A Leading Question

[robd]

Had a strange night tonight that clarified in my mind a few ideas I had been thinking about the level my dancing has reached, and particularly about my ability to lead clearly and decisively. I now feel very confident in intermediate class and rarely have a problem with performing any of the moves that are taught at the venues I attend (though occasionally it can be a struggle if I get one of those ladies who don't see contradiction in doing intermediate class sporting their pink first mover badge). Indeed last night a couple of ladies commented on reaching me in rotation that it was nice to be doing the routine with someone who 'knows what they are doing'. Mind you, last night's intermediates was a fairly tricky one as these things go.

However this confidence and competence is just not carrying over into freestyle. Nor indeed are many of the moves from the intermediate classes and many of those that I do try give less satisfactory results than in the class setting. This suggests to me that it has to be my leading at fault and this inadequacy is disguised during class by
* the teacher talking and counting us through the moves
* the follower knowing what move is coming and in which order and thus going through the routine on auto-pilot to an extent rather than genuinely 'following'

Further evidence of the inadequacy of my leading comes when moves do not work between me and my regular partner that I do see her carry out succesfully when dancing with other men (the inference being that her following ability is up to the job therefore it must be my leading that's faulty though I do think that dancing very regularly with someone can lead to certain issues around lead/follow that more irregular partnerships do not suffer).

I have tried to be a gentle lead, based in part on the various posts on here describing the horror of the Yanker - and on a tangent, I did dance tonight with a new lady who had the stiffest arms I have yet experienced and no amount of discussion and gentle persuasion would lead to more than a very temporary loosening of this - and the fear of hurting somebody. Perhaps it's time to Use The Force?

There's lots of good stuff on here and in the archives about exercises for improving your lead and I'll start taking a good look at those but I guess my reason for posting this (and wishing to wind up having just looked at the clock ) is to ask if others recognised themselves in similar situations and if so, what did you do to help improve your situation?

Robert

[Andreas]

A simple piece of advice, let the lady well in time which direction she is turning in. That means you start raising your hand to your left if you want to lead her in a clock-wise and to your right if it is going to be a counter clock-wise turn. In most of my dances I lead only with my finger tips or one or two fingers. This is because I generally 'let the lady know' where the turn is going.

As mentioned in another thread, move if you can't get the lady into the optimal position, i.e. always

For an exercise, when you get a chance to dance with a good follower, try do dance on the spot. That means you can turn but can't move off the mark. That way you can indentify quite easily where your greatest weaknesses in your leads are.


Anyway, good to see you spend some time thinking about that. I always do this sort of reflection on my way home from dance nights. Identifying what went wrong and what I can do to make it work next time.

[marty_baby]

There's lots of good stuff on here and in the archives about exercises for improving your lead and I'll start taking a good look at those
Robert

oh Cool!

...um...Can you give us a link to these?


Cheers
Martin

PS:
Great to see a bloke think so much about his dancing!

[TiggsTours]

How nice it is to see someone who is obviously so considerate about their leading.

Firstly I'd say, don't worry about it too much! Its not just you, its a very common phenomenon.

I'd suggest firstly that you try to concentrate on one move from the intermediate class, rather than the whole thing. I don't think I've ever met anyone who has been able to learn every single move from an intermediate class, and transfer them all to freestyle, the first time they've seen them. Maybe the men you see your regular partner dancing with have done these moves before? How long have you been dancing? Maybe they have been dancing longer.

Secondly, just because you've gone up to intermediate, don't stop with the beginners classes! Beginners moves teach you all the basic fundamentals needed to transfer into any move, and are vital to your dancing!

Next, have you tried learning to follow? Learning the other side is a huge boost to anybody's dancing, as it gives you a real appreciation of what your partner needs from you in order to make the dance a success.

Lastly, have you every considered being a taxi dancer? Having to really break down the way you dance, in order to explain it to someone else, really helps to improve your own dancing, and enables you to get over stumbling blocks. You also sound like you have a really good attitude for the job!

[Stuart M]

I'd suggest firstly that you try to concentrate on one move from the intermediate class, rather than the whole thing. I don't think I've ever met anyone who has been able to learn every single move from an intermediate class, and transfer them all to freestyle, the first time they've seen them.

My own experience (as someone who struggled for a long time on the learning curve, and still struggles with it) was basically to forget the other 2/3 moves the moment the class ended, and practice the other one at least once every dance thereafter. Of course eventually that habit disappears when you realise the ladies don't really want you to be a "move encyclopedia".

