The paradigm of leading and following

Lately I've been working with my students on dancing in closed position to work on improving their lead/follow, body movement, and musicality. Despite the fact that I had the partners dancing nearly body-to-body, center-to-center, nevertheless, without fail, many if not most of the leaders would try to use their arms to move the follower, and many of the followers would try to guess where the leader was going.

In my view, this behavior is symptomatic of the general paradigm by which we often dance: the leader moves the follower, and the follower goes where the leader wants her to go.

Think about that for a moment.

The leader moves the follower. He is responsible for moving her from one place to another. Not the follower herself, but the leader does the moving. And the follower goes where the leader wants her to go. Where he wants her to go. The priority is on what the leader wants. And so the leader spends his time focused on moving the follower, and the follower spends her time focused on what the leader wants. And this was playing out in class, where the students were dancing in closed position.

The challenge is to shift our thinking about the role of the partners and the dynamic between them. Leaders should be focused on moving not their partners but their own bodies, and letting the follower respond (aka "body lead"). And followers shouldn't be trying to read his mind but rather focus on moving themselves in response to what they feel from the leader (aka "following").

This is a subtle distinction, but watch how many people have a hard time doing it. Because after months or even years of living with the current paradigm, we so easily slip into what we already know and do. The new paradigm isn't impossible or even too difficult. It just takes commitment, the right training, and lots of mindful effort. But man, think of how great partner dancing could be if we did change the paradigm...

Pay attention to the dynamic you set up in your own dancing, and watch others when you get the chance. Which paradigm are you dancing and seeing? What happens when you try dancing the new one? Teachers, how is your teaching - both the content and the manner - shaping your students' understanding of the role of the partners and the dynamic between them?

The Joy of Blues Dancing

I've written before about how closed position creates more intimacy between the partners, and how it allows the partners to feel out one another together with the music.

Blues dancing is danced to slow blues - the kind that just begs for intimacy - and as such, it is danced primarily in closed position (depending on how much swing you mix into it). Learning blues dancing is a great way for all swing dancers to develop useful skills, such as leading and following, body movements, and musical interpretation.

Because the dance is in closed, blue dancing is a great way to understand leading and following. In closed position, the leader need only focus on the movement of his own body, and let the follower move with him. As a follower, she can learn to surrender to his lead and go with what she feels. With the centers close together, this dance is very much about dancing center to center.

Since the music is slower and in closed position, there is more time to explore body movement, rather than utilize patterns and footwork. With the partners' bodies closer together, it is easier to communicate subtle movements, and it affords us the opportunity to really explore the music with different parts of our bodies.

Finally, because the music is slower, and because we're in closed position, it allows us both the time and the freedom to focus on the music. Without the need to worry about leading and following patterns, we can get down to the fundamentals of movement to music.

Better body leads and follows, more body movements over patterns and footwork, and time to explore the music with your partner. Doesn't that sound like a great recipe for amazing partner dancing?

Have you tried blues dancing? If so, how has it affected your understanding of swing dancing? Teachers, have you thought about using blues dancing to help your students focus on the fundamentals of swing dancing?

Where's your head at?

As many of you know, I switched my teaching awhile ago from patterns to concepts around techniques, partnership, and musical interpretation. But as I work on these other things with students, I realized that outside of class and on the social dance floor, students are used to grounding their dance in patterns, and their mindset is very different under these circumstances. 

The way we teach the dance orients students to think of executing the minutiae of patterns, and in doing so, they lose the forest for the trees. We forget about the fundamentals of lead and follow, the mechanics of the dance, musical interpretation, and even body mechanics and partnership. The challenge then is to be able to execute movements while maintaining (if not elevating) your quality of movement, and that means not letting yourself get lost in the details. 

This month I taught whip variations of increasing complexity, with three goals in mind: (1) improve technique related to whips; (2) improve understanding of lead/follow and the mechanics of WCS; and (3) train students to maintain the first two while executing patterns through proper mindset. 

The challenge wasn't easy, and I confess that not all of my experimentation worked, especially as we moved away from the basic whip to new variations. I noticed that how I taught - where I put emphasis and what words I used - affected the students, but also many of them have been trained as pattern dancers and are learning to form new mindsets and behaviors. Where they were most successful was when I was able to pull them up out of the details to the bigger and more universal concepts of the mechanics of the slot and lead/follow. But then, the trick is to keep them at that level over time...

How often do you get lost in the details of patterns? How do you see your dance as movements and not moves? Where does your mind gravitate while dancing and how does it affect your quality movement? Teachers, how do you instruct your students so they stay focused on concepts and techniques without succumbing to the details and repetition of patterns?

The Choreographer

When I was first learning to dance, I took a lindy hop workshop with a great teacher from Ithaca named Bill Borgida. I don't remember what he taught in the workshop, but something he said stuck with me: "Count Basie is my choreographer." Count Basie is of course the great swing band leader, and his point was that the music was telling him what to do.

We often think of the leader as the choreographer in the dance, or at least the lead choreographer. He is responsible in many ways for setting the tone and directing much of the dance. But ideally what he choreographs is not born solely out of his knowledge of patterns, but rather his inspiration from the music. 

Putting the leader in touch with the music has many benefits. Not only does it create a more musical dance, but it makes his choices clearer to the follower, who can hear what he's trying to choreograph. This should also make it easier for the follower to engage and add some choreography of her own, knowing that she is on the same page as the leader, both of them connected by the music. It should also be a bit of a relief for the leader, who can let the music guide his leading rather than having to come up with moves on his own.

