This article is aimed at newbies and people learning new moves. These tips are not move specific.

Question: How do I do "X"?

Answer:

• One hand at a time starting with your dominant hand.

• Do it slow at first, then speed up as you get better. Speed is nothing but blurred mistakes. If you can do it slow than it's easy to speed it up.

• Practice with freshly cracked sticks and low lighting in a room with large mirrors. Try using two different colored sticks so that you can see where each is going. When trying new weaves, hold sticks in your hands to see if your wrists are making the correct motions.

• Watch videos with the desired move in slow motion and think about what the strings and sticks are doing. Break it down. Employ this tactic when inventing your own style also.

• If it's at all possible, practice with other glowstickers with a skill level above that of yours. This will spark ideas and provide drive when it comes to progression. Share basic move ideas but don't copy them directly; make them your own.

• Try glowsticking to music that gets your heart rate going and makes you feel good. When you get into the music you can sometimes do things you couldn't do before.

• Don't practice just for the sake of getting better. Some of the most progressive nights can be ones where you're just playing around and relieving stress. You can come up with all kinds of new moves simply by working on your current moves and getting them so that you don't even have to open your eyes to do them.

Overall, all you have to do is put in time, and lots of it. Don't think of practice as a chore. Let it be play time; a reward for finishing a project etc. Also think about moves in terms of feeling instead of just hand and body positions. The more you play around and practice, the more acute your sensitivity in your wrists, hands, and fingers develops; to the point where you know where the stick is going to go before it even starts there.

If you can't get something right away, don't run to the Glowsticking.com forums and ask for a quick fix; there is no such thing. Instead just put on a CD that gets you going from start to finish and say to yourself, "As long as the CD plays, I glowstick." Use whats left of your mind and think about what is happening, and above all else keep it fun.

- Written by Buddha

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