When my partner and I were first learning to dance, our instructor went through a syllabus. But I found it difficult to think "on the fly" about putting together a sequence of patterns. I went blank on things we had learned to do very well in class. What worked for us was to put together a small amalgamation, just a sequence of four or five figures, and do that. Repeating that amalgamation three or four times got us through a dance, and–more important–helped us build confidence and gain experience.