Secondly, just because you've gone up to intermediate, don't stop with the beginners classes! Beginners moves teach you all the basic fundamentals needed to transfer into any move, and are vital to your dancing!

several times over. I think if you ever feel there's no value in doing the beginner's lesson, you have a bad attitude to dancing. Particularly if you're learning to lead.

[Franck]

Had a strange night tonight that clarified in my mind a few ideas I had been thinking about the level my dancing has reached, and particularly about my ability to lead clearly and decisively.

Excellent description of what is a common problem.
What you have described is the difference between you and your partner doing the same move at the same time, and how much harder it is to lead un-ambiguously the same move when your partner is not expecting it.

Here are a few tips I can offer:

• First as StuartM says, don't try to do all the Intermediate moves, it will be tough enough to lead one, never mind 3 or 4.
• Develop some awareness of your partner's momentum, balance and general presence (including weight distribution). This will allow you to understand why she falls over every time you try to lead a particular move or why she winces because you pulled before she had completed a turn / step back / weight transfer / etc.
(By the way, I'm not implying any of this happens, just listing common faults).
• Think in terms of closing alternatives as well as leading clearly the move you mean. As someone mentioned, you might want to learn to follow so you can see how confusing most leads are, and how lost you can be as a follower.
• Finally (in this list anyway) everytime a lead fails, don't immediately try to change the lead itself, but focus on the beat before the lead, and see if there was anything you might have done to make the next part easier. This is really my best tip, but it relies on understanding the previous ones.

I hope this helps, and don't give up, you're about to make a huge transition!

[Sparkles]

Hey, Franck, how come you're not replying to PMs?!

[tsh]

* the follower knowing what move is coming and in which order and thus going through the routine on auto-pilot to an extent rather than genuinely 'following'

It's taken me quite a long time to learn how to take what it taught in the average intermediate class and from that learn how to lead a move. I actually find it easier to learn from the hard intermediate classes cause this tends to stop the ladies trying to be helpfull. Most teachers who I see regularly make no effort to explain the mechanics of leading a move, beginner or intermediate - Paul at cambridge on wednesdays being an exception.

Now that I reccognse most of the fragments of moves, I have no trouble leading some of the moves from the intermediate class with some beginners. Taxis (who have missed the intermediate class) also make good victims to see if you've learnt how to lead a move. I can also make a good guess at which moves are leadable with an average partner, so I ignore the ones which I don't think are worth trying to learn.

Sean

[LMC]

I really started thinking about my dancing 'technique' when I followed a link posted on here to the (excellent) www.afterfive.co.uk - specific stuff on lead and follow here

rec.arts.dance at http://www.eijkhout.net/dance.html is also a superb resource.

Of course, there's no substitute for actually *doing* it - but these really opened my eyes to the questions I needed to ask to really start to improve.

I would also highly recommend investing in a private lesson with a good teacher - only one has made an enormous difference to me and nearly two weeks later I'm still assimilating...

[ChrisA]

Further evidence of the inadequacy of my leading comes when moves do not work between me and my regular partner that I do see her carry out succesfully when dancing with other men

Believing such evidence is the first step to becoming a better leader. Far too many guys (including myself, at one time) believe that it's the girls' fault, and never improve.

is to ask if others recognised themselves in similar situations and if so, what did you do to help improve your situation?

Very much so.

Andreas is right - the key to getting ladies to go where you want is to give them enough warning. The very best followers can react very quickly and create the illusion that the lead was good, but it's not conducive to a nice dance for them.

You can only give them enough warning if you know pretty accurately where their body needs to be at every moment in every move, so that you can provide exactly the right invitation for them to move there in good time, and compensate by adjustment of the lead, and of your own position, when they do something slightly different.

As well as knowing where they need to be, it helps a lot if you're aware of their momentum, so that you can provide enough force (and no more ) at the right time, to slow them down and speed them up according to what you're trying to do.

The downside to knowing exactly where they need to be and how to get them there is the temptation, once you can do it reliably, to give the lady very little freedom to improvise.

Allowing her to partially decouple from the lead for long enough to do something interpretive herself - and smoothly taking it back again at an appropriate point - is another skill entirely (and one I certainly haven't mastered yet).

There's lots of talk about a lead being "suggestion" or "invitation", and this is helpful up to a point. But really there's a continuum of leading style, where at one end of the spectrum is what you might call micromanagement - where every step of every move is actively led, and gives the lady no freedom whatseover. This makes it possible to do the complex moves that only work if the dancers are tightly coupled.

At the other end is an extremely loose lead, where all the guy does is hint at a direction, leaving the lady free to do pretty much what she wants, and he just provides another hint when she's done.

