I find I just have to drill a move over and over again until my body gets it. I get very very nervous when someone expects me to be able to follow them right away. (It was a major stumbling block when I studied martial arts.)

For me, what works is slow motion. Run through the sequence (or a subset of it) very slowly, calling out mistakes as they happen.

But I'm going to be a very frustrating student, because I can do something perfectly once or twice and then forget it five minutes later.

I'm not justifying, I'm explaining. I can see a sentence and remember it. A gesture? No.

[And Kristin says it better.]

Betsy, yes. Slow motion and then drill and repeat.

However, spring is currently being reduced by approximately one minute per year and winter by about one-half minute per year. Summer is gaining the minute lost from spring, and autumn is gaining the half-minute lost from winter.

Hrm....Longer autumns are good, but shorter springs? Feh.

For me, what works is slow motion.

Slow motion is an integral part of our teaching process. I do it fast, I do it slowly, I do it from different angles, I do it facing the class, and I do it with my back to them facing the mirror while they follow me.

There are hard parts to this particular move. Keeping the elbows down or the hands up gets complicated because the natural line of motion begs for something else, plus these are positions held during motion. It's part of a slew of things.

Getting everything right is hard for most people.

It's the ending foot position that flummoxes me. Looking down and going "fuck -- not pivoted" and looking sheepish -- been there, done that, will do that again. Looking down and going "no, that's pivoted" when it's not? Alien to me.

I can do something perfectly once or twice and then forget it five minutes later.

In my experience, this is everyone.

Well, it's also possible you are dealing with somebody who is Never Wrong, and therefore that foot is pivoted.

Stage training gives actors very precise control over their movement. It's interesting to watch Stage Beauty, for example. In it, Billy Crudup's every gesture is incredibly crisp and deft (even when he's being langorous) and Claire Danes looks muddy in comparison. It's a matter of knowing exactly where each part of your body is at all times. Movie actors are often used to letting the movement follow the feeling and are not being aware and in control in the same way.

It fascinates me that you say this; I'd expect the movie actors to be better at gesture, because they have to know how not to mask the camera sightlines.

(I believe you; I'm just saying "Whoa, that's unexpected!")

My favourite precision movers are the ones that are quickly responsive. I'm pretty decent about getting the kick to just there or the punch to here. Don't be fucking moving my target after I've engaged though. Then things get messy. I can pull the technique, or damp down the power a bit, but I love watching the practicioners that can roll complex responses (changing the technique entirely, not just direction or strength, for instance) into what they're doing once they've started.

Or are you able to say "these noises -- this motion -- this end position" and work from there?

For me? Absolutely not, and I've probably got a lot more awareness of this kind of stuff than what Betsy describes (no offense meant to Betsy, of course).

Verbal instructions simply don't translate to body stuff -- actually, for me, verbal instructions don't translate to anything. It's the blah blah blah Ginger thing -- I also don't remember anything I heard in a lecture in 20some years of school.

I can learn by experimenting and fucking up, by reading and writing (but much, MUCH, less so by reading alone -- I have to express it in my own words), by solving the problem or banging out the code, by visuals (slowly and painfully). Tell my that I'm leaning forward too much on my lunge? I'll hear you, and say okay, and think I'm changing it, and in fact do nothing different, because the words don't translate to what I'm feeling. At all.

Basically, I had to rewire myself -- study painfully bad pictures (aha! *that's* what everyone's been yelling at me about repeatedly!), and spend many hours on "if I turn this foot 5 degrees that way, how does that feel?..." before I could get the connection. I think it's something that's learnable, but it has to be learned -- and I wonder if, when you talk about your former ring blackouts, you had the same problem and got past it unconsciously. It's not something that comes naturally, though, especially to people who aren't used to thinking/moving/training their bodies like athletes.

And then, of course, how to teach it to other people turns out to be another huge problem, now that I'm convinced that it's not just a case of people not listening.

(edit to say: massive xpostage, and I know you're not just doing verbal instructions, and now sadly I'm off to actually do stuff for a while)