Week Ten

At the top of class (while waiting for more people to arrive), I talked about the performance that Sarah and I did on Saturday, 08 November. Here are some photos, hosted on Facebook…

Bolero Routine
Theater Arts (Lifts) Routine

While I’m posting photo links, here some photos from the Harvest Moon Competition in Chicago from October…

Rising Star Pro (Friday Night)
Open Pro (Saturday Night)

I was driving home the point that leading and following is what makes partner dancing interesting and fun. To that end, we we exploring what happens when, while doing familiar moves, the leads (or the follows) let go with one hand. Some outcomes flow better than others, but all outcomes require the lead to be leading and the follow to be following.

From the context of that attentiveness to each other, we revisited our Rumba moves – Cross Over Breaks and Underarm Turns. Those moves require awareness that rotating takes place separately from weight changes. I made the “wooshing” sound effects, and for the musicians I talked about the “and” of the count. Our rotational moves happen on the “woosh” (on the “and”).

We worked on our turnout, making sure our feet were still turned out during Crossover Breaks, for instance. This may feel unstable at first, but it will serve you well to develop this good habit as soon as possible.

Finally, I reminded everyone about the Road Trip to Belvidere on Saturday, 22 November 2008.

Week Nine

Dips! Today was a mess. The excitement of Election Day combined with the fact that I was late to class because I was judging the final projects for the Social Dance PE Elective Class at LaFollette HS. And I didn’t have my keys to the studio, so we danced in the hallway.

We worked on feeling shared weight and counterbalancing our partners. We began to apply those concepts to what I call the “Safety Dip”.

As long as the leads are careful about their body positions and the alignment of their own spines, and as long as the follows are careful to send energy upward (belly button toward the ceiling), we can be pretty safe and comfortable during dips.

I talked about how to bail out of a move. Just lower carefully to the floor, bending your knees – BUTT FIRST!

I also cautioned everyone to NOT allow people to dip you (follows) and to not dip people (leads) unless you are certain the other person knows what they are doing.

Not only is it dangerous, it is disrespectful. With great knowledge comes great power, so be certain you exercise grace and caution when trying these moves outside of class.

Week Eight

We are now half-way through our fourteen weeks together. Everyone is making excellent progress!

Today, we worked on Rumba, doing Opening Breaks, Cross Over Breaks (New Yorkers), Underarm Turns, and Walk-Around Turns for both the lead and follow.

We then translated those same moves into Cha Cha. The music for Cha Cha has a distinctly different feel than the music for Rumba, though the tempo of the music (the number of beats per minute) is pretty close.

Both Cha Cha and Rumba derive from the same Cuban dance, as does Mambo / Salsa.

We talked about LA Style Salsa (slotted, breaks on one), Miami/Cubano Salsa (rotary, breaks on two), Mambo (breaks on two without moving on one), and NY Style (slotted, breaks on two and moves on one). This may be a lot to remember, and I don’t expect you to. Instead, I want you to be aware that the people you dance with at clubs or social dances may have learned a different style of Salsa.

We worked together on clear leading and following. We walked around the room in a practice hold (big wide frame with lifted elbows). We were focused on posture and frame, arm positions, and arm styling, as well.

Week Seven

We are at the half-way point of the semester, and from this point on we will be working on several dances each class. Many dances have moves that overlap – it becomes a matter of recognizing which dance to do what music.

We reviewed a lot of Salsa and worked very briefly on Rumba. I have been focusing more class time on actual dancing. I have also been focusing on conveying the importance of good leading, creating space, and good following.

Week Six

We spent time this week reviewing important concepts from Merengue and Salsa, including our system of turns (one hand up and one hand down, two hands up).

The Cross Body Lead is a very important move in many dances, and we worked on it more in Salsa.

We also began to learn some moves from Rumba, like the Opening Break and Crossover Break.

At the end of Class, Sarah and I demonstrated most of our competition routines. Here are some Photos that the pro photographer at the competition managed to capture.

Week Five

We spent more time reviewing material from the previous week, especially the cross body lead in Salsa.

I am so pleased that so many of you returned the Survey. They have been very interesting and are helping me to present material in (hopefully) a more enjoyable and useful way for more people in class.

In the last 30 minutes of class, we focused on the dance Rumba. We learned the Rumba Box and spent time discovering how to lead / follow with more authority.

Much of my focus up until now has been on equipping the leads with the thought process and skills to lead well.

I have not forgotten about the follows. Follows also should display strong, powerful dancing. It seems to take the leads a little more time to become comfortable with skillful leading than it does for follows to become comfortable with strong, powerful following, so I like to start with the leads first.

Remember, leads move space. Follows move into space. To partner dance well, dancers have an implicit agreement to work within this system. Once the leads are able to manage their part of the deal (or at least recognize the importance of it), the follows can more safely fully engage in their part of the deal.

It is never to early to learn good dancing!

Week Four

We worked more on the Salsa rhythm and ways to apply the moves we know from Merengue in Salsa.

We spent a good portion of the class working on the Cross Body Lead. It is a special way to rotate half a turn (180 degrees) counter-clockwise.

The cross body lead, when combined with the principles we used in cuddles & hammerlocks, leads to a remarkable number of variations.

We worked on a set of moves I referred to as the “Secret Agent” and the “Double Secret Agent”. Some of your were already applying our leading and following principles to create even more moves.

