Finding Your Freestyle
Freestyle is a great tool for performing as well as creating set choreography. I wanted to share this video because it offers some great advice on how to improve your freestyle as a pole dancer.
In the video Tracee Kafer points out that many of us love to throw in as many tricks as possible. It is very easy to rely on tricks because they are already familiar to you and impressive to the viewer (whether "the viewer" be yourself or a crowd). The in betweens are harder because you have to create them as you go and make split second decisions throughout the piece. It can be stressful, yet this is what makes freestyle so beautiful and freeing. If you choose to do tricks the whole time it defeats the purpose and becomes boring and predictable. Not only that, but you can easily tire yourself out physically if you don't pace yourself. As a viewer, tricks will be enjoyed and appreciated more if they are interspersed within the piece so that there are dynamic and exciting energy changes. If you picture your energy as a line, doing amazing high energy tricks one after another still creates a straight line. If you pick and choose where to insert a trick and where to pause or elongate some movements you will create many ups and downs in your energy line to keep the viewer interested.
Another point Tracee brought up was that she worked with the dancer Rian on her freestyle several times in a row to the same song to see improvements. Freestyle implies something spontaneous and unplanned, but just like anything else you must practice to excel at it. Each split second decision you make to put an arm here, or change speed, or become soft, you are in fact planning ahead. The more you practice the better you become at following your own intuition on decision making, and taking time to listen to the music resulting in a more satisfying less stressful freestyle.
Tracee also says SLOW DOWN! This is something I struggle with..there are times I've performed when I FEEL like I was holding something for a good enough period of time but when I look back at the video it was way faster than I thought. With pole, you need to give people a moment to absorb whats happening. You may know the trick you're getting into, but the average person has no idea what you're doing and needs time to learn to watch you up there flying around! Jagged has worked on taking our time instead of throwing tons of choreography and tricks out at once. It is a skill that can take time to develop.
Happy freestyling!