains link each step to a number (after some practise)and with counting we have no difficulty.
So, while learning the steps you must count like this: 1-2-3a4-5-6a7-8

Yes - i agree with this. It's a good way to learn basic steps and routines

If it's a routine you're working on I suggest you also do the following:

1. Practice groups or combinations backwards.

So if you have 4 combinations made up of 4 steps each practise #4 first, #3 second, #2 third and #1 last.

This gives extra practise to your endings. People tend to practice beginnings more. It's obvious that people seldom forget at the beginning. Errors of memory usually occur later in a routine. Practicing the opposite direction helps build strength to a finish and let's face it people remember how you finished more than how you started.

2. Say you're travelling along a wall and you have 2 four step combinations. Again practice the last combination first until memorized. Then add the ending step from the first combination to the last combination, then the 2 ending, etc.

If you practice combinations in isolation you always end up practising stops. What the above does is practice transitions between combinations while again emphasizing endings.

3. If you have a corner practice 2 steps in and two steps out. Corners are usually transition points between combinations.

I used the above for memory as a classical musician. It works in dancing too.

OB