Remember, it’s not about “is this the right move”, but whether the result was fun, well-lead, and well-followed. You could learn a lot of moves, or you could learn the systems involved in leading, following, and developing moves, then use those system to understand the moves you are learning.

We worked more on what is called “American Style” technique – a characteristic way to move your legs and to rotate your hips.

In competitive ballroom dance, there are two broad categories (American Style and International Style) that each encompass two sub-categories.

American Style has “Smooth” (Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, Viennese Waltz) and “Rhythm” (Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Bolero, and Mambo).

Internation Style has “Standard” (Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, Viennese Waltz, and Quickstep) and “Latin” (Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, and Jive).

Each has its own technique, but all still use the elements of leading and following that we are already developing in our class.

My dance partner and I are competitors in what is called “American Style Rhythm”.

Read more about this on Wikipedia.

Week Three

Hello Dancers,

This week we reviewed several key concepts from last week, including the use of space and negative space.

Everyone is becoming more comfortable with the idea of “just going with it” if the move did not happen exactly the way you planned. There are usually a number of ways out of any given entanglement of arms and hands, and finding new ones makes dance interesting.

I presented the basic pattern for the Salsa, and discussed a number of counting systems and ways to think about the pattern, emphasizing that the rhythm is more important than the pattern.

By the end of class we had just begun to apply some of the negative space playful moves we had developed in the Merengue to the Salsa.

We did a lead’s cuddle to a tunnel and combined that with a follow’s hammerlock to the slide-behind-the-follow’s-back-bringing-both-arms-down-and -ducking-under move.

Week Two

Officially, our class has 26 people enrolled! That makes for a large and exciting group. Please talk to me (or email me) early in the semester if there is something about class that you would like me to address.

I love to teach large groups. The energy and excitement that happens in a dance class when a lot of people are really getting involved is very powerful.

We reviewed the material from last week, including the friction connection, standing with turnout, leading turns and being lead to turn using arm-level connections. We also began to develop the characteristic Latin hip action (the rotational action of the hips).

We worked a system for turning based on one hand going up (to approximately forehead-height of the person who will be turning) and one hand going down (so that the wrist is below the elbow on both partners).

By leading hand-across-the-face and hand-away-from-the-face turns with the up-hand while maintaining connection with the down-hand, the lead provides the space for the follows to turn, creating “cuddles” – hand-across-the-face (the cute move) – and “hammerlocks” – hand-away-from-the-face (the one people thought was bizarre initially).

The leads can put themselves into cuddles and hammerlocks by moving their bodies under the up-hand, though without moving either of the hands while in the process of turning.

Floor Craft is the act of paying attention to yourself, your partner, and all of the people around you while everyone is moving and dancing. It is the art of collision avoidance.

Cuddles and hammerlocks are very versatile and are the raw ingredients for countless other moves. By envisioning “negative space,” we can find new and interesting ways to get out of familiar moves. Letting go with both hands always works!

Week One

Hello Dancers,

Each week I will post the highlights of what we covered in class. This is not meant to be a dance manual or a substitute for attending class. Instead, it is here to help you remember what we worked on between classes.

We started with our risk statements, policies, and paperwork. I briefly discussed my experience dancing and competing as well as my approach to teaching dance.

The warm up is the most important part of any dance class – it is the time when dancers learn to use their bodies in new ways. In addition to promoting greater leg and back strength, general flexibility, and avoidance of injuries, we will develop numerous isolations and greater coordination.

Dance classes in other genres of dance – Modern, Jazz, Ballet, Hip Hop, African – all begin with a comprehensive warm up. Partner dancing (ballroom dancing) is another dance discipline equally as involved as those I just mentioned, yet a warmup is frequently missing from many ballroom dance classes. In the ballroom classes and workshops I have taken over the years, participants get through more material more quickly and with greater satisfaction in those classes that began with a comprehensive warm up.

I believe in teaching people how to dance, not just teaching how to reproduce steps, patterns, and figures. It takes a little bit of time to lay this foundation, but it is time well spent. People can learn to be good leads and good follows. Both are skills that people can develop.

The lead’s role is to define space. The follow’s role is to decide how and when to occupy space. Partner dancing is a dialog between two people – each person voluntarily participating in the activity, dancing together. The lead does not tell the follow what to do!

We worked on what I called the “friction connection” – not too hard, not too soft, just right – and that each person is responsible for building and maintaining the connection.

We used the friction connection to begin moving around the room – simply at first and then adding turns. Leads turn their own bodies by creating space under the contact point and moving their bodies through the space. Follows turn when the leads create space that goes in a circle.

We used two of the three socially acceptable regions of contact – I referred to them as “arm level” and “waist level”.

We used simple notions like up, down, across, away, and circle to begin to develop a system for creating moves. We did cuddles & hammerlocks for both the lead and the follow, as well as some hand changes behind the back for the leads.

By the end of the class – when we compressed the group together in one small area – we were using these “levels” to begin to dance merengue.

The leads were actually leading. The follows were actually following. In this class I will encourage you to develop your own creativity. It certainly looked like everyone was having a good time.

I end each class session with a review, in the form of a question. “What is something useful or interesting you learned today?” Everyone gets a chance to answer, because sometimes the best observations and really good insights can come from your fellow classmates.