LMC
19th-October-2005, 04:35 PM
From this thread (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6675):
More from the followers point of view, at Rebel Yell recently, Sarah Van Drake was talking about how to make every dance interesting, and how to see even an awful lead as a challenge, making what you can out of the dance. If I remember correctly she was talking about circumstances where you would have to "decipher" his lead through all the "noise" that was going on, so the following itself is a challenge, but also adding to the dance, by listening to the music and improvising. Maybe one of the ladies who were there can explain this better.
I didn't want to hijack that thread...
Interesting that Greg brought this up as it's something I've been thinking about over the last few days. I wasn't at Rebel Yell, but Lory and I had a chat about this, ooooh, must be a couple of months ago, when I was asking how a follower can make a bad dance better - after all, the lead is in control, so I persist in believing that it can frequently (although not always) be far more frustrating for an experienced follower to be dancing with a bad or beginner lead than the other way around. And Lory said pretty much the same thing - look on a poor or limited (beginner) dance as a challenge e.g. focus on improving your own style.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a gap in experience between "intermediate enough to get frustrated" and "experienced enough to multi-task" - i.e. be able to follow the lead well, whilst also focussing on other aspects of your own dancing. I'm starting to think I might, one day, be able to bridge that gap - dancing with a four-move-only first-timer the other day, I found that I was able to think about what I was doing with my spare arm (not enough, practice needed :blush: ) at the same time as following (and smiling of course).
Footwork has been suggested as another area to "play" with (as long as it doesn't distract your partner) - and I found putting in some salsa steps helped me enjoy and keep smiling (rather than getting frustrated) with a partner earlier this week who was leading intermediate moves to his very own (and very slow) beat which resembled the beat of the fairly fast Latin track we were dancing to in no way whatsoever.
It's literally only this week that I'm beginning to feel like I might, one day, be able to improvise "naturally" - a step change for me. At the moment, I can only think about all these little extras with a very slow or very beginner lead - but it's a start.
So I would be really interested in further feedback/opinion on Sarah's (and Lory's) thoughts please?
(I daren't say "discuss")
More from the followers point of view, at Rebel Yell recently, Sarah Van Drake was talking about how to make every dance interesting, and how to see even an awful lead as a challenge, making what you can out of the dance. If I remember correctly she was talking about circumstances where you would have to "decipher" his lead through all the "noise" that was going on, so the following itself is a challenge, but also adding to the dance, by listening to the music and improvising. Maybe one of the ladies who were there can explain this better.
I didn't want to hijack that thread...
Interesting that Greg brought this up as it's something I've been thinking about over the last few days. I wasn't at Rebel Yell, but Lory and I had a chat about this, ooooh, must be a couple of months ago, when I was asking how a follower can make a bad dance better - after all, the lead is in control, so I persist in believing that it can frequently (although not always) be far more frustrating for an experienced follower to be dancing with a bad or beginner lead than the other way around. And Lory said pretty much the same thing - look on a poor or limited (beginner) dance as a challenge e.g. focus on improving your own style.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a gap in experience between "intermediate enough to get frustrated" and "experienced enough to multi-task" - i.e. be able to follow the lead well, whilst also focussing on other aspects of your own dancing. I'm starting to think I might, one day, be able to bridge that gap - dancing with a four-move-only first-timer the other day, I found that I was able to think about what I was doing with my spare arm (not enough, practice needed :blush: ) at the same time as following (and smiling of course).
Footwork has been suggested as another area to "play" with (as long as it doesn't distract your partner) - and I found putting in some salsa steps helped me enjoy and keep smiling (rather than getting frustrated) with a partner earlier this week who was leading intermediate moves to his very own (and very slow) beat which resembled the beat of the fairly fast Latin track we were dancing to in no way whatsoever.
It's literally only this week that I'm beginning to feel like I might, one day, be able to improvise "naturally" - a step change for me. At the moment, I can only think about all these little extras with a very slow or very beginner lead - but it's a start.
So I would be really interested in further feedback/opinion on Sarah's (and Lory's) thoughts please?
(I daren't say "discuss")