Mixin’ it up

Let’s talk about a question that I get asked a lot at the local country and ballroom dance events.  I’ll step out on the floor with someone, the music will be playing and they’ll ask me, “What dance style will we be doing?”  Sometimes it’s very straightforward.  The count, the tempo, or the style means that it is definitely a waltz or salsa or polka.  But more often than not my answer is, “Anything.”

I was, am, and will always be a Lindy Hopper.  That being said, I am familiar with about 20 different dance styles.  What that means is that every time I dance, I’m dancing Lindy Hop.  And yet I am free to use steps and styling from a dozen other dances at any time.  Doing a Fox Trot basic step doesn’t mean I’m dancing Fox Trot.  It just means I thought there was a call for that step at that moment.

This is an important concept that a lot of people overlook.  In fact, a lot of music makes this an essential concept.  There are many musicians out there that play around with style and tempo in the middle of the song.  And when the song changes, the dance has to change with it.  I see it way too often.  A song that was a good two-step changes very clearly to a waltz during the bridge.  And there everyone goes, plowing ahead with two-step even though it no longer matches the music.

This idea is less about being creative than it is about being flexible.  Pay attention to the music and let yourself move with the step and style that is appropriate at that moment.  When the music changes, let your dance change.  And think of every style you learn as adding to your repertoire as a whole.  If all you know in salsa is the basic step, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad or inexperienced salsa dancer.  It means you are a dancer that can do the salsa basic too.

Dancing in the Aisles

My partner, Anna, and I had an opportunity recently to teach for a couple days at the Washington High School dance class.  I was a Freshman when I started dancing, and I try to share what I do with the high-school students at least once a year.  The students were polite and receptive, but probably not as involved as I would have hoped.  There was a very clear perception about learning partner dance that they had… “When am I ever going to use this?”  Worse yet is it’s not limited to them.  Time and time and time again, people who aren’t involved in the dance scene resist learning because, “When am I ever going to use this?”  So I thought I should give a few choice examples of opportunities I’ve found in Sioux Falls.

Anna, Josh and I were on our way down to Cowtown Jamborama in Omaha recently.  We were all psyched up for an amazing weekend of lessons and dancing, and boy, we were ready to dance.  We stopped at Subway on the way down and were waiting our turn at the back of a small line.  No worries.  I was humming a swing tune and Anna and I were dancing right there in Subway.  Josh took pictures.  Believe it or not, there weren’t nearly as many confused stares as you would have expected.

A couple weeks ago, coming back from day two of teaching at Washington High School, Anna and I stopped at McDonalds for lunch.  It was still early and they weren’t serving lunch for another 15 minutes, so we decided to hang out an wait.  I got my iPod and player out of the car, and there we were passing time by dancing in the isles at McDonalds.  It was very cool to see that everyone was smiling and enjoying watching us playing around and having fun.

One of my students used to work the cubicle gig at Qwest.  It’s a long, dull, frustrating job of dealing with irate customers all day.  He told me that things improved when he figured out he could be doing triple steps in his cubicle.

There are singles groups and dance studios that have dances pretty much every week.  There are a number of different bars in town with dance floors that bring in people and play music all night.  And that’s really all you need.  Music, a floor, and someone to dance with.  It’s so easy, it’s requires so little, and it really does make everything better.

When are you ever going to use this?  Anytime you want.

New steps

Repertoire is probably the biggest concern of every new student.  When you start learning a new dance, you want more steps.  Harder steps.  Fancier steps.  Well, the problem is that when you learn a new step, that’s all you know.  You don’t really learn the variations and styling that goes along with it.  So rather than just focusing on the individual steps that you’ve learned, here is a list that might be equally useful.  I wrote this several months ago for a student, and it is by no means a comprehensive list.  But I think this is enough to last most new Lindy Hoppers a long time.

Lindy essentials:

Swing Out

Lindy Circle

Inside Turn

Outside Turn

Texas Tommy

Free Spin

Waist Wrap

Shoulder Wrap

Sugar Push

Basic (East Coast)

Charleston

Tandem Charleston

20′s Charleston

Open Charleston (kick-through & cross-kick)

Tuck

Dip

Side Dip

Poses

Plants

Walks/Slides

All of the above:

From a closed position

Into a closed position

From a closed into a closed

Starting cross-hand

Finishing cross-hand

Starting leader’s right hand to follower’s left hand

Two handed

Double cross-handed

Half tempo

Twice (or more) in a row

In 4 counts

For 12 counts

For 16 counts

Backwards

From a dip

Into a dip

Backled (leader does the follower’s step)

While traveling

Turning 180 degrees

Turning 540 degrees

Without turning

As a send out (rewinding half-way through)

Without footwork

With footwork from a different dance style

Forcefully

As gently as possible

While hunched/ducking

Now start combining them.

