Japanese Dances.

Everyone knows that Japan has not only the catchiest music, but also amazing dance choreography. I am a dancer myself, but these dances can be extremely tricky to learn, as most might know who attempt to learn the foot work and such. One of the hardest dances, in my opinion, is Strobe Nights by a program called Vocaloid, and in particular the one singing - Hatsune Miku. 

This is the particular video I learned the dance from. The name of the dancer? I am not sure, all I know is that she is an amazing one. As you probably would have figured by now, or already know, Hatsune Miku is the one actually singing the song and that is just a really good dance performing the choreography originally done on a computer program called MMD. Well, that is where it originates from, as far as I know. I will cover MMD and more Vocaloid items in a different entry. This dance may look a lot easier than it actually is, which is common with Japanese Dances. They look easy, and simple despite the mixture of heavy footwork and handwork most of the time. Then, when you actually try to learn the dance, you realize how challenging it actually is. I have been trying to learn this dance for going on a Month now, and I don't even have the full first and second part down yet myself.

For this particular dance though, I will give a few pointers that helps me out to learn it.

[*] Tempo. It's all about keeping with the beat, and believe it or not tending to mouth the words along to the song can help you a lot more than you may think. The lyrics tend to coming and signal certain parts of the songs, and when you learn the lyrics you can learn when that signal is coming and memorize the next part a lot faster than you might without the tempo in your head.

[*] Beat. This one is obvious, in order to keep with the song you need to hear it in some shape or form. Whether singing it, on a computer, or on a CD in a boom box, actually hearing the song makes all the difference. Since this song has such a heavy beat and nearly all the moves blend in with it, having the music particularly loud will be a bit helpful at first, and slowly as you get more into knowing the moves you can turn it down to a normal level. That beat is a larger help than you might believe.

[*] Breathing. Now I understand, when you do such physically demanding dances, you want to pant right afterward or sit down. But don't. You have to control your breathing, make it even so you don't tire. To learn this dance in a short amount of time, you're going to have to practice it far more than once a day. And that's Daily, naturally. The breathing is more important when actually dancing though. It's hard to focus on your breathing, your hands, and your feet all at once, I can understand that as well. But it's very important you don't breathe too slowly, or too rapidly. It can make all the difference. Having a fan on low facing towards you is helpful as well.



Strobe Nights isn't the most popular dance out there though. I'm fairly confident in saying most people now a days either associate Caramelldansen with Japan [it's a swedish song, in origin] or a more popular song like Hare Hare Yukai. And there is no issue in that, Hare Hare Yukai is a wonderfully fun and easy dance to learn, and you can just have a blast when dancing to it with a few friends.

Hare Hare Yukai is so simple though, it's nearly impossible to get winded actually performing the dance, or to be taken as a pro while doing it. Why, you may ask? Because, it's frequently seen and very popular. It's far from the road less traveled on. If you go to You Tube and type in searching for a cover of the song, hundreds - maybe even thousands - of videos will appear to be seen. Nico Nico Douga will be talked about later on in the Blog, so don't even bother counting the entries on there just yet.

Because of it's simplicity, I have no real pointers to this particular dance. But just because it's simple does not been it's not fun or impressive to do. Not everyone can dance, and Japanese dances in particular are much harder than American ones. In fact, I consider Japanese dancing more classy and impressive than the American version of dancing, which is things such as 'grinding' according to most people you may speak to.

I will cover this topic further on in the blog, after covering a few different corresponding ones.