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 discussed my experience dancing (Dance Competition on 23 February 2008) and my approach to teaching dance.

The warmup 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 warmup. 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 warmup.

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 “shoulder level”. 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. You were developing 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.

Week Two

A few new people (8 to be exact) attended class today, bringing class enrollment up to 22 people! 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 started closer to on time this week - again there was paperwork to complete for the new participants - so much, in fact, that I ran out. The University had not sent me enough! I’m sure by week three someone will have the “who is supposed to be unlocking the studio” problem figured out. as well.

We reviewed the material from last week, including “touchless dancing”, the friction connection, standing with turnout, leading turns and being lead to turn using arm-level and shoulder-level connections.

We discussed “floor craft” - 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.

I introduced a system of turns based on one hand going up (to approx 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 and 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 also 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.

I was in a hurry to get through the cuddle and hammerlock material this week, but we will spend a lot of time with cuddles and hammerlocks. They are very versatile and are the raw ingredients for countless other moves that we will begin developing next week.

Week Three

Again, a Tuesday snow storm! It is now the snowiest winter on record in Madison, beating the previous record set in 1978!

The warmup today included one of my favorite brain teasers, doing the arm sequence with one arm starting a beat later than the other. The idea is to begin to use the motor centers in each hemisphere of the brain more independently, and to actually develop new neurological connections between the hemispheres of the brain! It is also just a fun exercise.

We reviewed cuddles and hammerlocks and talked more about “doors” and “windows” (specific ways to visualize Negative Space).

We developed a two-hand up kind of turn (either the leads or follows turning separately, or at the same time - a barrel roll).

The cuddle-to-tunnel moves and the various sliding door moves were first and foremost an exercise in discovering new ways to interact with the space created by dance partners.

Secondly, it was a way to become 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.

It was also a way to get comfortable with partners of different heights and with different amounts of flexibility. We are beginning to detect another person’s comfort with certain movements and how to modify our own movements so we can avoid injuring ourselves and other people.

Least importantly, we were able to string together a number of moves into a sequence that you can practice with friends or do at a club. The concepts involved with the movement, interacting with your partners, and creating space together is way move important and useful than knowing any one specific move.

Next week, providing my professional partner (Sarah Calhoun) is available during class time, I would like to showcase the routines we will be using at the competition in Indiana on 23 February!

Week Four

Ahhh, the first Tuesday without a blizzard, though I think a number of people had exams and other obligations, or everyone was eager to vote in the WI presidential primaries.

I presented the basic pattern for the Salsa, and discussed a number of counting systems and ways to think about 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 worked more on finding your body isolations and started to discuss rotation and compression, as well as “American Style” technique.

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 Five

My dance partner, Sarah Calhoun, and I competed on 23 Feb 2008 at the Indiana Challenge dance competition. There were eleven couples in our division (American Style Rhythm, or just Rhythm), though only six couples make the finals. Alas, we did not make the finals, but we did enjoy being on the floor and reconnecting with the other competitors.

In class, we spent the day reviewing the material we have covered in the previous weeks. Many people in class are becoming much more comfortable with stringing moves together smoothly.

At the end of class, we briefly discussed Mambo and how it differs from Salsa. I mentioned breaking “On One” and “On Two”, as well as briefly discussed “LA Style” and “New York Style”.

This Wikipedia Article does a good job of describing various elements of Salsa music and dance styles.

Week Six

Our warm-up evolved into several different kinds of turns. Spiral Turns, Pirouettes, and Three-Step Turns. We will use these in various combinations in weeks to come.

We covered a number of school figures (syllabus moves) using the zig-zag pattern. That zig-zag pattern is used (with various adaptations) as the basic pattern in the dances Rumba, Bolero, Cha Cha, and Salsa/Mambo.

We danced to slow (very slow) music to do “Opening Breaks”, “Alternating Under-Arm Turns (UAT)”, “Crossover Breaks”, and “Fifth-Position Breaks”.

Those moves appear in some fashion in the Rhythm (Latin) dances as well as in several Smooth dances. In the weeks that come, we will explore that.

We discussed foot placement (turned out) and foot position (first-, second-, and fourth-position), turning the entire column (collar bone, hip, knee, foot), and 100% committed weight changes.

We also talked a bit about arm styling. Keeping the arms in second-position (to the side, shoulder-level, elbows slightly flexed and held in front of the body) and rotating the rib cage creates interesting lines and defines space well.

I pushed us through a lot of material today. We will definitely go back and make refinements on what we know. Still, I was incredibly excited about what I saw in class.

Week Seven

In the first few weeks of this class, we focused a lot on how to lead well and how to follow well. Creating and using space. Moving comfortably with a partner and in proximity to other people.

We have not left that behind. Working on those elements first, prior to focusing on “the steps / the moves” is intended to make the material we are presently covering much more sensible, much easier to do, and much easier to remember.

We developed four dances from our “zig-zag pattern” or “big basic”, as I sometimes called it.

- Mambo/Salsa (treated as one dance, for the time being).
- Rumba (briefly discussing International and American versions).
- Cha Cha - upbeat, higher energy.
- Bolero - slow, romantic

For each of those dances, the “big basic” is modified in some way to create a new pattern appropriate for the tempo, mood, and emotion of the corresponding music.

We began applying our school figures from last week to the Rumba (Box Rumba / American Rumba).

At the very end of class, we worked for a few minutes on Forward Rumba Walks (which are called Rumba Walks even if we did them in Cha Cha or Mambo, etc). Mainly, we were focusing on maintaining constant contact with the floor (big toes pushing ruts into wet sand), keeping our feet turned out, fully committing to weight changes, and starting to develop some hip action.

At the end of class, in our discussion circle, I made the comment that “Dancing is what happens between the steps.” I pride myself on helping new dancers to develop the skills necessary to actually dance, not just to do moves.

We are only half-way through the class, having now completed the seventh of fourteen classes. Imagine how much more you will know about dancing by the end of the semester.

Remember, no class next week - it is UW’s spring break

Week Eight

We are now half-way through our fourteen weeks together, and I think everyone has made a lot of progress!

By request, today was mostly a review day. Opening Breaks, Cross Over Breaks (New Yorkers), Underarm Turns done to Rumba.

I worked with a number of people on posture and frame, arm positions, and arm styling, as well.

For those of you thoroughly addicted to ballroom (partner) dancing, consider one of the classes offered by Sarah (my professional dance partner)…
    - New Dancer Salsa
    - Finding a Connection, Part I: West Coast Swing