The Locking Dance Style
June 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: I often get asked what advice I would give to someone that’s looking to get started and learn the locking (Campbellocking) dance style. Here I’ll indulge you in the advice I like to dish out.
The first piece of advice I give out always remains unchanged. That advice is this: go get a locking teacher. A good locking teacher can take you from a complete beginner to an accomplished locker if you be the good student and practise and apply what you learn.
When you learn from a teacher, you will get to learn about how to do the moves and what makes the style work. You also have other benefits such as being able to learn from the teachers’ experience and past mistakes they may have made when learning themselves.
If your teacher is not someone you will meet in real life but a virtual teacher then I would recommend learning from a DVD rather than individual locking tutorials. Tutorials are good for getting started but are never going to be as complete as a DVD will.
A DVD is much more likely to offer you a more complete training, as well as shed some insight into the dance and style as a whole rather than just be centred around certain popular moves.
In addition to regularly learning from a teacher, another important piece of advice I would share is to try and learn from someone that was involved at locking’s inception, someone that was involved in the creation of locking.
No one can give you a better understanding of locking than the people who created the steps, who made the dancing what it is and saw it all through their experience.
I have only been afforded the chance to listen to Don Campbell speak once but it was very educational and gave me a much better understanding of where the dance came from, why things were done the way they were and what they were expressing as they came out to dance.
If you are able to get hold of footage of the lockers, this can be very inspiring and you will be able to watch the creators in action and see where the dance started.
The other piece of advice I share is something which makes learning and growth possible…stick at it. It may take a while to get used to new steps you may learn and to really be able to groove with the music as you dance, but anything worth accomplishing is worth spending time on.
The freedom that comes from being able to just strip away layers and let your personality come out as you dance can be immense. It can become such an uplifting experience to express yourself when that music kicks in that all you want to do is dance.
If that’s something you wish to experience and music can have that effect on you, then stick at it.
Posted in Dancing | 
Tags: advice, Dance, dance style, Don Campbell, piece of advice, someone, style, style work, teacher, virtual teacher