Who do you think of as the choreographer in the dance? Who is it now and is that how you want it to be? Teachers, how do you help your students to understand choreography and its relationship with the music?

Give a little more

As I noted in an earlier post, there are a lot of pattern dancers out there - people who know the beginning, middle, and end of what's next before it even begins. They don't necessarily connect with the music or adapt their patterns to fit what they're hearing.

This is where pattern extensions come in. A pattern extension is when a dancer adds an even number of beats to a movement to either delay its conclusion or delay the start of the next movement. They generally fall into three buckets or types:

• Repeated movements, where the partners' positions relative to one another are kept the same but they keep moving;
• Stopping, where the partners hold still for a period of time; and
• Continuous movement, where the partners add movements in a fluid way to keep moving and delay the end of the pattern.

Aside from executing them clearly and comfortably, the trick, of course, is to use these pattern extensions where the music calls for them. Repeated movements (e.g. continuous whip, walks, side-to-side grooving, etc.) are best applied where - you guessed it - the music repeats, either lyrically or rhythmically. They are also useful where the music slows down and you want to slow down your dance as well. Stopping is most appropriate when the music stops or drops off in a significant way, either during breaks or as a transition to a lower energy part of the song. And continuous movement is useful to lengthen patterns where the song builds up, so that you keep moving and building while the song does the same. And I often use repeated movements and continuous movements for phrasing, particularly to extend a pattern to end on 1 of a new phrase, rather than ending during the build up to a phrase change.

We often learn pattern extensions by learning patterns or amalgamations that have extensions in them, but learning to view these tools separately and apply them where relevant is a valuable skill to have - for both leaders and followers. Leaders can use them to adjust their patterns to the music, while followers can use them to appropriately interrupt patterns to fit them to the music.

How have you learned pattern extensions? How do you think about them and use them? Teachers, do you teach your students about pattern extensions, and if so, how?

Choose Your Own Adventure

When we learn patterns, we learn them from start to finish. We're shown the beginning, the middle, and the end and how they flow together. We learn them with a set rhythm, a set timing, a set progression.

And that's the problem. Patterns are taught as whole units with a prescribed beginning, middle, and end. Once a leader starts, he moves towards the end that he was taught follows the beginning. And followers in the same class also develop the same expectation, which is only reinforced when the leader does as he was taught. In this way, both leaders and followers become what we call "pattern dancers."

And so we usually know the end when we get started. As a result, we lose a sense of spontaneity and we take away creative opportunities - opportunities to engage with our partners and to respond to the music. If both partners know the set pattern, it's all too easy to disengage from your partner and just go through the motions. After all, you don't need their guidance or assistance because you already know the end of the story. And of course set patterns may or may not fit the music well, but if the partners aren't open to new endings, then they each take away the chance to adapt to what they're hearing.

I don't often teach patterns anymore, but when I do, I try to teach at least two or three similar "patterns" but each with some unique variation. (Think of whip variations.) It helps the leaders to disconnect beginnings from ends and see that each is an element that can be pieced together in different ways. It also tests their ability to lead - both in terms of thinking on their feet as well as seeing the options and executing clearly. For followers, they are programmed to pay attention, expect the unexpected, to not know the ending, and therefore to be open to more possibilities. This makes them stronger followers and better partners.

For me, much of the joy of West Coast Swing is in the spontaneous creation between the partners with the music, but to have this we need to break down patterns into elements of movement and to be open to piecing them together in different ways. That way together we get to choose our own adventure as we go along.

How have you been taught patterns and how has it affected your dancing? Do you notice pattern dancers while you're dancing, either in yourself or your partners? Teachers, do you pay attention to how the way you teach patterns affects your students' dancing? Do you have methods to help avoid training them to become pattern dancers?

Navigating a crowded floor

We've all been there. All too often. The couple that keeps intruding on our slot. The guy who leads his follower right into us. The woman whose arm styling means a whack to the head. The floor that's too crowded.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people just don't learn how to dance on a crowded floor. At the same time, how often do we teach people how to dance on a crowded floor? Let's face it: the dance class is an idyllic environment compared to the social dance floor, where people tend to have enough room and they are hyper-aware of themselves and those around them under the watchful eye of a teacher.

Every now and then I get around to teaching a class on floorcraft - the art of dance floor navigation and etiquette. Here are ten tips for successful dancing on a crowded floor:

1. Look around you. Seems obvious enough, but we tend to get focused on what we're doing and lose sight of how what we're doing fits into the space around us. Leaders in particular should look to where they are sending their followers, before sending them there.
2. Narrow the slot. Pretty obvious here too. If there's less space on the floor, then occupy less space.
3. Use the slot you have. Leaders, if you don't have room for a full slot, consider dancing with half a slot, think about what you can do in closed position, or maybe use a change of places to keep the flow of your patterns.
4. Keep things simple. Not only are simpler moves less risky to execute successfully, but it's also easier to interrupt a simpler move to make course corrections. This goes for leaders and followers.
5. Learn to abort smoothly. If someone moves into your slot as you're executing a move, find a way to gracefully change the ending. Cutoffs and moving into closed position are great options for leaders, while bending the slot and pattern extensions are helpful tools for followers. (Remember: Communicate kindly to your partner.)
6. Protect your partner. If your partner is going to get hit or is going to collide with someone they can't see, let them know. A simple squeeze of the hand is usually effective.
7. Adjust your frame. Your body is yours to control, so if you have less space, adjust your frame so it's shorter (but not tighter). Leaders, think about the timing of your anchor and how much counterbalance you provide, and followers think about keeping a closer relationship between your center and hand.
8. Consider moving your slot. If the space at either end of your slot is too cramped, think about shifting your slot to open space left or right (assuming you're not moving into someone else's slot).
9. Be sure to finish. Remember that good communication depends on good connection, and good connection comes from good movement. If we don't finish patterns by moving our centers into or away from our partners, we won't create extension or compression, and we'll have a harder time communicating in an environment where communication is even more important.
10. Apologize. We're both responsible for a successful dance, so take responsibility when something goes awry. (You'd be surprised how often people don't acknowledge collisions and other accidents or check in with their partners.)

The joy of partner dancing is that we get to share in the experience with someone else. So let's all do our part to make sure everyone has a good time.

What do you all do to adjust to crowded floors? What are some of the biggest dangers you've encountered? Teachers, how do you prepare your students and teach them floorcraft?

Leading and following naturally

My apologies for the long silence, but as many of you know, my life has gone through a lot of change over the last few months. I'm happy to say that I'm back online and I've got a backlog of posts awaiting your reading and feedback! - Eric

Anyone who has ever walked somewhere with someone else already knows how to lead and follow. And if you've ever walked down the street holding someone's hand, then you know how to lead and follow... while holding someone's hand.

If you've done this you know how to move in a way that guides the other person and in a way that responds to another person - without forcing them, without manhandling them, without hanging onto them. You already know how to move yourself in a way that communicates with someone else without using words.

It's my belief that the reason so many people struggle with lead and follow is because we as dance teachers give them all sorts of information that distracts from what they already know. We focus you on how to hold hands, how to hold your arms, where to lead, and where to put your feet. Plus, we teach classes focused on patterns, where the leader learns how to move the follower and the follower learns to do what he wants. The result is a mindset in which "leading" becomes equated with "dictating" and "following" means "being forced."

I started working with my students last month to shift the current paradigm, attempting to define "leading" and "following" as something other than "move" and "be moved." For the leaders, we looked at the physical change in leading that results when you think of it as "inviting" - invite the follower to go down the slot, invite the follower to go under your arm, invite the follower in and back out. The body movement is the same, but nature and feel is more relaxed, more natural, and, well, more inviting. For the followers, we looked at just going where you were being directed. The followers assume the responsibility of moving themselves, which improves their posture, balance, and ultimately their body flight. It also takes the mental focus off of the leader and puts it more on what they feel, which helps to avoid anticipation and anxiety about what is being led. The result for both partners is more in line with what we do naturally when we guide and are guided through physical contact.

It never ceases to amaze me how much our mindset affects and influences how our bodies move and react. By returning to what our bodies already know, and adopting a different mindset about what it means to lead and follow, we can establish a more relaxed, trusting, and stable partnership, which opens the possibilities for collaboration and creativity.

How do you think of leading and following based on what you've learned? How does this new paradigm above make you think about your role in the dance? Teachers, what do you think about leading and following and does the way you teach reinforce that idea or something else?

Round and round

People just can't get enough of turns. Guys lead 'em all the time (some more than they should) and ladies are fixated on them - learning them, working on them, mastering the really difficult ones (like the ubiquitous yet frequently unnecessary one-footed skater spin).

With so much turning going on, and so many spins and turns classes, and so many private lessons dedicated to the subject, it's a wonder that so few people really excel at turns - either following them or leading them. Sure, there are plenty of naturally gifted dancers, or those who somehow get it right, or those who have years of classical training under their belts. But there are lots of people who don't have these advantages and still struggle to follow or lead turns comfortably and satisfactorily.

In pretty much every spins and turns class I've seen, I've watched as the instructor explained in great detail where to put your feet, how to turn on the ball of your foot, and how to execute the timing of your footwork. The thing is, we don't turn from our feet. We turn from the same place we always do: our centers. And so teachers make lots of corrections - to your posture, to your arms, to your hips, to your shoulders, to your knees, etc. And then we as teachers expect you to make all of these corrections, even as we pull your brains in half a dozen different directions. Doesn't that sound easy?

It's not that your footwork isn't important. It is. Along with all the other corrections any good teacher will make. It's just that focusing on the center can in and of itself fix a lot of the other problems that dancers have with their turns: incorrect posture, being off balance, tension in the arms and shoulders, not traveling down the slot, slowing down during turns, and many more.

So how do you focus on your center when doing turns? Thinking about the preparation, execution, and finishing of turns in this dance, I would suggest three key pieces of advice:

1. Move your center down the slot to make sure your weight is forward over your feet and to establish linear momentum that will carry you down the slot while you turn.
2. Turn your belly button around during the turn to ensure you're turning from your core and maintaining your momentum through the turn.
3. Take your center back at the end of the turn to fix any misalignment of your posture, secure your center over your foot, and prepare to anchor.

Spotting your leader will also help (I suggest a soft spot as opposed to the whiplash-inducing hard spot), as will prepping with the center (reaching the sternum forward to expand the ribs in a way that moves your arms outward). Both of these techniques amplify the movement of the center through the rotation.

The center should also be the focus for leaders. At the start of the pattern, leaders should provide a clear linear body lead down the slot before leading any turns or rotation. The prep should then be led from the center, and while the turn will be executed using the arms, the arms should gently guide and shape the follower's movement rather than changing or disrupting it. In short, the leader should do the least necessary with the arms, always guiding the follower down the slot with his center, and always paying attention - to her feet, to her balance, and to her timing for multiple turns.