If you don’t yet know these essential Lindy Hop steps, call 605-212-6230 to sign up for our private lessons or monthly series.

Midtown Stomp

Back in my old stomping grounds of Sacramento, the swing venue of choice is called Midtown Stomp.  It’s a weekly event that has changed locations more than once in it’s lifetime, but has continued to expand and influence not only the local swing scene, but the entire city.  Recently, the Sacramento Bee had a wonderful article about Midtown Stomp, and I’d like to share with you what they had to say.  My congratulations go out to Midtown Stomp for all of their successes, and the amazing difference they have been able to make in Sacramento.  My thanks go out to Anna Ritner for writing this article.

“Sometimes, when the mood strikes, you just gotta dance. Yet I often hear people complain, however lazily, that there’s nowhere good to exorcise dancing demons in Sacramento.

The Park is too processed, they say, Press Club loses its sheen at the exact moment your ex decides to start hanging out there, and the music at Badlands is so canned, you risk hearing ‘All the Single Ladies’ playing on a continuous loop in your brain for a week to follow your excursion.

For those who desperately want to rock, may I offer a solution. The venue is romantic, the music has withstood the test of time, and the crowd oozes rhythm and style to the extent that – get this – it doesn’t even need a bar to get down.

Midtown Stomp is the name of the organization that’s keeping swing dancers swinging in Sacramento, and it offers beginner-level East Coast swing classes – often to the tunes of a live band – for singles, couples and anyone who’s ever dreamed of teleporting to the Cotton Club circa 1930 for a Sazerac and some healthy, arm-flailing jive.

Every Friday night, while you’re sitting at a nightclub and gazing longingly at an empty dance floor, the Stompers are stoking the embers of tradition as they steam up midtown’s Eastern Star Ballroom with the Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa and a handful of other old-time dances that look even sweeter than they sound.

Showing up for my first swing-dance lesson was a little like visiting the high school prom experience of several decades past, minus a corsage. And a date. The lobby of the grandiose Eastern Star Temple, with its decadent spiraling staircases and ancient smells, instantly transported me to the 1920s, the era in which the K Street building was constructed. While waiting in line to register, a gaggle of teen girls, outfitted in T-strap shoes and loose skirts, chatted with another newcomer.

‘We never miss a week,’ they beamed, their limbs already bouncing in swing time rhythm.

I ascended the spiral staircase leading to the temple’s gorgeous and expansive ballroom. Teens, adults, couples and singles were scattered across the floor. They were practicing moves from last week’s lesson and warming up for a night of hopping, twirling and rock-stepping – the latter a back-and-forth weight-shifting movement that is the keystone of the swing dancing experience.

Within minutes, the crowd blossomed from about a dozen people to more than 100, and the group’s composition was so diverse in age, height, ethnicity and appearance, it rivaled the human smorgasbord found at any DMV.

And here’s the very best part of the class: Because you constantly change partners, you get to meet almost every single person (at least those of the opposite sex) in attendance.

I saw meticulously slicked-back hairstyles, bald heads, plenty of fedoras, sneakers and high heels, the only common denominator being that crowd had an air of old-fashioned manners. The men were wearing cologne; the women were lipsticked and standing up straight. And the phenomenon of existing in a little-known midtown hideaway under the chandeliered ceiling of an all-original ballroom, listening to ‘Stormy Weather’ echo out over the wood floor, was sublime – in the most dreamy, vintage sort of way.

Perhaps I channeled the spirits of bygone Sacramentans, who, in the midst of swing fever, attended dance parties in the very same location.

Like the most adept and sanguine Disneyland tour guides, our cheerful instructors quickly had us grouped in pairs, with our right hands clasped and our left arms gently placed on the appropriate body parts of our partners.

After a minute with one partner, the ladies rotate counter-clockwise, creating a social phenomenon that’s kind of like speed-friendship-dating set to music. Some of my partners were beginners and struggled with the movements. Some of them had sweaty palms. And some of them had me twirling around in ways that were far beyond my skill set within 10 seconds of making their acquaintance.

Swing dancing saw its rise during Prohibition, and the dance’s frisky style and unbridled energy explains why its enthusiasts don’t need booze to boogie. In fact, for beginners, impairing coordination before the lesson would probably be a very bad idea.