It's horses for courses, but it sounds to me as if you've reached the stage where you've recognised that you aren't yet aware enough of where the lady needs to be at each moment, and how she needs to get there.

You've made the biggest step, though - realising it's you that needs to improve. If you observe carefully what goes on, and ensure that you tune what you do in such a way that you provide timely leads rather than forceful ones, I should think you'll find you get on ok.

One little hint for leading turns and assisted spins though - it's not mine (I got it from Amir originally), though it bears repeating. Imagine a halo above the lady's head, and lead her by turning your hand round the halo. Keep her hand quite low above her head, and remember that it's a halo not a hoop.

[El Salsero Gringo]

To lead some of the trickier intermediate moves you need a combination of:

- An excellent feel for the weight and balance of your partner (as Franck says.) I think this is the most important thing. Your lead might be perfect except for the fact that she's on the wrong foot or travelling the wrong way at the instant you lead, in which case - the move won't work. Do you know those games where you have to steer a marble around a maze by tilting the game slightly? It doesn't work unless you take into account how fast the marble's already travelling and in which direction.

- A clear, *consistent* lead for all the simple moves. It needs to be consistent so that your partner can feel instantly when something has 'changed' and the move might be other than she expects.

The amount of force you apply can tell your partner how far or fast a movement is supposed to go, and ideally you would like her to match you so that if you apply more force for a particular lead she pushes back just as hard. That transfers energy to her yet keeps your bodies in the right shape.

If you push hard all the time then you've turned the volume up already and when you get to the 'loud' bits you have nowhere to go. It's also tiring for your partner. If you're always very gentle then you can increase the contrast for a more interesting dance. But you do need a partner who doesn't collapse.

[David Franklin]

• Finally (in this list anyway) everytime a lead fails, don't immediately try to change the lead itself, but focus on the beat before the lead, and see if there was anything you might have done to make the next part easier. This is really my best tip, but it relies on understanding the previous ones.

One comment: on a pragmatic level, particularly when you're learning how to lead a move, it's worth trying to make the move before as simple as possible; you want to make sure both of you are properly balanced and in control. Trying to get into a neutral position where neither of you have lots of excess momentum will help recreate the feeling of doing the move in the class. [Eventually, rather than killing momentum, you want to choose the previous move so it's natural momentum helps you, but one step a time!].

[Damien]

Hi Rob - don't panic. When I read your post I thought my god this is exactly how I feel. I could have written most of your post word for word. So I guess this problem isn't exclusive to you.

But I have a slightly different take on this which I hope helps.

I've been dancing almost a year but during a lot of that year most of my dancing has been with one regular partner. I think this may be part of your problem.

My partner is a good follower with plenty of natural rhythm. Our freestyle is generally great providing I'm relaxed and confident with the moves. However, when I try out the four new moves each week I really struggle and worry about my leading.

The reasons for this have their roots, I think, in that my partner has learnt to adapt and adjust to my lead and maybe my bad habits. I think we've developed what I kind only describe as a kind of 'equilibrium'. Naturally when I try out the new intermediate moves the equilibrium gets upset.

My advice, one bit easy the other harder - I know :
1. the easy bit - As has already been said just concentrate on one or two of the moves that you find most comfortable

2. the hard bit - this is often said but in my very humble opinion its the best single piece of MJ advice that exists - you need to dance with a much greater variety of partners. It will take you out of your comfort zone and teach you to cope more effectively with the many different follower styles out there. Importantly, it will also help to cope with that equilibrium thing which I know I'm not articulating very well.

This is the hard bit because you and your partner probably dance great in freestyle (because you know each other so well - the equilibrium thing) but the irony is that when your comfy equilibrium is upset everything goes to pot. It is even harder to wrench yourself away from your partner because every time you see her dance so well with someone else it knocks your confidence even more. Even harder if your partner is your girlfriend or wife etc. From personal experience always try to make sure your dancing whenever your regular partner is dancing with someone else. That way your not comparing your lead with the next guy when your confidence can suffer.

But if you want to improve and in the long term dance better with your partner then variety is the answer. Not easy I'm still struggling but hope my experience helps.

[killingtime]

There are some really fantastic posts here about leading. It became obvious to me that I need to present a clearer lead on many moves that I try. I recently managed to wrong foot Claire S in such a way that it resulted in an impromptu hug on the dance floor .

At the moment I am very driven to learn lots of the intermediate moves; I know that people aren't impressed with how many moves you know (rather how you use them) but I suppose I still feel that my list is a bit limited and I could do with building it to present more possible moves that I have available to me at a given point in a dance. However I also feel that I'm slightly forcing the lead some times in freestyle and I'm trying to stop doing that and either it flows or I just adapt and move into something else.