What do you think of focusing on the center instead of other areas for improving turns? What issues do you face with your own turns and how might focusing on the center improve them? How were you taught to turn or to lead turns? Teachers, what is your approach to teaching turns? What techniques or exercises have you found most effective for your students?

Push it real good

Alright, people, we've got to address a serious problem facing our community. We've all faced it, felt its effects, and yet we continue to let it permeate our dancing.

That's right. I'm talking about our failure to properly compress. 

Let's get something straight: compression is a kind of connection, and connection is the result of movement. In this case, the movement of one partner towards the other, or both partners towards each other. Compression happens as the partners get close together and reach the closest they can get. The prime example of compression is the push break, one of the most basic and fundamental patterns of the dance, where the follower moves into the leader, creating compression, and then is sent back to the end of the slot.

So compression happens as one partner moves closer to the other, but it's not so simple - there's more to it than that. In order to create compression, some fundamental technique must be in place. 

For one, the partners must maintain their posture, such that they are moving from their centers and their centers are in front of their feet. At the same time, they should be holding their own weight, and not leaning forward such that their partner are supporting most of their weight. Of course, all too often, during a push break, you see followers who not only don't bring their centers forward, but actually lean back, reaching with their feet and pushing their hips forward instead.

This leads me to the second important technique: following through. On a push break, the compression results from the follower moving into the leader, but frequently followers slow and stop themselves before they get to full compression. Not only is this anticipating (and thus poor following) but it is poor technique and sacrifices proper connection. The follower must continue and go forward as far as she can, making the leader do the work of slowing her down and stopping her by absorbing her weight as she comes in. (The leader should allow the follower to come in and compress, rather than abruptly stopping her by keeping his arms out in front of him. Which leads me to my next point...)

Third, we call this compression because there is actual compressing involved - compressing of the frame. If the arms, shoulders, and elbows are relaxed (as part of proper frame), then as the leader draws the follower in, his hands will get closer to his center, and as the follower moves into the leader, she will move her center in towards her hands. As a result, the distance between the partners narrows, and the pattern is literally compressed. This elasticity in the arms is also what creates the elasticity in the connection, providing a build up of energy during compression that facilitates the movement out of compression.

Finally, while some people may learn to create compression by doing all of the above, there is still the matter of properly and effectively exiting from compression. If compression results from the follower moving into the leader, then the next natural movement is to have the follower move away from the leader. As always, whenever there is a change of direction, the leader should initiate from his center (rather than his arms) and the follower should wait for his signal and then be proactive in her response. On top of this, the partners should not push the other away - pushing engages the arm muscles and creates a jarring experience for the partner. Rather, the leader should initiate the follower away with his body only, and the follower should send her center away from her own hands (the reverse of compressing). This is not only a more comfortable way to exit, but it ensures both partners maintain their posture and thus are more balanced and stable in their movement.

Compression is a difficult to master as extension, though we rarely spend as much time working on it. However, a focus on maintaining the fundamental technique of movement - from the center with proper frame - can dramatically improve one's compression along with any other change in connection.

What are your observations of how people compress on the dance floor? What goes wrong and when does it feel right? At what point in your dance education did you first learn compression and what were you taught? At what point after you first learned about compression did you feel you learned how to do it properly? And teachers, how do you approach the subject with your students? What exercises or approaches have you found to work best in order to help your students understand and execute properly?

You wanna know the Big Secret?

What's the difference between an average dancer and a really good dancer? If both do the same patterns and movements, why does one look smooth and graceful and the other less so?

Sure, one is more technically proficient than the other, and one makes nicer lines than the other, but if you ask me, the difference is really rooted in one particular aspect of technique: moving from the center.

In the past, I have often tackled multiple aspects of technique that I believe make for better dancing, but I have found that each of these can draw the student's mind in a different direction, making it more difficult to achieve any significant progress in one's overall dancing. It's like moving one part of a Rubik's cube, only to discover that you now have to move even more pieces into place. However, in recent years I've found that getting the student to focus on the center produces much faster results and tends to improve many different aspects at once.

Earlier this week, I taught a class designed to enhance the students' connection by working on moving from the center. We looked at how to improve body lead and follow at the beginning, middle, and end of basic patterns. At the beginning of the pattern, we focused on both partners moving from the center first. For leaders, this means moving the center before the hand, moving backwards from the center. For followers, we worked on moving the center forward before the foot. In the middle of patterns, we looked at continuing the motion initiated at the beginning of the pattern. For leaders, this translates to pointing your center where you want the follower to end up, and for followers, it means continuing down the slot, keeping your center ahead of your feet, and making sure your center is following your hand. And at the end of the pattern, we looked at moving backwards into extension, where both partners move their centers back while maintaining correct posture.

The idea is simple; the execution is not. Of course, nearly all students walk into class with the right technique. And so, as I often say, it is our job as teachers to remind the students how to walk, that dancing is really just "walking... with style" - and no dance more so than West Coast Swing.

What do you think about moving from the center being the root of so many issues? What problems does this not fix? How have you improved your ability to move from the center and what have the results been? Teachers, how do you work on this with your students?

Ready... set... what?

Raise your hand if you've ever been confused when doing a starter step. Don't be shy. It happens to all of us.

