Thanks for all the great ideas/
Yes, I should say gallop instead of skate-board – I start with “Now walk fast on the spot” before I tell them to turn, so I assume they are going to keep alternating their feet, but some don’t! Maybe “gallop” will help. I did get one guy at a workshop tell me that he had been taught to keep one foot fixed on the floor on a single spot. I showed him what would happen if we both did that – in slow motion, otherwise it could have been quite painful J
Ron asked, “Okay, so what about my first comment: Not everyone is physically able to do the buzzstep swing?”
Well, my first statement was “Yes, of course I always tell dancers that they can walk instead of buzz” and the last line of my sample teach was, “If you are having trouble with the buzz-step then you can always just walk.”
So I thought I had covered that. Sorry if I have misunderstood.
At one of the weekly sessions I run we get around 25 to 30 people each week; most of them are ladies, and the ages range mainly from 50s to mid-80s. We provide badges saying, “Please swing gently” and we tell them they can walk. I always teach the buzz-step and they all try it. Most of them carry on doing a buzz-step and very few wear the badges after the first few weeks once they have got used to swinging.
They also love my no-swing contras – they don’t need swings to have fun!
Ron also said, “The single most important thing to teach a dancer is "it's okay to make mistakes".”. I agree that that is important and we joke about the mistakes a lot. Sometimes they have the most fun when they fail completely!
But my Rule #1 is:
“Every dancer has the right to get on the dance-floor and have fun without getting hurt.”
I have been hurt a lot on the dance-floor. I used to dance Ceroc/Modern Jive three or four nights a week. You know the way that some people yank on you when they step back in the Balance before a swing? Well in Modern Jive you step apart about once every eight steps, and the general level of technique teaching at Modern Jive classes is very low, so most of the dancers have never been told that they shouldn’t pull when they step back. In fact some of the <expletive deleted> teachers actually tell them to pull to generate tension, without mentioning that the level of tension required is around the one ounce level, not the one ton level! So I ended up with repetitive stress injuries which weakened my muscular infrastructure and when an aerial move went wrong in a practice session I ended up tearing one of my rotator cuff (shoulder) muscles badly.
Aerials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJnL_Y63AnY – that’s me in black.
So, having had two shoulder operations, and not wanting any more, if my partner appears to be about to throw their whole weight at me when they step back in a Balance & Swing then I step forward to prevent it. (Once having asked a lady to stop pulling on the step-back as she was hurting me, and failing to get through to her, next time we stepped back I pulled on her. She immediately got cross and said I had hurt her. The irony appeared to be completely lost on her!). And if a lady leans back in a swing then I move my hand from her shoulder blade to her waist so she has to stand up or fall over! I have learnt a lot of self-defence skills over the years!
I recently ran a “Contra Skillz – Style and Technique” workshop at a UK festival and the experienced dancers loved it – most of them do want to improve and do want the caller to do some teaching. (Of course, they self-selected by attending the workshop in the first place!)
One of the guys is a very good dancer, but my wife, Karen, complained that his swinging was far too forceful; he was rigid and using too much power. The first thing I taught in the workshop was that most people will swing better if they relax. Next time she swung with him, he was, as usual, rigid, but, because I had empowered her by teaching relaxation, she felt able to say, with a big smile, “And relax <she breathed out>” – he did the same and suddenly turned into a wonderful swing partner. She heaped on the praise and he felt good that he was giving Karen a better swing.
I agree with Tom that we all have different perspectives and so we approach things differently. That is a good thing as far as I am concerned. If all callers ran their evening the same way then the dancers would get bored. Different approaches help different people, and give the variety needed to keep the dance alive.
My perspective is based on learning the Galway Swing from my Irish mother when I was a teenager (take an Allemande Right hold, each of you cup your left fingertips around your partner’s right elbow, buzz – great fun!), so I have been buzzing for fifty years and would always choose it. But of course I walk if I or my partner is tired, or if my partner can’t cope with a fast swing, or if they are such a bad swinger that I need to slow the swing down to avoid damage. Though actually you can do a slow, controlled buzz-step swing and that can feel great too.
I also agree that programming is crucial to a successful evening. Apart from avoiding overuse of particular moves or sequences, providing variety, and trying to include something a bit different, I am also building the move set slowly so that newcomers get to a point where they can do great dances later in the evening because they have seen all the bits already.
The Right & Left Through is such a counter-intuitive move that I often leave it out completely. If I need it for a particular dance then I can change it to a Half Promenade. I certainly never spend time teaching it in a beginner’s workshop unless I am planning to use it multiple times in the evening.
Thanks again for all the great ideas in this thread.
Maybe I should stop rambling now… J
Happy dancing,
John
John Sweeney, Dancer, England john@modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574
http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive Events & DVDs
http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent