A routine to get good by Christmas?

Hey all - i would like to be good enough to perform by christmas (so i can say ive achieved something in this last year) - i was wondering if somone could suggest some kind of routine...some plan they followed to get good earlier in a staff life.

Someone suggested an hour a night but what kind of different moves should i blend so i can get a 'flow' going?

Ive been staffing it for a while now and am good at general/basic staff, but can't mix horizontal & vertical well at all, and any complicated wraps feel like new moves after a few days avoiding the rain etc.

Thanks for any comments,
nick,
x

well do what you feel comfortable, find what you feel flows best

theres no point anyone suggesting a routine for you

you need to find what you think works

and in terms of time, practise as much as you can

if you find you cant blend vertical to horizontal stuff , then make a point of doing a very blunt change between them, whilst spinning vertically stop the staff sharply horizontally then use a pause then go into horizontal stuff

it's easier to go vertical to horizontal as you can warp the plane, from conveyor pivots you can twist the plane at the pivot to bring the staff into neck spins by not going 100% vertical and using your neck to push the staff round sideways or from spinning in vertical plane stop like sim said with the staff flat like ----------- and go into a steve it's what feels comfortable don't try to force the staff

Play lots with other people. Find some music that relaxes you ( or makes you happy) and play to that. Ben says " do it slower"

I had the same issue a few months ago. I would sugest getting an idea of what kind of presentation you want to do. For instance we shall say 30% contact 40% spinning 15%wraps 15% throws. Your burn time is roughly 3 mins so that is 1.2 min spin 40 sec contact then about 1 min for wraps and throws.
So if you dont have enough tricks your good at to fill that time, you may want to adjust your percentage. Then you practice any difficult move like a throw or contact move multpile times each day. For me I like to practice during game day at least once just so your head knows you can do whatever move that is usually difficult.
If you want to do anything special durning the song like in my case fire eating and breathing. you may want to listen to it over and over again to learn your cues. Try your best to make it a good show but dont expect everything to go perfect because it wont. I still missed cues and had to run songs out of order and do an extra set. If you get the "wow" you know you did it right.

MegCP has a brilliant workshop on practising - how to get the most out of it and such like.

She might come in here later and bless you with her wisdom...

I'd chip in and say that quality is better than quantity.
Though putting the hours in helps with muscle memory, if you're not doing it right, this isn't always a good thing.
I'd do something like set myself a goal per session (whether that's a night, every 2 days, week etc) - like a certain move, practise that until you can do it, not perfectly but you can do it, then spend time playing and polishing other stuff.
So then the next session you're polishing what you learnt before hand and working on something new.

Don't get too ambitious - the goal could be a certain move (Matrix, fishtails, btb catch - whatever), it could be learning something you can already do in the other direction, it could even be "taking what I know and dancing with it"

I presume by "routine to get good by Xmas" you mean a training routine as opposed to a routine to perform?

A key thing I'd say is to ensure you're having fun still, and also that you finish every session on a high - don't struggle with a move, fail to nail it then give up. You'll be pissed off with staff and won't want to return to it. Instead, take a breath, stick a tune you like on and have a fun spin

Of course the key thing here is what you mean by "Good" - even "Good enough to perform" is pretty vague. Perform to who? Friends, family, busking, corporate gigs?
Performance and technical ability are distinctly seperate things - one helps the other, but they're seperate skills in their own right.
If you wanted to be "good enough to perform" in one sense I'd say stop learning moves, and start learning to move/dance with your props and work out an actual performance - if performance was the ultimate goal.


"Better" is always more acheivable - but without meaning to sound too brutal, you're not going to turn into a staff-god in 2 months

I would sugest scopeing out your "stage". That way your not practiceing something that you wont be able to do because of restictions. If all possible practice there. Get a costume even if its cheap.
Make sure you present yourself as a profesional. Don't avoid looking at the crowd and dont turn your back on them unless for a turn etc. Practice pretending there is a crowd in front of you and try to make sure you are facing them 90% of the time.
Remember there is more to a show than just a set. A set is just a piece.