In fact, I often hear (from followers, in particular) that during the starter step, people are just unsure of what's happening. And when I hear this, I can't help but think about how terrible this is. As the dance gets started, people are lost. Right from the get go, you don't understand your partner and you don't feel comfortable. What kind of foundation is that for a successful partnership and dance?

So what's the problem? Why are people so confused? The answer is simple: connection - or lack thereof.

I find that lots of people just don't know how to dance in closed - how to physically connect, how to communicate to their partners, how to make one another comfortable. And to be honest, when starter steps are confusing, it's usually the fault of both the leader and the follower. Leaders don't know how to hold the follower properly, how to communicate clearly and effectively from their centers, and how to ease into the dance rather than rush into things. Followers don't know how to connect to the hand on their back while maintaining their posture, how to fill the space he creates, and how to trust what the leader is giving them.

We start the dance in closed for a reason: being in closed allows you to connect with your partner, get in synch, get a sense of how your partner moves and how your partner feels the music. For these reasons, I often joke that in the first eight beats of the dance you'll know 90% of what you need to know about your partner. (What's the other ten percent, you ask? Knowing how they lead and follow turns.)

The point is: we should be starting off on the right foot (left for leaders, haha). Learning to connect in closed and do the starter step so both partners are comfortable and on the same page is so important for everything that follows (and leads, haha).

What has your experience been with starter steps? Have you had trouble, and if so, why? And what do you do to start the dance off right? What have you been taught to do for the starter step? And what do you teachers tell your students when teaching the starter step?

Musicality done right

One of the greatest challenges of any partner dance is balancing the partnerships: the partnership with your physical partner, and the partnership with the music. Too often we sacrifice one for the other, rather than finding ways to engage both partners equally and at the same time.

The other night I worked with students on phrasing the dance to twelve-bar blues. The challenge was to be musical - to hit the phrase change but also to reflect the build up to the phrase change - and to do so in a way that was comfortable and engaging for both partners.

To do this, we practiced listening for the upcoming phrase change and picking patterns or stylings that would set up the partnership to be musical together. These selections were higher in energy and intensity but were simple enough that both partners could successfully and comfortably hit the phrase change, in some cases even providing the opportunity for each partner to hit the phrase change in their own way.

Lots of dancers can hear the phrase change coming, or recognize it when it occurs, but it takes some thought and skill to be able to plan for it, let alone do it in a way that engages your partner. Planning for the phrase change is how we avoid the last minute "attack" - the rushed and often tight movement to hit an accent or break. These "attacks" create tension and discomfort, rather than providing a comfortable and more relaxed approach that allows both partners to remain stable and to express their individual musical response to the phrase change.

How do you - as a leader or follower - engage your partner in musicality? How do you strike that balance between the partners, creating opportunities instead of commanding your partner in some way? And how do you set up things like phrase changes so that both partners can engage in a comfortable and stable way?

Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Dancing: Part 2

Sorry for the long delay, but picking up where my last post left off... (The rest of this list reorganizes - and adds to - what I taught in my last class at Arlington in August 2010, but it also includes the same material and principles.)

6. Following through. For followers, this means following momentum to its end. Too many followers slow down or stop themselves before they should. Instead, followers should go as far as they can go in any direction, and let the leaders tell them when to change direction (see #7 below). For leaders, this means using your body to direct the follower. Leaders often get the follower started without directing her to where he wants her. Once she's in motion, leaders, you need to point your body where you want her to end up. This creates a body lead through the pattern, and not just at the beginning.

7. Understand your responsibilities. I realize we're starting to get a little abstract here, but dancing is more than just the physical. It seems to me that a lot of dancers forget what their responsibilities are in the dance. Leaders are primarily responsible for changes of direction; once you set the follow in motion, your job is to signal any changes, and to do so in a clear yet comfortable way. Followers are primarily responsible for themselves and their own movement; the leader should not be in charge of moving you, but rather he should be in charge of signaling where and how you should move yourself. Too often followers move themselves through the transitions and leaders force the followers through the middle of the patterns. This is the opposite of how it should be.

8. Understand your role. Similar to understanding your responsibilities is understanding your role. (You can think of it as your tasks vs. your approach to doing your tasks.) The leader's role is to guide the follower and politely ask her to do something, or even just suggest ideas. The leader is the follower's guide - her director, her point of reference, and her support - but not her commanding officer - her dictator and overlord. Followers should respect the leader's role - his vision and intent - and respond affirmatively, but she can and should also actively participate by communicating effectively. Remember: dance is a conversation, so this should be a back and forth, but not talking over each other and not ignoring or interrupting what the other person is saying.

9. Musicality. Yeah, I know, I could write volumes on this subject, but I just want to emphasize one point here: dance is the physical expression of what we hear and feel. It's all too easy to get lost in patterns as a leader, or stylings as a follower, but remember that there's a difference between doing a dance and dancing. Doing a dance is putting a series of patterns and moves together, but has nothing to do with music, while dancing itself is moving to the music, regardless of the patterns. The trick is to take the movements of the dance and fit them to the music we're hearing. Let the music be your guide whether you're a leader or follower. Easier said than done, I know, but it's the ultimate goal we're all striving for.

10. Pay attention. I know this probably seems trite, but it needs to be explicitly stated. If everyone just paid more attention to their partners (yes, you have two - your dance partner and the music!) our dancing would be better overall. When leaders don't pay attention to the follower, they end up using her and treating her as an object rather than a person. When followers ignore the leader they interrupt the dance and create unnecessary tension. And when both partners ignore the music they stop short of having an experience where they both share in the interpretation of what they hear. Most of you know how to drive, so you know what it's like to pay attention to a lot of things at once (speedometer, radio, traffic, person in the car with you, checking your mirrors, etc.). Dancing is the same way: there's a lot going on but you've gotta try and keep your eye out. Start by paying attention to your dance partner, and then try alternating that with paying attention to the music. It gets easier over time.

