DANCING INTUITIVELY

In this short reflection I would like to briefly differentiate the intuition and deliberation characteristics that Dijkstra et al. have shown in previous articles (Dijkstra et al. 2012; 2013)  while trying to apply them to my practice of dancing. Due to space constriction I will join theory and example. I am a dancer of Breakdance. Since the beginning, Breakdance has attracted me because of the feeling of freedom and spontaneity it provokes in my mind when I am dancing. Due to I have barely received any formal lesson of Breakdance, I consider myself as an “intermediate” practitioner (relatively experienced, modest knowledge) using the Dijkstra categorization. Hardly all the knowledge I have has been obtained trough trial and error method. I found this method directly related with the global processing style displayed by intermediate artist who based their performances and decisions in intuition. According to this, is easily understandable that when I dance spontaneously, freestyling in dance terminology, usually I cannot access consciously to what and how I dance and, afterwards, I cannot remember what I have done. From my point of view, this is a clear example of how the knowledge acquired by experience is commonly displayed in an intuitive (global, implicit and unconscious) way. On the other hand, some time ago, I decided to analyze what I am doing while I train, trying to reflect on my behaviours and my moves in a more conscious way, using a local processing style. This way I can access to the knowledge in a more explicit way, being able to name and describe the steps and moves. So that, in a competition when I am freestyling I have the possibility of remember a sequence of steps (set) and perform it at the rhythm of the music in a more deliberative way. That would be a proof of how the knowledge acquired using a local processing style can be explicitly stated and analyzed in a more conscious way, and applied when it is required. To finish with, might be interesting to remark the point that the intermediate dancer can suffer from deliberation when he has not analyze their moves and he does not control them in an explicit and conscious way. That would happen for example in a competition when the dancer try to remember consciously a set which he has not interiorize using local processing. The dancer might crashed resoundingly by the mere fact of remembrance. Given these circumstances, freestyling may be the most creative and efficient way to perform for intermediate performers whose main objective is enjoy the moment and let them flow.

References

      Dijkstra, K. A., van der Pligt, J., & van Kleef, G. A. (2013). Deliberation Versus Intuition: Decomposing the Role of Expertise in Judgment and Decision Making: Deliberation, Intuition, and Expertise. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26(3), 285–294. doi:10.1002/bdm.1759

     Dijkstra, K. A., van der Pligt, J., van Kleef, G. A., & Kerstholt, J. H. (2012). Deliberation versus intuition: Global versus local processing in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 1156–1161. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.05.001