JiveCat covered the second part with far greater clarity than I would here:-
http://forum.cerocscotland.com/showp...6&postcount=23
I was struck by how many westies had used this technique (over this thread and the 'Is it me' thread).
While I don't consider any of them had sufficient merit, in this example it was so clearly uncalled for.
It was a matter of some annoyance to me, but I shouldn't have generalised.
Not all westies who contributed to these threads did and the observation would have, in any case, been better not made.
I see it as very much the other way around.
Just to make clear first that I consider said westies to be both experienced and very high quality dancers and I (and probably many others), have much to learn from them.
I'm not dismissing the technical points they've made.
However they have taken a proposition and dismissed it, to a significant extent by assertions and 'you know nothing' type arguments.
I'm happy to be corrected with a reasoned dismissal that addressed the arguments.
For one thing I would have learnt something worthwhile.
Absolutely.
I'll check again the other thread at some point, in case you said what you found unsatisfactory.
Just to point out the claim or proposition (depending on how you term it) was about WCS relative to Modern Jive, not purely about WCS.
To be fair and give the other side of the story, I have made considerable efforts to explain our position and you were the one who dismissed my arguments.
Like it or not, when you keep ploughing ahead against an avalanche of advice from different people, who have a lot of known experience with WCS, somebody is going to start asking questions about how much you know eventually.
Then please re-read the thread. There are plenty of reasoned arguments in there. They're just opposed to your point of view.I'm happy to be corrected with a reasoned dismissal that addressed the arguments.
For one thing I would have learnt something worthwhile.
It's an interesting question as to how much credibility to give to an argument.
In a standard internet forum, referring to one's personal experience is a poor argument, because usually there's no easy way to verify such experience - although even then, credibility does come with time, if you post with enough solid authority on particular issues.
And I think this place is not just a standard internet forum, in that a lot of us have a lot of actual real life face-to-face (and body-to-body ) contact with each other, so we know a bit more about each other's specialities.
So yes, it's reasonable to assume that if - for example - NZM says something about WCS, both his known experience and the other contributions he's made, provide his arguments with some added credibility. That doesn't mean he should be allowed to get away with talking rubbish, but it does mean we assume that he's at least thought about the topic.
If I say something about AT, it may well be rubbish / wrong, but I'll hopefully have thought a bit about the topic beforehand. As the saying goes, I may be wrong, but I'm not just guessing.
So whilst it's perfectly fine to treat this forum as a pure-internet medium, with anonymous identities, if you do that and disagree with someone who has some credibility through identity, you need to make stronger and more well-founded arguments to make your case. That's just the way it is.
Blimey, this started out as a short post...
I like what you wrote Gerry, However i think part of the issue is thatCeroc as such do not teach people to lead and follow, but they teach them moves/patterns. Ceroc is a social acitivity and the success of Ceroc is that it is easy to learn which is why you get 200 on some Ceroc nights because it is easy and then you'll only get 30-40 people attending a WCS or other dance night because it`s not easy! so it`s not really surprising that certain followers who started out in MJ would approach it as 'i don't know that move'
In the Ceroc teacher training the word Frame is never used,described or mentioned for i guess the simple reason that as soon as you start going down the teaching of technique path during normal classes then people generally switch off...It`s horses for courses.....When people no longer get stimulated or feel like they want to get a better understanding of how to dance then inevitably they go to as you mention the people who can help you and get private lessons or you go to a weekender or another dance style! One last thing, asking for feedback is always a good thing, It's a hard thing to do for people as they are risking getting negative feedback but personally every time i've asked and i have asked tonnes of times for feedback i usually find a greater understanding of my dance in the harsh words and honest opinions i have received as opposed to the people who say only nice things! be brave people!
I think at a beginner/intermediate level moves are extremely important to a leader, and it's inevitable that the follower will hear the moves being taught to the leader and learn to follow the move, rather than follow the leader.
I wouldn't put all the responsibility on the teachers; to an extent it's beholden on the more experienced leaders to help the followers learn to follow rather than to follow moves or sequences. In classes that's easily achieved by making anticipation obvious, in freestyles that's more easily achieved through clear leads with sufficient variation that a follower can't easily guess what's coming next.
Plus something like a First Move/Basic, or a duck when the lead pushes down on the shoulder, or a lady comb just aren't necessarily intuitive. However, an earlier comment summed it up best for me:
At Brighton one of the big things I got out of the weekend was the realisation that the really great leaders often don't lead a move. They move to the music, and the follower moves with them. (There are exceptions: at one point I spotted a couple competitively freestyling a routine that was taught at Breeze).
Ceroc classes generally don't seem to cater for the advanced dancers, but I certainly wouldn't use a blanket statement - I attend Ceroc classes at which frame is definitely taught, along with concepts such as dancing in a slot (which is a whole other conversation). I also attend an independent venue with 120 regular attendees many of whom participate in the 'advanced' class, so the relative ease of the class can't be the only factor.
Back on topic, rough leading is awfully disrespectful to the follower (and heavy following - especially combined with anticipation - is at times painful to the lead) and I'd hope any follower would give instant feedback. In Southport one lady did tell me I'd hurt her so I apologised, found out why and made sure I didn't lead anything similar to her.
It's probably fair to suggest that most leaders don't want to hurt their followers, so let them know!
Perhaps unlike yourself ? I did so before posting.
The are plenty of arguments, which depending on the question are reasoned.
But they're primarily scattergun arguments which are not specific enough to address the question at hand.
Sounds reasonable.
I wonder if having 'experts' can actually be detrimental, because of their ability to have others accept insufficiently specific information.
Experts may be parroting what they've heard and/or may be excessively influenced by groupthink within their restricted environment.
Whereas 'non experts' may think it through from first principles - are thinking about it.
Last edited by frodo; 26th-October-2010 at 08:41 PM. Reason: Corrected intended meaning.
Well, no. Because they're experts.
To take your argument to an extreme, any possession of experience or actual information would be detrimental to a debate.
Well, yes, if you want to take every single debate from first principles. Seems a bit like an unacceptable overhead to me...
Then I don't think anyone but you understands your question.
If there is one thing I don't think I can be accused of in this forum, it's parroting without explanation.I wonder if having 'experts' can actually be detrimental, because of their ability to have others accept insufficiently specific information.
Experts may be parroting what they've heard and/or may be excessively influenced by groupthink within their restricted environment.
Whereas 'non experts' may think it through from first principles - are thinking about it.
As to whether having "experts" is detrimental to debate, I think it depends more upon the personality of the experts in question than their knowledge. There have certainly been times where we've had experts simply assert their point of view as the correct one and then essentially bully everyone who doesn't agree with them. On the other hand, if we didn't have "experts" who were willing to put time and thought into their responses then the answer to any questions would essentially be the blind leading the blind.
If you consider us supposed "experts" to not be thinking things through ourselves and being detrimental to debate then you always have the option to liberally use the ignore button. That way you'll be free of our rigid groupthink and can tell us all about your new discoveries and ideas without us pointing out inconvenient holes in your thinking.
A nicely put balanced explanation IMO.
Whats would be point of that.
As touched on before pointing out holes should be good for everyone who is attempting to understand the subject matter.
It would be nice though, if those pointing out holes would be open to accepting when they weren't in fact holes.
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