More research on Reflective Practice

As I've been researching more into Reflective Practice I am still trying to understand which most suits the way I reflect. Although I often reflect, never before has it been is so much detail and perhaps sometimes I haven't even know I was reflecting.

Kolbs learning cycle got me thinking as I wasn't quite sure where I entered on his Learning Cycle. As I've thought more about it and researched I feel I enter the cycle at “Concrete Experience” as I definitely learn best from DOING. However I do know that as a Dancer, not a choreographer, I am being taught something, so that also put's me under “Active Experimentation”.

Sometimes I learn a whole routine from someone and I go away to do it by myself and realise I didn't take anything away from that experience by watching and copying and actually I don't completely know what I'm doing now I'm on my own. I've found the only two ways I know I've got the routine is by physically doing it alone and running through it in my head. Sometimes that means physically away from other people so I can't sneak a peak at them and copy.

The other way, is also to be alone and completely focused on the image of myself doing the routine in my head. It sounds a little strange but when other people are around it's so easy to subconsciously watch the person next to you and even end up following them, but there's obviously no one else in your head to follow.

When I was at college I could sometimes feel myself doing this as you constantly dance in front of mirrors and instead of completely focusing on knowing the steps, it's very easy to watch everyone else. I'm sure I wasn't the only person doing this! I remember the reactions from my year when the teachers would say, “Were going to close the curtains now so you can't watch yourself”.

When I first started working I could feel the choreographer's getting a bit annoyed with me as everyone else would be up physically practicing and I would sit alone and visually run through the steps in my head. Sometimes I find it helps as it gives you the thought process of what comes next, so if the steps are new and fresh and not yet muscle memory straight away you can think of what comes next.

However saying all this, it still makes me wonder where exactly DO I fit into Kolb's learning cycle.... any suggestions would be appreciated! =)

Next I moved onto researching Donald Schon, which I must say, is probably my favourite way to understand and process the thoughts of reflective practice. It is put so simply, to reflect – in -practice, and reflect – on – practice. We ideally need to do both to really get the most out of ourselves. As a dancer being able to reflect in action is almost something we do subconsciously I feel, as we've been trained to be able to correct ourselves since we learnt our first steps. It is a wonderful skill to have and effectively speaking we should potentially be able to correct anything and make ourselves perform perfectly! In an ideal world!! But I think this is what all dancers are striving towards..

Reflection on action is also something we should be highly aware of as well because this is the way to be constantly improving yourself. If you have a recording of your dancing you can see the overall LOOK of the piece, as you might have FELT that everything was right but often it can look different.

I came across some interesting points also by Robert Kottcamp. However I feel some of his theories applied more to other profession's rather than my own.

He suggests reflection in action is harder to achieve that reflection on action. I do agree with this statement as I definitely feel it's harder to reflect in action because you have to think quickly and you don't really get to sort out your thoughts, it's almost like one chance to correct or not. So it's definitely harder to achieve but not impossible for a dancer, which got my thinking, is it substantly harder for other's in different professions? Is it harder for a writer to reflect whilst his writing a novel before he goes back to read his work? Is it impossible? Or is it harder for an artist to reflect whilst painting or drawing?

So I definitely see how reflection in action is harder to achieve for many professions but I feel it's very different for dancer as it's such a physical sport that your brain almost reacts automatically so its much easier to train your body to reflection in action. For instance, if your about to fall you don't have to be reflecting in action to stop yourself from hitting the floor, your reflexes will kick in and you'll maybe put a hand down or break the fall somehow. That's not reflection that reaction... is there a difference?