punkassjim

crooked-lust:

From what I remember, a post was going around our little community about swivels and the vast majority answered that the key to improving them was to “get low.” 

I’ve heard a lot of back and forth about that little piece of advice and I suppose it could merely be a difference in styles (The Dean Collins/Hollywood styling vs. Savoy). From what Rob has told me, the difference lies really in the angle. One style is a bit lower and back whereas the other is a bit more forward but upright. (From what I’ve been taught, the Hollywood style takes after the Dean Collins’ teachings and is a bit lower and back whereas the Savoy style is a bit more forward and better mirrors typical Charleston posture… am I off?)

Rob and Diane tend to lean (ha!) towards teaching the Savoy style. When we were practicing our swing-outs in class last night, Rob gave me a few more pointers on my swivels. I tend to lean back and get low and he encouraged me to stand up a bit taller, but also “sit” and lean a bit forward so that my shoulders are over the balls of my feet.

(Then again, I was also told to make sure my shoulders were squared off with my partner; so if any lead tended to get a bit lower, I would usually follow suit. But there’s the issue of shifting heights on that second lead that may seem awkward—if you “get low” should you remain at that height all the way through? If your partner shifts his/her height, should you follow suit?)

He also asked if I ever had back pain after dancing, which I said no to and he seemed a bit shocked by that. It made me wonder if my everyday posture (which is something I’ve been striving to make better) affects my swivels/swing-outs, or maybe the natural way I stand is with a slight tendency to lean back. 

I think I might lean back more in a swing-out so that I don’t escape the leads hand when he catches me. I like feeling a strong second lead and I feel like if I lean forward a bit, I might run out of his hand. At the same time, when I go through a swing-out, I’m always thinking that my feet need to be catching up with me and not the other way around (as told to the class). Maybe I start out a bit back when I do my swivels but continue through okay? My connections with the leads have been amazing lately and I know I’ve improved those significantly in the last couple months. It might merely be my swivels and my posture at the beginning of the move as opposed to the follow through. I don’t know. 

I guess it’s all a balancing act. And there are so many little intricacies to this move that it blows my mind.

Any further tips on posture or swivels? Thoughts on styling? General feedback?.

It’s hard to know what to teach, in terms of swivel styling, because the details can sound conflicting, depending on whether you’re talking to advanced dancers (5-10 years experience), vs. beginner/intermediate (1-2 years or less). The “get low and lean back” of hollywood style (which I like the looks of) is definitely true of the style, and it is distinct from the Savoy style. But if you tell beginners to “get low and lean back”, it’s likely to cement bad habits in their dancing, because they haven’t yet mastered connection techniques enough to avoid messing with the connection.

So, think of everything as stemming from the connection, first and foremost. Swingouts themselves can be really light-touch and airy, not much stretch or compression. Or they can be heavy, angry, super stretchy to the point of being afraid you’re gonna slip out of each other’s hands. Most of that stretch comes from how much the leader sits back into his hips (at the 4 and the 8), which in turn makes the follower sit back into her hips, for good counterbalance. With those kinds of changes, height-changes will be inevitable, but definitely be mindful of how they happen. If you’re tall on 3-7 and short on 8-2, then there needs to be some adjustment for continuity and flow.

Anyway, all of this to say, “get low” should spring from that connection and amount of stretch. Sure, you can sit back into your hips without him initiating it, but some people would call that backleading (I wouldn’t, but I get it). Basically, it’s important to know how to do swivels both in an athletic/low/leaning-away posture, and in a more-upright/less-stretch position. It’s especially important to practice both because…well, it’s all about the music, innit? Depending on the energy of the song, you might want to throw in sweet-and-tidy swivels during the chorus, and down-and-dirty swivels for the bridge.

One other thing to say about the “leaning away” thing. There are only a handful of followers around here who I’d say they “lean away” at the end of a swingout (whether or not they’re swiveling), and it almost always feels wrong to me. Like, if I were to draw a straight line through their body and it looked like the axis of the earth…yeah, it makes the connection feel wrong, because their hips aren’t what’s driving it all. To lean away without using your hips, is to not be in control of your own balance. And that’s key. Maybe I’m just too sensitive to the language used, but to “sit back” is better technique. Even in hollywood-style swivels, it seems to me like they usually sit back with their hips, but they also straighten their legs…so it looks like they’re leaning, but their upper body remains pretty upright.

lotusmika:

This irritates me. Regardless of whether either party is a “good” dancer or not, this goes back to something that I firmly believe every dancer to should be familiar with and that is proper dance etiquette.