[ducasi]

... the hard bit - this is often said but in my very humble opinion its the best single piece of MJ advice that exists - you need to dance with a much greater variety of partners. It will take you out of your comfort zone and teach you to cope more effectively with the many different follower styles out there. Importantly, it will also help to cope with that equilibrium thing which I know I'm not articulating very well.

This is the hard bit because you and your partner probably dance great in freestyle (because you know each other so well - the equilibrium thing) but the irony is that when your comfy equilibrium is upset everything goes to pot. ...

This is good advice – the whole post was good advice – but I don't think this is Rob's problem.

He is saying the opposite of what you you expect – it sounds like he and his partner don't dance great in freestyle, and as such I don't think he has a problem with staying inside his comfort zone.

I am very sympathetic to Rob's plight, as I sometime feel the same – e.g. why can't I lead beginners into non-beginner moves the way I see other dancers do?

I've come to the conclusion that these other dancers are just fantastically better than me (e.g. Franck) or are willing to go to greater lengths to force their partners into moves that they cannot naturally follow.

So, I accept I'm not as good as one set, and maybe less strong-willed than the other set, and just get on with the moves I know or am trying to practice... And hopefully along the way there will be two people enjoying a dance.

[Trish]

Hi Robd

Am I right in thinking you dance in Peterborough sometimes? If I've got the right person and you do, then I'm quite willing to help in any way I can (if you don't know who I am, ask Les or Dave or look out for me Tuesday when I'm taxiing). As I lead a lot, I know a lot of intermediate moves and can hopefully advise you from both the male and female perspective. If you think it'll help I'm also willing to lead!

Trish

[tsh]

I am very sympathetic to Rob's plight, as I sometime feel the same – e.g. why can't I lead beginners into non-beginner moves the way I see other dancers do?

I've come to the conclusion that these other dancers are just fantastically better than me (e.g. Franck) or are willing to go to greater lengths to force their partners into moves that they cannot naturally follow.

First, you have to chose the right beginner. Some can follow a lead, some can't.
Then, you need to be able to confidently lead the move - so I think it's mainly a case of practice. I used to find a sway very difficult to lead, but now I can often manage a left-handed sway with someone who's not even seen a sway.
Also important is knowing where my partner needs to move, and partly being able to position myself correctly to catch (or modify the move) whatever she does. The experience comes partly from learning more complicated moves, and then simplifying them - not sure that there are any shortcuts.

It ought to be obvious if people are forcing beginners into moves that they can't lead, and this isn't helpfull to anyone.

Sean

[Andreas]

• Finally (in this list anyway) everytime a lead fails, don't immediately try to change the lead itself, but focus on the beat before the lead, and see if there was anything you might have done to make the next part easier. This is really my best tip, but it relies on understanding the previous ones.

That is indeed a very good point. In particular ballroom and latin teachers constantly point out that the problem of a move starts with an error (?) in the move prior to it.

[robd]

How nice it is to see someone who is obviously so considerate about their leading.
Secondly, just because you've gone up to intermediate, don't stop with the beginners classes! Beginners moves teach you all the basic fundamentals needed to transfer into any move, and are vital to your dancing!

Next, have you tried learning to follow? Learning the other side is a huge boost to anybody's dancing, as it gives you a real appreciation of what your partner needs from you in order to make the dance a success.

Lastly, have you every considered being a taxi dancer? Having to really break down the way you dance, in order to explain it to someone else, really helps to improve your own dancing, and enables you to get over stumbling blocks. You also sound like you have a really good attitude for the job!

I still always try and make it in time for beginners - not only to sharpen those moves but also to balance the usual imbalance of M/F numbers. Occasionally I sit out if I've travelled directly from playing football (need a little rest ) but otherwise I'll get straight on there.

My partner will occasionally lead and I follow but funnily enough I tend to find with her and many other females that lead that they don't enjoy leading a following male and much prefer leading another lady. Not sure why this is. With so many women moving on in each and every class I don't think that putting myself forward as a follower would be too popular in that situation.

My venues seem pretty well stocked with Taxis and for reasons well discussed in other threads I actually think in some ways such a move could be detrimental to my development at this stage. I do still make sure to dance with new ladies and try to pass on what I hope will be useful advice though. Wouldn't mind the Admit Ones though

Robert

[robd]

oh Cool!

...um...Can you give us a link to these?


Cheers
Martin

PS:
Great to see a bloke think so much about his dancing!

Just do a search on the terms Lead and/or Follow and it should bring up plenty especially following the related links part under a thread.

Too much thinking, too little doing might sum me up nicely

Robert