Hi Kat,

              You asked why the elbow-hold in your Modified Ballroom-Hold wasn’t as good as the elbow-hold in a standard Swing.

              I think that when the left-hand person’s right hand is on the right-hand person’s shoulder blade and you have good connection, then what you do with the other arms can be anything.  Using those other arms, one person holding the other’s elbow gives slightly more connection, and the added benefits of bringing the dancers’ shoulders more parallel (symmetry is great for a smooth, gentle (but fast!) counter-balanced Swing), and, by being closer together, gives a faster Swing.

              When, instead, those hands are doing the pointy stuff (which doesn’t provide a lot of good connection), then the elbow hold with the other arms doesn’t give enough connection; and when we tried to achieve the connection we felt it was slightly awkward and uncomfortable.

              That is my feeling anyway.

              Another challenge is that the standard Ballroom-Hold position is used for other moves as well, such as Polkaing around a Square, or doing a Swing & Change to progress.  I don’t think that the Modified version would work as well for those type of moves, and I wouldn’t want to teach the average dancers multiple versions.  Maybe that isn’t a problem for you, if you never do dances with moves like that.

            Happy dancing,

                   John                      

John Sweeney, Dancer, England   john@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574

http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent