I recently bought a Motorola Q smart phone--small-thin 4 oz.. It can do a video stream off of my videos and dvds, holding it in front of the tv or computer. I usually do about 30 to 45 seconds of a syllabus or other figures twice and record it on my Q.

It is not a real sharp picture always, but it good enough to really help us anytime we get mixed up on a movement--I can get the Q out of my pocket and within 5 seconds show the figure on the small video screen. This saves lots of lesson time by me having instant viewing of the syllabus figures --it helps me reinforce my memory of figures. I have 1GB of memory and I can review my figures at a coffee shop or I can instantly show it to my amateur partner on something that we get mixed up on dancing the figures socially or during practice.

I have now have about 50 figures that I can instantly access.

Before it was going to the tape or dvd video sitting down, winding, rewinding and wasting lots of lesson time and lots of arguing with a amateur partner.
What a memory helper and time saver for dancers.

You'll find the tiny screen less usefull when you start studying a smaller amount of material in drastically greater depth. Dancing is not about patterns - it's about subtle little details that make the difference between comfortable coordination and just faking it.

There was a silly thread a while back about using "Anonymous" as your forum name. This little dialog shows how it can get confusing.

Unless perhaps, both messages are really from the same person, talking to himself?

I use the Q mainly with my teacher who should be able to supply me with the details needed. If one is skilled enough and has looked at enough dance videos small details can be seen. Most good teachers can pick up things very quickly and in much detail by just seeing a video. And on top of this just add their experienced technique.

A video is not a teaching tool by it self. You will always need a teacher to clean up your movement after trying to do and learn from a video. Even though the Q has a small screen you can replay a movement instantly over and over.

However, some people can't learn from a video--it's not their style of learning.