I quite like Alan’s tetherball pole, something I’ll keep in mind.

I’ve so rarely found anyone giving too much weight that I’ve thought the objections to the term were theoretical rather than practical, but perhaps I’ve been lucky (or give too much weight myself). It has occurred to me that “taking weight” is perhaps a better term, since that better suggests something you’re offering rather than demanding.

When I teach beginners, the very first thing I do is teach giving weight, both because I think it’s so important, and because I then point out moments where you can do it in all* the other figures. For example, in a chain across, I describe the connection that the people crossing have as they take hands and pull past as giving weight, awa a very different giving weight in a well-done courtesy turn. I think calling all of that “giving weight” is a way of getting across that it’s not just one thing, and that it’s really central to the difference between dancing near others and dancing with others. And I’ll tell beginners that if they’re good at giving weight, they can make lots of mistakes and people will think it’s their own fault ‘cause they’ll assume from the good giving weight that they’re dancing with a skilled dancer.
*Except wrist-grip star—possible to do it, and if you do you’ll hurt the person whose wrist you’re gripping.

The trick I start with for learning it is to have folks in allemande position, and then have them go around really fast while paying close attention to what that feels like in their hand and arm. I’ll then have them do it again, starting out fast and then slowing down (maybe slower than you’d actually dance it) while keeping that same feeling in their hand and arm.

But the original question was about _improving_ skills—the specific thing for that would be giving weight in a circle, something that so rarely happens. In my beginners’ classes, I point out that a circle four is a really boring figure, _unless_ everyone is giving weight; then it’s actually a pretty worthwhile figure. (It’s why grapevine step has inveigled it’s way from club squares—it adds something at least a little interesting to a (weightless, poorly done) circle four. I strongly discourage it, since it’s so much harder (albeit not impossible) to give steady weight while grapevining.)

Read Weaver
Jamaica Plain, MA
http://lcfd.org

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