In an era when bumping and grinding and solo dancing in noisy, shadowy nightclubs is considered apropos to many, the Midtown Stomp experience is refreshing and completely unfamiliar. The rules of the dance are older than you are, so you must face your partner directly, an arrangement that has a funny way of inducing smiles and laughter, even among strangers.

And the music, of course, is the most delightful reason to learn. Set at a comfortable volume, it allows something you can’t find on any average dance floor these days: that good, old-fashioned intimacy called real conversation.”

Cowtown Jamborama 2009!

I just danced in from Omaha.  Boy, are my legs tired.  Ba-dum-bum.

About 10 of us from Sioux Falls made the trip down to Omaha this year for their annual Lindy Hop event, Cowtown Jamborama.  Second year for me, first year for most of my students.  3 days of classes, 4 nights of dancing.  Let’s bypass all the obvious stuff.  It was beyond awesome, the dancing was incredible, the teachers were amazing, you really missed out if you didn’t go, and so on and so forth.  There’s so much new information I have from my experience to share with all of you (and believe me, a lot of it is coming right here to this blog), but today I’m going to talk about something besides the technique.

I’ve been immersed in swing dance culture for more than 9 years.  It’s second nature to me.  I know the background, the timeline, the hot spots, the main players.  And I’m so used to living in that environment that I often overlook introducing new students to the actual lifestyle of swing.  Sometimes, that’s a good thing because there’s so much that it can be overwhelming.  But to the people like myself, and my partner, and so many of our students who have fallen in love with the dance, it’s so important to remember that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  Something that connects us intimately with people we’ve never met on the other side of the world.

Lindy Hop has an astonishing history.  Both in America where it gave a voice and an audience to so many great African American dancers at the Savoy Ballroom, and in Europe where swing kids were persecuted and driven underground by the Nazi regime.  Lindy Hop has an astonishing future, with swing dance scenes developing in every major city in the world and new generations discovering the love of the past.  I’ve seen teens and 20-somethings wearing a t-shirt in the dance scenes that says, “I was born in the wrong decade.”  I kind of want one myself.

But more importantly to us, Lindy Hop has an equally astonishing present.  How wonderful is it that dancers from all over the country can come to a city for a weekend just to share their love of dance with each other?  And in that community, we speak the same language.  We are brothers and sisters to people we have never met because of the dance that links us together.  My heart and gratitude goes out to Nathan Woodhams of the Omaha Jitterbugs for organizing Cowtown Jamborama, and to all the organizers that help to bring us together.

Music, clothing, people, dance.  It’s hard to fall in love with one without the others.  I listen to big band swing, I wear a fedora, I idolize Frankie Manning, I dance Lindy Hop.  I invite you to explore our world.  Discover all we have to share.  There’s more than you ever imagined.  And all we want is for it to make you as happy as it has made all of us.

Enough talking.  Now come dance.

My first swing dance shoes

I get asked this question a lot.  Once you start getting into the swing dance scene, you need a good pair of dance shoes.  They’re not exactly available at every Wal-Mart, so where do you go?

First off, what makes a good pair of dance shoes?  You want something snug but not tight, and fairly lightweight.  Padding helps, especially if you’re like me in wanting to dance for 8 hours at a stretch.  Small heels can help with your posture, for both guys and gals, but tall heels are generally bad news.  Not only do they affect your balance, but if you misstep and land on your partner’s foot, they can really, really hurt.  Flat soled allows you to slide, especially if it’s suede.  Durable, comfortable, and stylish as can be.

Since I’m offering my recommendations, let’s start with what I use personally.  The dance shoes I wear are made by a company called Bleyers.  They are a German manufacturer, designing shoes specifically for swing dancers.  Some have a leather sole, but most of designed with the Bleyers specialty sole, a rubber base with thin, “fade-away” tread.  This means that once they’ve been broken in, the places that get used the most are flat, allowing you to slide.  The rest of it still has tread so that you can stop on a dime when you need to.  Bleyers are also designed with a smooth pivot point under the ball of your foot, which helps to balance and speed up your spins.  I wear a black and white Boogie Woogie style shoe with a hard, patent leather finish.  I’ve had them for many years, and I take them in to a repair shop when needed to get the eyelets around the laces replaced or the sole reglued.  I always wear the additional insoles for comfort.  They are not available for wholesale, but you can find them through retailers online.  Expect to pay upwards of $130 for the shoes, the insoles, and shipping.  See http://www.bleyershoes.co.uk/ for some good information.

The professional shoe manufacturer of choice for swing dancers is Aris Allen.  They are amazingly light, so much that it feels more like wearing socks than shoes.  They have a soft or hard leather sole, and are available in a greater variety of styles than Bleyers, including a lot of colorful choices for the ladies.  They run about half as much as Bleyers do, which makes them much more popular for the college crowd.  You can see their line at http://www.dancestore.com/.

In the major cities with long running swing dance scenes, the option of choice is something a little different.  Take an old pair of sneakers, one you’re about ready to retire anyway.  Take them to a shoe repair shop and have them replace the sole with suede.  It usually costs somewhere between $30 and $50 depending on where you have them done.  You already know that you like the style, and it’s comfortable, broken in, and it fits.  It might not look like a professional dance shoe, but it works just as well.

As a last minute solution, duct tape fixes everything.  Wear sneakers out to the dance floor, and stretch duct tape over the sole.  It’s not a great long term solution, but it does make them slick.  I’ve known people who have gone this route for years.

Try to stay away from jazz and ballet shoes.  They are generally to thin to be comfortable on a hard wood or concrete dance floor.  Ballroom shoes are usually designed more for style than comfort, and I don’t think they’re worth the price.  Heavy boots are risky as a misplaced kick can injure your partner.  And even though this should be obvious, I see it on the dance floor way too often… don’t ever wear flip-flops.

Rule #1

Those of us who have been in the swing dance scene for a while know the golden rule.  We know it because we’ve betrayed it before and been burned as a result.  It is easy to forget, and even easier to ignore, but it is one of those things that every person in a social dance scene anywhere should always keep in mind.  You’ll probably discover how important it is sooner than you’d expect.

Rule #1 is:  No falling in love on the dance floor.

For all we talk about ways to sweep our partner off their feet, or how to do that perfect step that makes them melt in our hands, we have to be able to stop ourselves from getting permanently lost in that moment.  Dance floor chemistry is very different from real-life romantic chemistry.  Just because you have a very intimate connection with someone on the dance floor doesn’t mean you’ll connect with them in any other aspect of life.  You may discover that aside from dance, you don’t have a single thing in common with them.  Dancers come from all walks of life, so don’t imagine how wonderful your life would be together just because the dip was perfect.

Don’t look at this as being expected to keep a professional distance between you and your dance partner.  Swing dance is a social event.  We want you to dance with a lot of different people, and to get to know the others in the community.  Many of my closest friends have come from swing dance, and I make new friends on the dance floor all the time.  But it should always be from the perspective of, “They seem like a cool person.  I’d like to hang out with them outside of dance and get to know them better.”  That attitude should always be encouraged.  The thought you want to avoid is, “We dance so well together.  We must be soul-mates.”  Trust me.  The odds of connecting that well with someone both on and off the dance floor are very, very small.  It does happen, but not often.

Like I said, this is an easy rule to forget.  Even after dancing for 9 years, even after teaching this very rule to hundreds of students, I still fall in love on the dance floor an average of 3 or 4 times a year.

I’ve had my heart broken every time.

The big question

Whenever I meet someone new and I tell them what I do for a living, I almost always get asked, “What got you into dance?”  The answer is simple, and I tell people freely.  Women.  And people always seem to laugh like that answer was somehow unexpected.  It’s very confusing to me.  We can accept that a man can burn through money buying designer clothes and exotic cars, or that he’ll spend hours pumping up the most visible muscles in the gym, all for the purpose of making himself more attractive to the opposite sex.  But the idea that a man will actually learn to dance to improve his love life seems laughable.  It shouldn’t be.  I’ll admit that it’s been many years since hooking up with a girl has been my main motivation for dancing.  I love swing dance for its own sake.  But I say without shame that the ability to meet, connect, and yes, actually impress a woman on the dance floor is and will always be one of the biggest perks.

This goes for women just as much as men.  How shocking that a woman might actually tire of meeting people in an environment where the men have free reign to behave like animals.  My experience:  women apprciate all the people they meet when out dancing.  It’s an environment that is elegant without being reserved.  Fun without being completely out of control.  Where the icebreakers are as simple as an introduction and a “Nice to meet you.  Would you like to dance?”

The irony of all of this is that it is an astounding pain in the neck to get people to come out and dance.  Those of us who have been in the swing dance scene for a while have talked recently about how hard it is to convince our friends to come have fun with us (it’s actually a little comforting to have more people share my plight).  We know how much fun it is, and it’s not like we’re keeping it a secret, or making it hard to find.  We’re shouting it from the rooftops, and opening our doors to anyone who wants to come.  Yes, we really do want you to join us.

I’ve said this many times before, but to anyone reading this, I’ll say it again.  There is an opportunity here in Sioux Falls to be part of something so cool it’s like it’s out of a movie.  You can do it with friends, or you can do it alone.  You can do it every now and again when the mood strikes you, or you can do it every night of the week.  You won’t be judged, or mocked, or put down, or harassed in any way.  And you’ll be surrounded by people who honor and appreciate you, just because you took the time to show up.  You’ll meet and connect with amazing people from all walks of life who want to get to know you better.  You’ll have an amazing time, and it’s free.  I am personally inviting you to share all of this with me.  Would you really say no?

Who inspires you?

Back when I was living in California, there was a member of our local swing dance scene named Cid Galicia.  Cid is a renowned swing DJ along the west coast, but I remember him much more because he was just a slick dancer.  Well, our main weekly Lindy Hop event at the time was at a small studio owned by a friend of mine.  I didn’t always have someone to dance with.  So on the songs I was sitting out, I would stare at the floor and imagine seeing myself out there dancing.  I would think, “If I were dancing right now, what would I be doing?”  I did come up with a few new steps and ideas about technique that way, but the breakthrough was when I changed it to, “If Cid were dancing right now, what would he be doing?”  All of a sudden, whole new worlds opened up.  Cid had (probably still has) a much larger repertoire than me, and picturing him dancing meant seeing him doing all the cool stuff that I didn’t do.

Well, once I realized that I could choreograph these beautiful routines for Cid, it was time to try it out for myself.  Whenever I stepped out on the dance floor, I’d ask myself, “What would Cid do?”  My dancing improved immediately!  All of a sudden, I had a larger repertoire than ever before.  Could I do everything Cid could?  No.  But definitely a lot more than before.

Our biggest limitation is how we see ourselves.  Placing ourselves in the shoes of another liberates us.  The classic one is, of course, “What would Jesus do,” but it works equally well for dance.  Watch videos of the pros and find the dancer that inspires you.  Watch as much of them as you can.  Get to know their steps and their style.  And when you’re out dancing, ask yourself what they would do.  Then do it.  Make mistakes, try new ideas, experiment.  And remember that no matter what, you are still an artist.  You are still adding your own style, your own attitude to the dance.  You are unique, even when you emulate another dancer.  Aspire to be better than yourself, and discover how good you really are.

Thank you, Cid, for inspiring me to be better than myself.

Leaders Like to be Teased

In my last post, I talked about the connection that is so important for leaders to have.  The continuous pressure and tension that allows communication between partners.  And a lot of people think that is the end of it.  After all, the leader is the one leading and choreographing the dance, so it’s his control and his knowledge of the dance that matters.  Wrong.  Followers have a tremendous influence over the dance as well, and their connection matters.  I can tell you from my personal experience that the number of steps that I can pull off while dancing doubles when I’m partnered with a girl who really understands connection versus someone who just knows the steps.  It allows for a lot more possibilities, and more possibilities means greater freedom of expression as an artist.  And the key for followers in keeping that strong connection is to NOT do what their leader wants them to do.  At least, not right away…

Leaders like to be teased.  More specifically, leaders like to be resisted.  I don’t mean that a follower should change the steps that her leader is leading or that she should try to choreograph the dance herself.  Only one person can be the leader.  However, when a follower moves, she should move because she is 100% sure that it is exactly what her leader wants her to do.  The best way to do this is to wait.  Just a fraction of a split second is enough.  Don’t anticipate.  Wait for him to lead you through every step.  If you know he’s going to spin you, don’t just spin.  Stay connected and resist him keeping yourself just a hair behind the step.  Imagine that just before you do the step, you’re saying to your leader, “Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.”  Keep that in mind and the dance will be more playful and more creative than ever before, and your leaders will thank you.

Once again, don’t overdo it.  Reminding your partner that you can fight the step and actually fighting the step are two very different things.  Don’t make it a tug of war, and always respect the fact that your leader is coming up with all of these moves on the spot.  A good way to tell if you’re resisting too much is if it’s really wearing your muscles out.  That means you’re pulling too hard, so relax the connection, sink your feet into it, and try it again.  Also, make especially sure that you don’t bring your elbows behind your body.  It breaks the frame, and your partner has to work very hard to lead you from that position.  Just like the leader’s connection, be strong, not forceful.

If you really want to hit that fine line of perfect tension, make sure you check out our classes by calling (605)212-6230.