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Thread: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Was going to post somthing but changed my mind and can't get rid of the box.
    Last edited by jim; 6th-April-2010 at 10:43 PM.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeyr View Post
    ... and finally why would WCS feel the need differentiate it's self from MJ?

    Teaching WCS is my day job(only job) I personally teach upwards of 125 people in the regular class format every week. 80+ % of those come from MJ. If they dont come back I dont eat!
    That's why: because the majority of folk doing WCS have fed from MJ - could be because they feel their MJ is stagnating, or they have seen folk doing it at a MJ venue and liked what they saw, or been recommended to try it by someone in an MJ venue. (or a million other reasons, but I think these are the main ones)

    To a new from MJ person, WCS just looks about the same except with a bit more discipline on the slot: then they get told/shown lots of rules about counts, anchors and given moves that are similar, but called different things with subtle changes... I think perhaps the gap between this initial expectation and the reality is what makes it seem to be "too hard".

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    So if a horse can't learn to read, it's because there badly taught? Or could it be something to do with the horse being a horse that's the more significant problem? There are plenty of cases where failure to learn is not because the material is badly taught, but because the person (or livestock) being taught isn't capable of learning the material.

    Dancing with social competence is a skill. Not a talent or ability that you're gifted with. ANYONE can learn to dance. The most cases where failure to learn is because the pupil either did not want to, or the information was not presented in a way that made sense to the pupil.

    In some isolated cases, the failure to learn is due to some 'disability': like dyslexia makes reading hard ... I think that Dressage is the the skill for horses and dancing - if they can dance but not read, perhaps all horses have severe cases of dyslexia?

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    Dancing with social competence is a skill. Not a talent or ability that you're gifted with. ANYONE can learn to dance. The most cases where failure to learn is because the pupil either did not want to, or the information was not presented in a way that made sense to the pupil.

    In some isolated cases, the failure to learn is due to some 'disability': like dyslexia makes reading hard ... I think that Dressage is the the skill for horses and dancing - if they can dance but not read, perhaps all horses have severe cases of dyslexia?
    I may be putting words in Geoffs mouth here, but I think his point is that some people will not learn how to dance (well) regardless of how good the teaching is. You even say yourself that it may be the pupil doesn't want to, although it may be other aspects of their personality which is hindering them as well.

    So, how much should a teacher attempt to cater to those who are "behind the curve" for whatever reason?How about those more than a standard deviation or more behind that curve? At some point you have to draw a line for the sake of everyone else, although it's debatable where the best place to draw it is.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by NZ Monkey View Post
    So, how much should a teacher attempt to cater to those who are "behind the curve" for whatever reason?How about those more than a standard deviation or more behind that curve? At some point you have to draw a line for the sake of everyone else, although it's debatable where the best place to draw it is.
    This is one of the most difficult decisions you have to make when teaching in a group situation. What do you do about that one guy (it's usually a guy ) who just isn't getting it? Everyone else was following your instructions 3 times ago. But this one guy turns the wrong way or offers the wrong hand each time you go through the move, no matter how slowly you go through it.

    And when you are repeating and demonstrating, for the fourth time, how to do the move, this guy seems to be inspecting the light fittings or talking with his partner.

    Answer? You expect me to have an answer?

    I wish I had

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    Dancing with social competence is a skill. Not a talent or ability that you're gifted with. ANYONE can learn to dance. The most cases where failure to learn is because the pupil either did not want to, or the information was not presented in a way that made sense to the pupil.
    Reading is also a skill. Funnily enough, not everyone in the world can read this post. Those that can have learnt to read English. Those that can't haven't. Some of those that haven't learned to read English are unable to learn (including the horses that can't read). Of those that read, there are differing levels of comprehension.

    Both reading and dancing are learned skills. All learned skills rely on one sort of innate capacity to perform the skill. That innate capacity may be grounded in something cognitive scientists call background knowledge - the stuff that everyone from a given culture just knows. Or it may be grounded in genetics. In many cases, the line is fuzzy.