What about you? Do you agree with this list? What do you think is the single most important difference between good partner dancing and great partner dancing?

Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Dancing: Part 1

For my final two weeks of classes in Boston, I figured I would go all out and strike at the issues I see as most critical for dancers in our community. As an observer in the scene, I find the same problems persisting on the social and competitive floors, and as an instructor, I find myself repeatedly teaching the same things in private lessons and group classes: fundamentals that make the difference between poor execution and a higher quality of movement.

So I sat down, wrote a list of the top 10 problems I see with people's dancing and then came up with 10 things that I believe make the difference between okay dancing and higher-level dancing. They aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact there's a lot of overlap. Not everyone has all of these issues, but most people have at least some. Here's the first half of what I came up with (the second half will be my next post!):

1. Posture. This is a big one - bigger than most realize. Partner dancing is only successful with good communication, and good communication is only possible with good connection. Good connection is created by good movement, and good movement is only possible with good posture. Posture determines balance and stability as well as how one moves. Too often I see people leaning back or with arched backs, which means poor movement, poor connection, and thus poor partnership."Good" posture is the vertical alignment that reduces strain on your body and positions it for efficient movement. In this case, that means standing tall and with forward pitch.

2. Frame. You all have felt bad frame: tight arms, jerky leads, follows who pull. I'm not sure how other teachers handle this subject, but my point is always that your arms don't matter. Frame is not a prescribed shape of the arms or tension in the arms, shoulders, or elbows. Frame is in the back and torso - how you connect your arms to your core - and connection is created by movement of the centers, not through engaging the arms. Don't worry about the arms; focusing on the arms unintentionally puts tension there. To establish good frame, all you have to do is stand tall and lengthen your neck. In doing that, you'll engage all the right muscles - in the back - that you need to establish proper frame.

3. Basic hand hold. In open position, we connect through the hands. Somehow this becomes an awkward and difficult thing for people. Maybe it's how we teach pistol grip, or the fact that we often fail to sufficiently address problems with hand holds as students progress (or as they hurt us on the social dance floor). Still, there it is: the thumb on the back of the follower's hand, or the leader grabbing the follower around the wrist (what's wrong with her hand?), or the follower who straightens her fingers, or worse, the follower whose grip is so tight the leader's fingertips are white. I know this sounds like an oversimplification, but really, truly, you're only holding hands. Seriously, just as if you were going to walk down the street together, you're holding hands. The leader should offer his fingers for the follower (leader's palm facing sideways, not up or down) and she should curl her fingers around it, both partners engaging their fingertips - and not their palms - to mold to each other. The connection here should be comfortable, solid, and flexible (meaning you can enter, exit, and change this connection with ease). No thumbs, no engaging the palms or wrists, no straight or stiff fingers.

4. Closed Position. I often remind students that nearly everything you need to know about your dance with someone you can tell in the first 4 beats of the music, and this is because you can tell a lot about someone's abilities by how they connect and move in closed position. Maybe it's because the dance is mostly in open, but there isn't a lot of emphasis on connecting in closed, despite the fact that it involves a lot of the fundamentals of the dance itself. In any case, the primary point of connection in closed is where the leader's right hand is on the follower's back, since it is the closest point of contact to the center. The follower should not lean back into this, but should back up until she cannot back up any further. She should not reach for the leader's shoulder (as so many do) but rather connect in the back first, and then casually lay her left arm along his right, letting the hand lay wherever is comfortable (often not the shoulder). Leaders should hold the follower's shoulder blade, not with the fingertips but as if he was going to hug her. As noted above, there is no tension in the arm, just the connection of her shoulder blade in the hand. Both partners should settle away from one another, to fill out the space between them and get a better connection. I could go on and on here, but let's leave it at that.

5. Moving from the center. I've written before about the need to move from the center first, and it is the most critical issue on this list, largely because this is at the root of all other issues. I see lots of followers moving forward feet first and leaders moving backwards shoulders first and both are dramatically affecting their balance, timing, and connection. I see leaders who move their arms instead of their centers, creating arm leads. I see followers who turn from their feet - and arms! - rather than with their centers, creating imbalance, instability, and poor timing. The ability to move from your center first into every step you take is critical to good dancing.


Rather than exhaust you further with the full list, I'll save the other half for next time.... So stay tuned!

So how do I know if I'm hijacking?

In an earlier post, I put forth my definition of "hijacking" and explained why I think it's a bad thing - disruptive, disrespectful, and just not nice. When we touched upon this subject in my classes last week, the followers understood that hijacking is a bad thing, but a question remained: how does a follower avoid hijacking? If the follower can - and is even expected to - participate in the dance, what is the difference between hijacking and playing or otherwise participating?

For me, it comes down to one thing: leader's intent. What was the leader indicating at the time the follower interrupted? Which end of the slot was he sending you to and which way were you turning? To ignore the leader's intent and change the nature of the pattern/movement is to hijack.

Think of the airplane hijacking analogy: If a pilot was headed southwest from New York towards Los Angeles, then redirecting the flight to London or even Boston would be hijacking. However, heading towards Los Angeles but "taking the scenic route" - a different and perhaps longer route that nevertheless heads in the same direction towards the same destination - would be playing.

