Accidental Learning

[robd]

Had another interesting night at class last night. One of my favourite aspects of it was realising how to pull off a move I had seen a few times but not known how to lead. I learned this courtesy of the teacher demonstrating how NOT to do something in beginner's class. We were doing the basket and had got to step 2 - lady by man's side. The teacher showed how not to do a particular element of step 3 (can't recall exactly his specific point) but just a movement of his partner's arm made me realise that from there I could spin the lady around and into a teapot position. Sure, it's not the most complex (or probably thrilling) move in the world but I like it and now I know how to get to it, it seems reasonably simple to lead (or rather, it didn't go disastrously wrong with anyone when used in freestyle). What was most exciting about the whole thing though was putting different parts of what I was seeing together and making the links to create a new move (for me) rather than just learning a move by rote in the class.

Robert

[David Franklin]

Had another interesting night at class last night.Don't know if it's what you had in mind as it wasn't in a class, but one time I was had a woman in a backhammer-type position with a break coming up, so I "led" a freeze. That's "led" in quotes, because it evidently wasn't very clear; she certainly didn't freeze:- in fact, she decided to throw herself into a drop, which ended up with her unwrapping and ending up about 3 inches off the ground and somewhat behind me. :eek:

Now it's actually be a pretty spectacular drop, and all the better for the element of surprise, and I've even got a pretty good idea how it works. Only thing is I'm not convinced it was anything other than luck that prevented her hitting the floor or dislocating her shoulder - so I've not (yet) had the nerve to try and reproduce it. Next cabaret, perhaps...