    The horse was used as an example of the primacy of genetics. Without the genetic code to build a suitable brain, horses simply aren't able to read. Most people can learn to read at some level (one language or another). However, the number of people who learn to read - and enjoy - Shakespeare is much smaller. And that's tied into all sorts of messy and complex stuff. Including the quality of their teachers. Including the specifics of their upbringing. Including their motivational drives. And, I suspect, their genetic code has a part to play in that too. The same is true for dancing. It's likely that not everyone can dance; and even fewer people actually want to dance. The reasons behind this are messy and complex and a combination of nature and nurture that we can only speculate about.

    What I am suggesting is that your assertion that anyone can learn to dance with social competence is just that - an assertion. What I'm suggesting is that not everyone has the capability to learn WCS. You can assert that I'm wrong all you like. But unless you give me some clear evidence, I'm likely to completely ignore it.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    ...
    And when you are repeating and demonstrating, for the fourth time, how to do the move, this guy seems to be inspecting the light fittings or talking with his partner.

    Answer? You expect me to have an answer?

    I wish I had
    Well - in this particular case, the answer seems fairly clear-cut. Do what is in the best interests of the class as a whole, not the individual. On the scale of things, it doesn't matter overmuch if one person doesn't get it. What matters far more is the experience of the whole group - how much they're learning, how much they're enjoying the class, etc. By slowing the class down to concentrate on one person, you're risking that experience for everyone else.

    This isn't to say I won't repeat things if I see one person not getting it, but one has to know when to move on.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat View Post
    Well - in this particular case, the answer seems fairly clear-cut. Do what is in the best interests of the class as a whole, not the individual. On the scale of things, it doesn't matter overmuch if one person doesn't get it. What matters far more is the experience of the whole group - how much they're learning, how much they're enjoying the class, etc. By slowing the class down to concentrate on one person, you're risking that experience for everyone else.

    This isn't to say I won't repeat things if I see one person not getting it, but one has to know when to move on.
    The experience I'm recounting was from last night! And I did move on with the lesson. However, I had to increase the frequency of the rotation so that nobody was stuck with this guy for too long.

    After the lesson I dealt with him on his own and sorted out his problems with the moves.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    This is pure coincidence but yesterday I was perusing a local jive forum when I came across this posting;

    Quote Originally Posted by Happy Camper
    I have been doing Modern Jive for about 3 years now and have been having a wonderful time, meeting lots of great people and my dancing has improved although I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a good dancer. Recently i have met some people who do West Coast Swing and they have insisted that if I want to improve my dancing I should learn WCS. I have watched a bit of WCS on YouTube and seen people doing it at some freestyles but, quite honestly, it looks pretty boring to me as it seems to consist mostly of the man passing the woman backwards and forwards past him while she gets to do fancy little poses, postures, little steps and hip wiggling. The people seem to be dancing to show off to anyone watching rather than enjoying dancing with each other. Add to this the apparent attitude of some of the WCS people I have met who seem to look down their noses at people who do modern jive, and I don't really have any inclination to give it a try. Am I alone in feeling this?
    Discuss.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    Discuss.
    I share Happy Campers opinion that WCS looks boring. I've never seen any WCS that excites me or inspires me in the same way that, say, Lindy Hop does.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    This is pure coincidence but yesterday I was perusing a local jive forum when I came across this posting;

    Discuss.
    Well - if Happy Camper doesn't find WCS inspiring, but does want to improve his (or her) dancing, he (or she) could always try AT. Or Lindy. Or something non-partnered, like tap, ballet, hiphop, contemporary...

    Anything with a basis of good, solid technique.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    This is pure coincidence but yesterday I was perusing a local jive forum when I came across this posting;
    Quote Originally Posted by Happy Camper
    Recently i have met some people who do West Coast Swing and they have insisted that if I want to improve my dancing I should learn WCS. I have watched a bit of WCS on YouTube and seen people doing it at some freestyles but, quite honestly, it looks pretty boring to me as it seems to consist mostly of the man passing the woman backwards and forwards past him while she gets to do fancy little poses, postures, little steps and hip wiggling. The people seem to be dancing to show off to anyone watching rather than enjoying dancing with each other. Add to this the apparent attitude of some of the WCS people I have met who seem to look down their noses at people who do modern jive, and I don't really have any inclination to give it a try. Am I alone in feeling this?
    Discuss.
    Once again, the word 'seem' is threaded through a (second-hand) post from Andy knocking WCS. Once again, it's the observations/perceptions of someone on the outside that say far more about them than about their subject.