Okay, so now you want to know what this means in practical terms. Let's say you interrupt a tuck (left side pass or sugar) on count 3 or 4 of the pattern. By this point the leader has raised your hand to signal an outside or right turn, and his body should be signaling which end of the slot he wants you to head towards. You can interrupt, play, extend, etc., but hopefully you will respect the leader's intent: you'll still finish with an outside turn towards the suggested end of the slot. To me, to do an inside turn or go to the other end of the slot (other than the one he intended) is to hijack.

Of course, that sounds somewhat conservative (even to me, now that I reread it!). But there are three things to keep in mind here. One, when you agree to dance with someone, you agree to take on assigned roles: one of you will be the leader, the other the follower. And it is understood that the leader will do much of choreography and that the follower for the most part will follow his choreography. That said, the second thing to keep in mind is that a good leader should and will select choreography that invites or encourages a response or participation from the follower. In an ideal world, she, in turn, might do something that provokes a response, and the two partners spend the whole dance working off one another in what is truly a conversation or dialogue. (All of this conversation, naturally, would revolve around the music.) The third thing to keep in mind - and perhaps the most important thing - is that there are always exceptions to the rule.

I have danced with followers who have hijacked and I have danced with those who broke the rule of not hijacking. There is sometimes a fine line between hijacking and not not hijacking, and I'll be the first to admit that leaders will vary greatly in their perception of what is or is not hijacking.

But being the intellectual nerd that I am, I've found that there are three criteria that make not not hijacking acceptable to me:

1. What she does must be musical (so that it makes sense, has purpose, and is clear to me); 
2. What she does must be effectively communicated to me (so I am prepared and not lost); and
3. What she does must be really damn cool (in other words, worth it to interrupt what I was doing to do her thing). 

Ideally, what she does also involves me or engages me in some way (other than asking me to catch her when she suddenly drops) but if she wants to take a moment to herself I really don't have a problem with that as long as it meets the criteria above.(For the record, this isn't impossible - a few advanced followers who are good communicators have not not hijacked while dancing with me.)

Again, I admit that hijacking and what is acceptable and what is not are subjective and vary from dancer to dancer. Maybe I'm really conservative in my viewpoint (though I believe there are others far more conservative than me), but I can say that I love a follower who participates and plays and dances when I'm leading. Honestly, I bore myself easily and I like the back-and-forth, having something to work with and play off of; it can be really stimulating and inspiring. That said, I do hate it when a follower repeatedly ignores what I lead to do whatever she wants. I think it's fair to say that any dancer would agree with me when I say that I am not a tool to be used for one's selfish means but a partner to be respected, acknowledged, and listened to.

In my classes I teach followers to push the envelope a little bit - to walk that fine line between hijacking and not hijacking. I do this mainly to teach followers the proper communications tools but also to encourage them to push the envelope a little bit (given that most followers don't play at all or very little). However, I remind followers that there is a line, and for me, it is defined by leader's intent.

How do you distinguish between hijacking and not hijacking? Followers, what guidelines do you use when following? Leaders, do you really care if she hijacks? Am I the crazy one here laying out rules or do you agree that there's a limit to the follower's playing? What is that limit? And teachers, what do you teach your students about playing and hijacking?

Followers, learn to speak up

Hi all - I've created a Facebook group for Naked Basics where we can all gather to connect with others who read or post to this blog. Start putting faces to names and getting to know others who share a love of dance - and an intellectual discussion of dance. And please spread the word about this blog and the Facebook group to anyone you think would be interested. Thanks! - Eric

Two weeks ago, I began this discussion about communication between the partners, and last week I picked on the leaders for overleading (which, perhaps not surprisingly, was rather well-received by followers).

Yes, a large part of the problem in partner communication is the failure of the leaders to not listen and to not provide the opportunity for the follower to participate. However, another big problem is the failure of the followers to properly communicate with the leaders.

In my experience and observations, I've noticed that often when followers try to participate in the dance (e.g. play, extend patterns, change speed, etc.), they end up tightening up their frame, or else pushing or pulling the leader. And this happens suddenly, without warning, as the follower interrupts the leader to express herself. Sometimes it disrupts what the leader is trying to accomplish, either ignoring what he was trying to lead or ignoring him altogether. To use the conversation analogy, it's as if the leader is talking and mid-sentence the follower suddenly yells something out loud - sort of a dancing version of Tourette's syndrome.

Let's face it, followers: You don't like it when leaders throw things at you suddenly. You don't like it when they tighten or use their arms to communicate with you. And you don't like when they ignore you or interrupt what you're trying to do. So why is it okay for you to do the same to the leader? Bottom line: it's not.

The truth is that while leading and following are different and distinct roles with their own rules of engagement, communication - and the means of communication - are the same for both partners. There's no double standard here: leaders can't do one thing while followers do another. Just as it is in our every day lives, there are proper and appropriate ways of communicating, regardless of who is involved in what roles.

