Ouch, that's my hand!

[Whitebeard]

OMG - people were actually taught to bend a girl's fingers back till they hurt to get her to spin????

No, no, no. Silly wee princess ;-)

The hand on elbow was an indication that the follower should make a fist of that hand. And, honestly, the move did work. In fact the follower probably had more control of the impetus into the spin and because the couple could be closer there was less chance of the follower being thrown off balance.

However, I shall try to mend the error of my potentially finger-breaking ways.

[MartinHarper]

(like the bloke at my last class who not only insisted on gripping my hand, but bending my fingers backwards really painfully as a signal for a free-spin. Apparently I should "make my hand into a fist" so I don't get hurt by this "perfectly normal" lead.)

By way of background, several places teach the use of a "ball-and-socket" grip in certain moves, whereby the follower's hand is the ball that fits into the socket of the leader's hand, without any gripping. It's normally considered the leader's responsibility to mould the hand-grip as he sees fit, rather than being something the follower needs to know.

[Lee Bartholomew]

I went to a venue last night which, whilst it's one of my local venues (2 mins walk) I haven't been there for a year.

I struggled anyhow as the floor had been stripped and I was a bit off anyhow having not danced properly for a week or so, but almost every woman there was a gripper.

Also I found it nigh on impossible to lead a good majority of them. With one girl I went in to a werlitzer, which correct me if im wrong, is not an advanced nor complex move, she managed to grip on to my hand as I turned her, nelsoning her arm behind her back and pulling me to the floor.

She latrer said that it had hurt her shoulder and that I shouldn't do complex moves???!!! Turns out she had been dancing 6 months and even after I showed her what a werlitzer was, she still instested that it was complex?????!!!!!!????? (mind you the Ceroc Spin tm confused most of the girls and the Tango intermidiate lesson consisted of a first move, catapult and a penguin, absolutly no tango at all (unless the fact the routine was done to the Gotham project track counts))).

What can you do with these people?

[MartinHarper]

What can you do with these people?

Keeping the follow's left arm at about chest height and extended means that they can't easily turn under it, or self-nelson into it. You can also keep the prep before the move relatively small. Finally, when your partner self-nelsoned unexpectedly, you were ill-prepared and thus were pulled off your feet and hurt your partner a bit. It would have been better to react to the pull earlier by stepping forward.

[NZ Monkey]

Keeping the follow's left arm at about chest height and extended means that they can't easily turn under it, or self-nelson into it. You can also keep the prep before the move relatively small. Finally, when your partner self-nelsoned unexpectedly, you were ill-prepared and thus were pulled off your feet and hurt your partner a bit. It would have been better to react to the pull earlier by stepping forward.

Keeping the arm high like this also puts the shoulder in a weak position though, and if she is prone to over rotating then this increases the chance of a dislocated shoulder by quite a lot.

Then she'll probably just go right through to the self-nelson anyway

I agree about keeping aware yourself though. It's your responsibility to look after your partner, regardless of how much danger they are to themselves (or how much danger you think they are to themselves). It's much better to abort a move that's going badly in a dangerous way than to just hope for the best. In this case someone got hurt.

[Lee Bartholomew]

Keeping the arm high like this also puts the shoulder in a weak position though, and if she is prone to over rotating then this increases the chance of a dislocated shoulder by quite a lot.

Then she'll probably just go right through to the self-nelson anyway

I agree about keeping aware yourself though. It's your responsibility to look after your partner, regardless of how much danger they are to themselves (or how much danger you think they are to themselves). It's much better to abort a move that's going badly in a dangerous way than to just hope for the best. In this case someone got hurt.

The move was a werlitzer where you have to set the hand at waist height.

When she self nelsonond, she moved backwards at the same time which is what paulled me off balance as she had a full on grip on my hand. There was absolutly nothing I nor anyone else in my position could have done.

Yes you should look after your partner when you dance, but your partner should help things by looking out for themselves.

[MartinHarper]

Keeping the arm high like this also puts the shoulder in a weak position though, and if she is prone to over rotating then this increases the chance of a dislocated shoulder by quite a lot.

Hmm. Fully extended is bad, I agree. It's not immediately obvious to me that an arm at chest height, 90% extended, makes the shoulder vulnerable. I'll take your word for it.
I'd like to think that self-preservation and avoidance of pain would kick in prior to any dislocation, but I do fear that's being optimistic.

It's much better to abort a move that's going badly in a dangerous way than to just hope for the best. In this case someone got hurt.

Certainly if you can abort a move, that's always preferable to pain and injury. That's why the occasional person who grips needs to be corrected as a matter of priority: it prevents folks from aborting moves if they start to go wrong.

The move was a wurlitzer where you have to set the hand at waist height.

Well, the move was a wurlitzer, where we are commonly taught to set the hand at waist height. I think the common teaching is simplified, and a better height is a few inches higher. It's more distinct from the lead for a nelson or wrap, it allows the follower to more easily keep her wrists low, and it's better at creating the straight line from lead-elbow to follow-elbow that is recommended.

When she self-nelsononed, she moved backwards at the same time which is what pulled me off balance as she had a full on grip on my hand.

I'm not intending to criticise here, just looking at possibilities. One thing that other forumites have talked about is "following the follower" when she does something unexpected. When your partner self-nelsoned and stepped back, that will have exerted a pulling force on your right arm. In this case, I guess the ideal response would have been to treat that force as if you were the follower, and thus step forward before the force rose to imbalancing levels. Easier to say than to do, though.

[Lee Bartholomew]

I'm not intending to criticise here, just looking at possibilities. One thing that other forumites have talked about is "following the follower" when she does something unexpected. When your partner self-nelsoned and stepped back, that will have exerted a pulling force on your right arm. In this case, I guess the ideal response would have been to treat that force as if you were the follower, and thus step forward before the force rose to imbalancing levels. Easier to say than to do, though.

Yeah It would have been and would have been a much easier option than landing on my ass.

Unfortunatly these things don't work in real life situations aswell as they do in one's head. It was all abit too quick. She was a large lady and im only little.