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    I share Happy Campers opinion that WCS looks boring. I've never seen any WCS that excites me or inspires me in the same way that, say, Lindy Hop does.
    I find pretty much any non-professional dancing (and even a lot of that) boring to watch. It's rare that I make it to the end of a dance video clip unless it's really special. If I saw people dancing Lindy socially I'd be inclined to watch, as much for the novelty value nowadays as anything.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    Once again, the word 'seem' is threaded through a (second-hand) post from Andy knocking WCS. Once again, it's the observations/perceptions of someone on the outside that say far more about them than about their subject.
    I've no intention of knocking any dance. I love dance in all it's forms. What I'm illustrating is an attitude. Happy Camper was happy with his MJ. He then had a conversation with people who do another dance which knocked his self-esteem. Maybe the WCS dancers wanted to help this guy improve or maybe they just wanted to say they do a better dance. What do you think?

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    I've no intention of knocking any dance. I love dance in all it's forms. What I'm illustrating is an attitude. Happy Camper was happy with his MJ. He then had a conversation with people who do another dance which knocked his self-esteem. Maybe the WCS dancers wanted to help this guy improve or maybe they just wanted to say they do a better dance. What do you think?
    I think they wanted to help him improve.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    Maybe the WCS dancers wanted to help this guy improve or maybe they just wanted to say they do a better dance. What do you think?
    Maybe they wanted to do both? It's often hard to look beyond our own experiences when giving advice so if the people with whom HC spoke felt
    a) their own dancing had improved as a result of learning WCS
    b) that WCS is a better dance (however you might define better)
    then they are likely to say as much and be perfectly justified in doing so. Provided HC realises that their opinion is just that - an opinion - I don't see a problem.

    It also neatly disregards the stuff about HC believing WCS is pants (which again they are perfectly entitiled to since it's their opinion)

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    I agree with Straycat, - I don't believe that they were knocking MJ, if they were that much against it, they wouldnt have been at an MJ venue with fellow MJers.


    Whether something is boring or not to a particular individual is just a matter of opinion, some people find train spotting interesting, - each to their own, not much there to discuss really imho.


    As for learning WCS to improve their MJ, (or other types of dance) i've heard this before too. But does it not depend on which direction you want to take you MJ? Different MJ dancers have different styles, some seem to have more of a latin feel about them, others are more Jive'y, etc etc - learning other dances styles will probably influence your MJ, but I guess it depends on how he wants his MJ to be influenced.... He says he thought WCS looked boring, so, i would've thought he wouldn't want his MJ to be influenced by WCS?!

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    I find pretty much any non-professional dancing (and even a lot of that) boring to watch. It's rare that I make it to the end of a dance video clip unless it's really special.
    I'm exactly the same.
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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Originally Posted by Happy Camper
    I have been doing Modern Jive for about 3 years now and have been having a wonderful time, meeting lots of great people and my dancing has improved although I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a good dancer.
    I would say that may be the view of some people but after three years others would be looking to improve their technique outside MJ and many others even earlier than that simply because it is very difficult to find progression in technique in the MJ world generally.

    Recently i have met some people who do West Coast Swing and they have insisted that if I want to improve my dancing I should learn WCS. .... it looks pretty boring to me as it seems to consist mostly of the man passing the woman backwards and forwards past him while she gets to do fancy little poses, postures, little steps and hip wiggling

    In WCS they wiggle
    in Tango they are lamp posts
    in Lindy they jump about like runner beans
    in Ballroom they pose

    All dances can be given a negetive slant by the way they look but it is how the people feel when dancing that is important. Some people feel they enjoy their MJ dancing more by improving their knowledge and to do this they feel they have to look outside the MJ world.

    All the dances above have important and progressive technique that has to be learned and an understanding of music that is both specific to the individual dance, some/most of which is moveable to other dances.

    That is not to say that MJ should not have important and progressive techique but I don't think it has been properly identified or taught and other than talking about the various genres of music an understanding of the music has not been taught up until recently and in my view where it is now being taught is due to a heavy WCS influence.

    It seems to me that some people may feel they have hit a wall in terms of their progression in MJ and just look for excuses not to bother improving. Quite honesly it seems to me that this chap was probabally asking some WCSers what they were doing because I don't get the impression they go about like fanatics trying to convert people to the cause.

