Oh I still get terrified but I just listen to the music I'm going to use over and over at work (8 hours a day 5 days a week) until it's like a part of me and then I just dance to how it moves me. The thing that really helps with improv, or freestyle as I've heard it called, is to have a wide range of dance movement techniques and combinations down in your head and muscle memory, then you can just do whatever takes your fancy. It's like racing, when I first started I was so busy driving the car and hearing all these sounds (you know it's loud in there!) that I couldn't concentrate on much else but keeping the car on the track. Once I learned the skills necessary to drive on an asphalt circle track I didn't have to think about it anymore, it was second nature; I was then able to focus on getting to the front. Maybe look at dancing the same way, once the movements become second nature you can better concentrate on what movements to actually use at any given moment.

One of the best things that helped me personally was watching hours and hours of performance videos (over and over of course) and just absorbing what I saw, that helped me get over the "what do I do next" problem that I always had. I realized that for most improv you just string together a bunch of moves with good defined transitions and it turns out great, once I understood that and stopped worrying that I would look too repetitive or stupid I was fine. Let me know if you want to borrow any performance tapes (I have all the IAMED Awards ones plus many others) and I'll bring them with me on Saturday.

Scottie, I'm impressed that you're even trying to choreograph! I hate that part - I can barely remember my own choreography, let alone anyone else's! As you can probably guess, I will be improvising :-) Maybe you could improv to the piece you were choreographing to - that way you'll already have listened to it a lot and thought of moves you like.
It took a long time for any of this to come naturally to me too, I felt like a dancing stick for years.

Right now, I'm just hoping I'll be there!! I have a nasty cold I thought would be gone by now...

Oh no! Poor Scottie!!
I know what you mean about feeling cranky before getting sick, I do the same thing (and it always confuses me). I made it through last night without cough medicine, so I'm feeling hopeful today...
Have you tried zinc? It's supposed to be most useful (like actually shortening the cold) for the first 48 hours, though I tend to take it after that too (even though yesterday it made everything smell like bleach - yuk!!) There's a disgusting but effective nasal goo called Zicam, or any lozenges that dissolve in your mouth - apparently letting the stuff stay in your nose/mouth area absobs it where it'll do the most good, or something.

Hope you feel better soon!!!