My gesture drawing has changed over the years, I worry less about getting the whole figure in and more about the accuracy of each stroke I make.
I would say I have a meandering style of drawing. I start with the head and work down, jumping from one side of the figure to the other for comparative purposes, but always trying to capture the truth of each small nuance in the figure as I go. I don’t really care to get a full gesture done, most of the time when I do that my drawing become formulaic and I’m in my head more than I’m looking at the real person, or photo, in front of me.