    . .....dancing to show off to anyone watching rather than enjoying dancing with each other. Add to this the apparent attitude of some of the WCS people I have met who seem to look down their noses at people who do modern jive, and I don't really have any inclination to give it a try. Am I alone in feeling this?


    I find it difficult to believe that people spend as much time and effort as they do to learn WCS and not enjoy it.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    I spend alot of time with beginners in WCS taking the beginners review for 1 class and teaching at another. Out of all the dancers that come through the majority who stick with it have either been dancing Jive for a very long time or they are compleatly new to dancing. They are also the two groups who pick it up quickest.

    WCS is only as hard as it is made to be. There are 4 main basic WCS patterns to learn. Thats only 4 sets of footwork for the men and 4 sets for the followers. Of then four footwork patterns, they all follow the same rules (men back on the left etc).

    If Jive teachers taugh beginners 4 moves but taught them properly with technique, then I think Jive would be much harder than WCS to learn.

    WCS is also easier to learn at intermediate/ advanced level than Jive because it has rules.

    If anyone is thinking of doing WCS then I would recommend sticking with it for at least a month, joining a class when they are doing a new beginners course and find a teacher who they get on with.

    The other thing I see happening with dancer comming from JIVE is they think they know everything there is to know about dancing and struggle being a beginner again.

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    Quote Originally Posted by ant View Post
    Quite honesly it seems to me that this chap was probabally asking some WCSers what they were doing because I don't get the impression they go about like fanatics trying to convert people to the cause.[/I]
    I've got quite a few friends at MJ who feel pressured by a couple of people who're permanently raving about WCS and saying they MUST go and try it, they'll LOVE it, and it's much better than MJ. Probably not the way to go about encouraging people to try something new if they don't really want to!

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    Re: Is West Coast Swing Made Too Hard?

    I have been trying to learn WCS for about 4 years now and about 2 years ago I mentioned on this forum that I felt it was about time I just admitted defeat and give up trying to learn WCS. I cannot remember the name of that thread so I cannot post a link to it, should anyone be interested in the discussion that ensued.

    As many people have alluded to, a difficulty in learning can be split into, lack of opportunity, fallings in teaching, failure of the student to study, and having understand that WCS it is a different dance from one you may already know.

    The main thrust of my post is that many of the things that used to make it hard to learn are now being rectified.

    Lack of opportunity.

    When I started trying to learn there was only one place in the country that I knew about to learn WCS and it was two hours each way on the motorway to get to a monthly workshop. It had a beginner’s lesson and then two intermediate lessons. I found the intermediate lessons confusing and regarded each pattern that was taught as a unique case. In truth it was a case that I wasn’t competent at the basics and wasn’t going to address this issue as there wasn’t an extensive beginners course in these monthly workshops and the lack of any local freestyles meant that these basics elements of dance did not become embedded. The only opportunity was to dance WCS was with my partner at local MJ venues when suitable music was played. This was a disaster as it was a case of the blind leading the blind. I ended that phase of my foray into WCS feeling that instead of having 24 months experience once I had in fact had 1 month experience 24 times.
    Now there are 4 classes within reasonable travelling distance of where I live, WCS freestyles just about every weekend, and almost as many WCS weekenders as there used to be MJ weekenders. The opportunities to learn and dance WCS on a weekly basis are much better than they were 2 years ago.

    Failings in teaching.

    It used to be that you could get into WCS as courses that ran for about 6 lessons either as weekend workshops or in the Beach Boogie dance week. The standard of teaching was high but once it was over you ran into the lack of opportunity problem and the lack of ability to implement what you had learnt degraded your knowledge. As the WCS scene matured each of the WCS weekend workshops implemented a separate “beginners track” at about the same time as the number of weekly classes started to build. Beginners at last started to get the equivalent of Cerocs beginner workshops and at the local club level the appearance of “beginner review lessons” while the main class had their intermediate lesson.

    Consistency was a considerable problem at one time. Every time a different set of American professional teachers came over to weekenders and workshops you were told that whatever you were doing was slightly wrong and you needed to learn the proper way from them. I don’t know what has happened in the American WCS scene over the last two years but they have been turning up and saying that – “there are many ways of achieving the same effect and they are all valid, but this is our way and we want to explain why we think our way is the best”. At least with this approach I know that what I am doing will still work but that I have another view point and I can consider if the new way will add significant benefit.

