Learning and retaining choreography is one of the biggest challenges as a dance fitness instructor. Has it ever occurred to you how many songs you actually have to know to teach BollyX or any other type of choreographed-focused class? It’s a surprising amount of moves your brain has to manage to remember!

Below are some simple choreography retention tips. You don’t need to follow this verbatim, but a few of these might help you pick up new choreography easily so you can focus less on what comes next and more on unleashing your inner rockstar!

1. Learn the song before the dance. Choose some songs to download and play them constantly – in the car, walking to work, cleaning the house – any time you can listen to music. You’ll know you’ve done your job when you can’t get the song out of your head
2. Watch the video and follow along. This is a great time to “mark it” or get the basic sensation of the moves without yet mastering them. Try and feel the “pattern” of the choreography. The structure of the choreography will follow the structure of the music, which is why it’s important to learn the song before learning the dance.
3. Listen to the song some more. See if you can remember any of the dance sections that you watched previously. Some parts may stand out in your mind more than others. Make a note of any sections where you are drawing a blank for the movement.
4. Look at the choreography notes. If there are no notes, this is a great opportunity to write them yourself and solidify the movement in your mind. Watch a little bit of the video, pause it, and write out your version of what’s happening.
5. Number each section. Most choreography is repetitive and follows a pattern that matches the flow of the song. Assign a number to each section, and review the pattern in your head as you dance it out. If you aren’t so big on numbering sections, naming them works just as well. Naming sections of the choreography isn’t just useful to you as an instructor – your participants might appreciate when you call out the name of a section repeatedly, and they will more easily recall what they should be doing.
6. Practice without the video. Since you should start to feel really comfortable with the sequence, you want to make sure you know where each visual pre-cue is going to fall and add your style to the movements. If you’re concerned that you’ll forget what comes next, a good idea is to have the video playing behind you as a safety net and turn away from it while you practice teaching the dance.
7. How do you know you’re ready to teach a new song? You can test it out a couple of ways. Try to turn a song on in the middle and see if you know the movement you should be doing at that point. See if you can run the song at least three times without any irreparable mistakes. It’s okay to make a mistake when running through, but make sure you can mess up and move on! Smile and have fun! You’re ready to debut your new choreography!

If you are having a difficult time remembering a song, it might not be the right song for you to teach. If you have difficulty with the choreography, your class will inevitably have a difficult time as well. There is nothing more dissatisfying than taking the time to learn new choreography only to have your class standing and looking bewildered and frustrated.

It’s nearly impossible to learn every song ever released. Don’t put a ton of pressure on yourself to learn it all. While fresh material is exciting, familiar material is comforting. Learning new choreography should be fun, not a chore!

Let us know what your choreography tips and tricks are in the comments below!

About the Author: Laina Vandyke has taught BollyX for nearly two years. Besides teaching dance fitness, she is an informatics director for a Chicago-based health plan, and is an avid student of pole fitness. She lives in the south suburbs of Chicago with her husband, two kids, three dogs, three cats, and a bearded dragon.