Dyslexia and Choreography

[irishprincess]

So, here's a new challenge......my brother was diagnosed with dyslexia many years ago, and we've all learned on how he learns best. But because the rest of us read so strongly, none of us were tested.....

 

Now, twenty years later, I find out that I have minor dyslexia.....and it's probably what's been slowing my dancing down! While learning choreography, I get so easily confused on which foot, which direction, etc! And because I've never looked at it through these eyes before, I'm wondering how to fix it.

 

Does anyone else suffer from dyslexia who dances? Because I'm afraid I'm at a loss.

[missvjc420]

I was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyscalcula, and dysgraphia at age 6. I read very well, and was tested because I often will write 89 as 98 or were as wre, missing or moving letters and numbers. I actually found ballet to help with this, especially as a child, because there was order and as a child,the excercises were the same every day. After so many years of dancing, I don't have to think about it much anymore, except when I do happen to mix up the order of steps, and then I ask a peer or the teacher to go over the order of the phrase and I go over it in the corner until I get it right. Maybe the type of class where you have set exercises would help? Do you have an idea of what your learning style is?

[Serendipity]

I have a similar problem - was undiagnosed even though I didn't learn to read till I was 13. Don't ask - I've no idea how they missed it. Perhaps I was that good a faker...

 

Anyway, I have trouble with lefts and rights, and always have. I have to have tricks to help me when I learn dances or combinations - like "outside leg" instead of "left leg" (if it's the outside leg). You might have to make up little things on the spot to help you.

 

I also write down the combinations if I have to remember them again (one class is not a set barre, but the other four I take are!!). Just the act of writing it down helps me remember, most of the time.

[balletpointe]

dyslexia seems to be higher in dancers, it is surprising how many people who will be told that they have dyslexic tendencies, jusy remember what you have acheived by your selfs and Albert Einstin was dyslexic.

Some schools encourage children to perform 'brain gym 'exercise working with co ordination and repeated instructions in a fun way, in some ways just like ballet.

[Kitri]

I'm a trainer for children with dyslexia, dyscalcula and other "learning problems" and I regularly use excersises in my lessons, which originally came from ballet. I made the experience, that they are very good for the kids to train coordinaton and the kids like to do it, because it's very different to the things they are used to do in school and to the other brain-gym things we normally do in our lessons. The kids have great fun with it, are learning something that's important for them, and after the movements they have far more energy to do the brain-gym things again.

I think that ballet helps you with your coordination. You will find ways how you can make it for you, like others here said before. People with dylexia are very creative people. so is my experience with the kids. You will find your own special way to do it. And you are not alone. There are lot of more people, who don't know, that they have dyslexia, because nobody diagnosed it at school. And I also know good dancers who did a braing-gym at school.