~

Lessons and Social dancing are two entirely different areas, and they should be remain separate.

While I agree with just about everything in your post (and the posts of folks who responded), I have one minor nit to pick with folks who take this rule of etiquette a bit too seriously:

I frequent a few venues around here where there are intermediate/advanced classes before the social dance. Often, but by no means every week, I’ll end up on the sidelines of the social dance, with someone who was in the class with me, and we’ll work on the stuff we did in class. Or, if they were late to class, I’ll catch them up on what they missed. And on more than one occasion, I’ve had a finger waggled at me and been told “now now, no teaching on the social floor.” Same deal if I’m playing with some call-and-response jazz steps or a charleston circle on the sidelines. If I’m showing someone a new jazz step to play with, I don’t want to be leered at by the etiquette police.

Now, I may be wrong, but I don’t think this is at all what this particular rule of etiquette is about. People should feel free to play with new concepts together, as long as they’re both comfortable with each other in that setting. And it does take a certain amount of awareness to know that everyone involved is totally into it.

I recognize the dudes in our scene who clearly want to be “the teacher” on the social floor, and I watch my friends struggle with those dances, and I always wonder why they don’t just turn those guys down and tell them why (and really, they need to be told). But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about friends swapping fun dancing ideas like trading cards, either on the sidelines or on the social floor. I think that kind of stuff should always be encouraged, because that’s where this dance comes from.

dustandrain:

It’s not only the male=lead, female=follow dichotomy that still prevails. You may say that that’s untrue because there’s an exception: The loophole that women may lead. But on the other hand men who follow are immediately suspected of lack of masculinity, so this argument has to be taken with a grain of salt. I’ll always remember Jo telling us girls that learning to lead would improve our dancing, but noone ever told the men that learning to follow might just expand their horizon as well.

I have no problem with the gripes you’ve got, nor the troubles you’ve seen, but this anecdote doesn’t feel (to me) like it supports your thesis. First of all, Jo is only speaking from her own experience. She can’t tell you first-hand about learning to be a male follower, so she doesn’t offer it. To take offense to Kevin (or whomever) for not stepping in and making sure it’s spelled-out, well, that’s silly. Not every good point needs to be made at every available opportunity. And really, one doesn’t need to look very far to see that Kevin follows (and quite well, AND he’s one of the only dudes I know who really pulls off the following without really screwing it up with backleading).

We follow a very specific pattern while dancing, in which the lead has to be masculine, and the follow feminine.

The “love me or leave me” routine by Thomas and Max (that went kind of viral on youtube a couple of years ago?) was so lovely because it broke with that pattern, the revival I witnessed at SSS last winter was so horrible to me because Thomas visibly and over the top ”gayed it up”, played a character that was effeminate and ridiculously so.

No offense, but that’s just your interpretation. Sure, it’s hard to see a man portray the feminine and not immediately think “gay”. But what if he was just trying to emulate Alice Mei, or Frida Segerdahl? The way I see it, he not only stepped into the traditionally-female follow role (and I’m not saying that tradition should be perpetuated), but he also demonstrated his immense skill by dancing the same tune as incredibly masculine (the video), and incredibly feminine (the rendition you saw). That’s super impressive.

It’s the same with women couples where the lead is trying super hard to appear masculine, it’s unnecessary and sometimes looks awkward… (by which I don’t mean to say that being masculine as a female lead, and being effeminate as a male follow is not okay: If that is who you are, do it. Just don’t let yourself be pressured into something that you’re not, in either case…)

I’m glad you ended that part with a healthy slice of “to each their own”, because that’s a sentiment that’s been sorely lacking in this whole topic (at least in the circles in which I’ve seen it come up). If you’d like to see more of people dancing switch, then that’s great. But that’s yours. It’s important not to attribute to narrow thinking, that which can be explained by preference.