    I am loath to say that the next point is a failure of teaching as such, more that I have found a teaching style that works for me. I found the style that works best for me when I had lessons with Mario Robau. Mario gets you to dance the basic patterns, and then bit by bit shows you how to change aspects of these patterns to get to something that is would look impossible at the beginning of the lesson. Fortunately (for me at least) this approach seems to being adopted by more and more teachers in this country.
    Failure of students to study.

    This is not unique to any particular dance style and is getting a little worse because in the days when getting to classes was quite tough only the most studious would make the effort. I do feel that a poor student is a poor student no matter what the subject. A competent teacher will constantly assess their students and try presenting the same material in different ways to engage as many different learning styles as possible but teachers do rely on the students paying attention, putting what they are told into practice, and following up lessons with practice and study, and coming back to the teacher to resolve areas of difficulty. When people ask me how I remember lessons from weeks, months or even years ago I tell them that I make notes (sometimes written or video), and I constantly revisit those notes, practice and follow up with the teacher things that I find difficult or that partners tell me (an opinion that I actively solicit) are not working well. It is an approach that has served me well from school, university and at work as I am not one of those people that assumes that I hear and understand every detail on the first time, that because I have heard it that I can put it into action properly, or because something is working it cannot be done better.

    Teachers have always been happy with me videotaping the lessons that I have attended provided that I am only going to use the material for my own use. A more recent development has been that many teachers post video notebooks of their lessons on their websites, sometimes in the open site, but more often in a members only area. So in this area as well, the learning of WCS is becoming less hard.

    Old habits die hard – or legacy problems.

    Most people come into WCS these days from an MJ background and they have some habits that hinder progress.

    Automatic rock step – They do the anchor step and then instead of walking straight forwards when led they do an automatic rockstep. They are then off time, on the wrong foot, being pulled off balance. The rest of the pattern is a major attempt to recover composure.

    Leaders leading with the hands rather than the body. – This is subtle but important and important because it is one of the subtle things that make WCS a pleasure to dance. It usually ends up with the lead being way too big and uncontrolled – the followers respond to this attempt to pull them off balance by making their frame more floppy – so the leaders make the lead even bigger. It is a vicious circle that is common in the MJ world at all but the highest levels but really limits progression in WCS.

    Not understanding compression or frame – Compression is used in WCS a lot but almost never in MJ. It is often easy to lead a follower forward (since they understand tension from MJ) but as you try to go into compression their frame either collapses so there is no compression or they let their frame collapse and then jab their hands at you at the last moment. It often takes a couple of months for people to understand that without the compression (or tension) then there is no connection and without connection there is no possibility of lead and follow.

    Another MJ legacy problem is the First Move. MJ followers are trained to come forwards into a first move, walking straight forward and allow their right arm to be pulled out at right angles to their body. The move actually requires them to disengage their frame so that their body does not turn to face their own arm. This causes many a tricky moment when leading a whip as you are standing there with your right hand positioned to collect the followers shoulder blade as you lead rotation on beat 2 knowing that if the follower hasn’t started to turn then you have to get your hand out of the way quickly to avoid having a breast neatly placed into your hand. Once followers and leaders understand that frame needs to be resilient in the horizontal direction but easy to move in the vertical direction then a lot of difficulties disappear.

    The last legacy problem is – I am an MJ dance god and this just looks like MJ in a slot so I don’t need to listen to the teacher – just plain old arrogance. These people don’t often stay for very long as they can’t stand the drop from god like status and partners develop a reluctance to dance with them when they start to understand that the student has no intention of learning WCS.

    Summary

    Opportunity to learn and dance is getting more frequent and widespread as new classes and more dancers join the scene.

    Teaching is getting more refined, progressive and consistent.

    Poor students will always be so irrespective of the above. Effort will be respected just as much as achievement So if you don’t put the effort in don’t be surprised if you don’t learn fast and experienced dancers stop being willing to dance with you.

    Some old MJ habits are working against the majority of incoming WCS students but most people overcome these habits in time.

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