Definitive Leading

I've been thinking about leading on a couple of moves and how that's reflected in life.

As a leader it's difficult for me to be as definitive as I'd like.  Some of it is bad habits - I tend to drop my right elbow, my frame isn't as stable and reliable as I'd like, and when I get to thinking I've had several partners tell me they can feel me "go away" in my body.  Well, yes, that's because I'm up in my head.  This is particularly problematic when I'm having challenges with traffic and floorcraft, or when I'm not planning ahead on figures I want to lead.  A lot of the time, I'm late with my lead, or I just can't remember how a particular figure starts.

All this is just stuff that will more or less get fixed by lots of practice and by getting dancing out of my head and into my body.

But there are things about my lead that I have to fix in my head, and that's interesting.

I was working with Mighty Mini-Teach on Foxtrot the other day and we happened to be working on both Grapevine and Senior walks.  They both start the same way, with my second step going outside partner, and I've had a few partners pick up on that and assume we were doing grapevine, when I meant to lead Senior walk.  Or at least I thought I did.  Tenatively.

Anyway, I asked MMT "How do I lead this so you know it's senior walk, not grapevine?".  She said "You have to cut me off".  I tried, tentatively, and she stressed "No, you have to REALLY cut me off".

A lot of the vagueness in my lead is due to my deference to my partner and my lack of confidence in my own moves.  I certainly don't want to be a pushy dancer, but I bet I could stand to make that mistake for a change as a learning exercise and be just fine.  I need to get over myself and be willing to cut off my partner when I need to, and to pay her the respect of just expecting her to follow that.


Definitive, explicit, confident leads.  It's something we both want.

East Coast Swing - Lindy Timing, and West Coast swing

In one of those serendipitous moments of life, I discovered a question I didn't know I had, and got it answered promptly by the universe. I happened upon some youtube videos of local dancers swing dancing wonderfully.

My reaction is one I'm starting to be familiar with.  I could see and hear that it was East Coast swing (edit: it wasn't, technically it was Lindy Hop, or Charleston) but they were doing stuff I'd never seen at all, and I couldn't fit it into or on top of anything I knew.  It was East Coast swing at a level that I couldn't imagine reaching.  God it looked like fun, and I wanted really badly to get there, but I just didn't have basics I needed.

In particular, I could see how they started with a basic - almost, and sort of did a throwout - but not quite, and somehow the timing was being changed up.  I'm watching the dancers, going Yes, Yes, Yes, HUH?


The more you learn, the more you realize how much there is to learn.

But one in a while the universe smiles on you.  At the very next East Coast swing class I took, the teacher said "Tonight we're going to learn Lindy timing".  Well, that sounds good, I love all the East Coast swing I've ever tried, and Lindy hop is like the happiest dance ever,   So, I like the sound of that -  I'm game.  The instructor demonstrated, and what do you know, that's the move that had me looking like a hound dog trying to eat a grape.  I definitely don't have it down, but now at least I have a label, some notes, and something to practice.

I also recently had my first West Coast Swing class ever.  I'd seen others dancing it, but again, didn't have anything for my brain (or my body) to hang on to with it, but it's been on my list to try for a while, because: Swing Fan, and oh my goodness the music, the music, the music.  Al Green, anyone?  "Chain of Fools" and "Mustang Sally" by the Commitments, Eric Clapton, Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, James Brown, Taj Mahal, The Eagles, Prince, Chris Isaak, the Foo Fighters, Joss Stone.  All that stuff that has the Blues in its blood.

So far I've just had the very basic sugar push and an underarm pass.  I like the fact that the dance partners are constantly approaching toward and receding from each other - that's almost a metaphor for relationships right there - and you're still dancing together, you're still connected. It Breathes.  And I like the asymmetry of the figure.  A nice box step is wonderful, but the sugar push has the not-quite symmetry of a tree or a mountain.  It feels a little fractal.

As you can tell, I'm really jazzed about West Coast (musical whiplash warning...)  Even better, my studio is doing a series of classes that build on one another focused on West Coast Swing.

I am so there.


Edited April 2013 to correct my bad guess that what I was seeing was ECS.