For followers, I would propose that there are three basic principles for you to keep in mind when trying to communicate with the leader - the same principles that hopefully guide how leaders lead:

• Use your body - not your arms. I think it's fair to say that arm leads stink. Well, so do arm follows. There's no need to tighten up or squeeze or pull or push to tell me something (unless we're about to bump into someone and it's a defensive move, and even then, do it as nicely as possible). Your arms are a means of transmitting information, but the message should originate with your body. Again, it's the conversational difference between talking and yelling.
• Give advanced notice before you do something. You know those leaders - the ones whose leads seem to happen at the last second, if not late? You know how those sudden signals throw you off balance, both physically and mentally? Same is true for leaders when followers suddenly do something unexpected, especially if they're still actively leading. Just as a good leader gives you a prep or starts leading a little in advance so that you are prepared and can successfully execute a movement on time, good followers who are properly communicating will signal their intent to the leader in advance. This is the driving equivalent of signaling before changing lanes and the conversational equivalent of saying "excuse me" to interrupt the speaker before speaking yourself.
• Make sure you use clear signals, which means getting your partner's attention, usually by doing something different. Leaders give signals to tell you what they're leading, but these signals are only effective if they are clear enough for you to read them. As followers, you not only have to be clear, but you have the added challenge of overcoming the standard dynamic (that he speaks and you listen) and getting him to listen (or at least stop talking). There are several different signals you can use to get his attention (all relating to changes in connection), but these signals need to be clear and used consistently.

Communication is key for any relationship, including a partnership in dance. Good followers know how to properly - and thus effectively - communicate with their leaders. I find that too often the conversation in dance classes is about the content of what the follower does (the footwork variations, the body styling, etc.) and not about how to communicate what the follower does to her partner. What results is a bunch of followers unsuccessfully participating in the dance because they do not know how to communicate what they're doing to their leaders - or even that they're trying to do something at all!

Followers, how do you try to communicate with your leaders? Leaders, what do followers do that get your attention and let you know what they're doing? Teachers, how much do instruct followers on how to communicate to their leaders when teaching a variation for followers, especially one that changes the timing or execution of the pattern? How important do you think this idea of communication is for followers to learn and at what stage in their development should they start learning these skills?

Great Expectations?

Hi all - My apologies for the two-month hiatus, but unfortunately other priorities in life meant I had to step away from this blog for a bit. That said, weekly posts are back on! Please read, enjoy, post your comments, and spread the word to other dancers! Thanks - Eric

I taught a class this week on how to communicate with a partner. The idea is that communication works both ways, regardless of whether you are a leader or follower. However, while the tools and methods are the same, the context and use of these tools may differ greatly. We had a brief conversation in class about the expectations followers have of leaders and vice versa, and it was one of the most interesting I've had in any class.

The leaders in general expected followers to, well, follow - to pay attention, to follow momentum, and to follow through. The followers in general expected leaders to make them feel comfortable - no arms leads, dance at the appropriate skill level, and adjust to the follower's physical capabilities.

What's most interesting to me is how these expectations reinforce a certain dynamic: leaders speak, while followers listen. Leaders say, "I'll tell you what to do, you just have to do it." Followers say, "Tell me nicely, and I'll do it." Unfortunately, in my opinion, this often means that partners detach from one another: leaders don't pay attention to followers and followers only pay attention when they want to (or have to). Except I don't think this is how we want it to be, or how we think it should be.

Effective leaders are excellent listeners, responsive to the needs and interests of those they lead. And effective followers aren't just passive bystanders, but proactive and vocal participants. Imagine what this dance would look like if leaders expected followers to participate more actively, and if followers expected leaders to listen and pay more attention to them? What would the dance look like if leaders listened and gave more opportunities for followers to participate and if followers proactively communicated and engaged their leaders?

What are your expectations for the opposite role? And what do you think expectations should be in order to create the ideal dance?

Annie Get Your Gun

I'm pretty sure no one ever came home one day to say, "Wow! I had a great day! I was carjacked!" And I doubt anyone ever said, "That flight was fantastic! We were hijacked!" You know why? Because hijacking is bad.

Hijacking is stealing by stopping and coercing someone. If this doesn't sound very nice, it's because it isn't. Whether it's hijacking a car at gunpoint, hijacking a plane with the threat of explosives, or hijacking a lead during a dance. Doesn't matter. Not nice.

In terms of dancing, "hijacking" is when the follower either ignores a lead or else completely changes it from its original intention. It isn't nice. It's telling the leader, "Sorry, I don't care what you want to talk about, because we're going to talk about this." If someone were to say, "Hi, how was your day?" it would be rude to ignore the question and say, "I'm going to eat some chocolate."

A question was posed recently to a dear friend of mine, Maria Blackwell, a fantastic dancer and teacher who gives more of herself to her dance community in St. Louis than anyone else I've ever seen. Her student asked if a follower went to play, wasn't she taking over the lead? Maria smartly answered that there are rude and polite ways of interjecting - and sometimes it's a fine line which is which.

I could write a whole treatise here on partner dynamics, but suffice it to say that the way to avoid hijacking is to acknowledge the lead and follow it through, even if you give it your own spin. Taking the lead and playing with it is expressive following. Ignoring the lead and doing what you want - even if the music "calls for it" - is hijacking. And that's just rude.

Following through

I worked with a student recently who had difficulty following. She, like many followers, often "missed" leads but recognized the disconnect between the lead and her movement. She just couldn't figure out what was going wrong and how to fix it.

The problem is this: she was not following through. In other words, the leader initiated her into a given movement, but she didn't finish it, and by not finishing it to its end, she did not establish the proper connection to get a clear lead into the next movement.

Followers, something to keep in mind: everything you do should end in compression or extension. If you don't feel either of these, you haven't finished the movement you started. You need to continue moving in the same direction until you feel either compression or extension. Once you have compression or extension, you'll be able to more easily feel what the next lead is. And remember: your job is to finish the movement that the leader started; it is not to worry about the next pattern.