2C Reflective Theory

In this blog post I will be discussing reflection, others theories of reflection and how they compare to my own.

Recently I found myself in a work situation where I had to critique and analyse myself and the work I was doing very meticulously and thought it would be a perfect situation to really break down and compare my thinking to theorists works such as Dewey, Schön and Kolb. The piece was a pas de deux between myself and a fellow female soloist in the company. The piece involves a lot of difficult lifts, precise timing and unusual approaches to choreographic steps and interpretation. As I do with all new pieces that I learn, I have an initial process that I go through when learning new choreography. I watch any video footage that might have recorded with a previous company, I discuss different approaches towards difficult steps or lifts with my partner or other work colleagues who are in the piece and I always seek critique from the choreographer who is working with us. I know myself that I am definitely a Kinesthic and Visual learner so this approach always tends to work with me to grasp the basics of any new choreography that I am given.

My initial approach to a particular lift that we were struggling to master was the approach I take with all dance works "practice makes perfect" but due to complexity of the work and its unusual style, after many tries and a little frustration I had to take a minute to myself and evaluate this work in a different light. Without even realizing, I called upon John Deweys approach to reflective learning. Dewey thought of reflection as preoccupation or dwelling upon things that puzzle or disturb us and saw reflection and reflective techniques as a forward thinking towards action. I think this approach fits well with my own thinking as if I run into any difficulties I do tend to see them as a puzzle and will approach the solution the same way I would a an actual puzzle, to survery and overview before taking physical steps towards improving and fixing. Before I began working on my degree I wouldn't have given thought to particular learning techniques of theorists who make understanding a learning process so much easier by breaking down and publishing thoughts and processes that we all use to learn. For example David Kolb. David Kolb is an experimental learning style theorist who has this brilliant learning cycle diagram that without knowing I have been using in my professional working life for years.  


As I look at the diagram I assess myself and how I approach different situations and it is an extremely accurate diagram for how I work. From "reflective observation" which would be me referencing to a video, to "converging" which is me putting my thoughts and discussions with my partner on specific difficulties into practice as we "think and do". 


Donald Schön's theory presented the concept of 'reflection in action' and 'reflection on action' and that there are two types of reflection, one during and one after an activity or event. I think that this is a viable approach of reflection and learning when put in regards to dance especially. Whilst reflecting "in action", I don't often find myself with enough time to remember every detail I have thought out in my own head before starting that dance. My mind will be concentrated on other aspects of that dance such as breathing patterns, the next steps, eye line, performance quality and my partner. Often small details will be forgotten or missed which is why "reflection on action" is also extremely useful to me as once I have made it through a particular dance, I can take time to reflect and think about what I would do differently next time and how I can improve my actions with reflective thinking. Reflective techniques by these theorist have been such a large part of my learning experience as a professional dancer and I was completely unaware. 

Having been a dancer for a very long time, it amazes me how many different theorists opinions I agree with. I use parts of all of the theories I have quoted to try and better myself as a professional dancer and also as a person. As people, we are constantly growing and constantly learning and reflecting. No matter if we are reflecting on something very specific like one particular lift in a ballet or if we are casually reflecting on our day, we use reflective methods to improve ourselves and how we approach any situation we are faced with our day to day lives.

Reflection is just a realization of something we have learnt and are learning and it is a powerful tool to take something we are doing or have already done and improve upon it.