Some Lindy Focus Stories and Some Bloviating

So I was intermittently working on a long post… and then Lindy Focus happened.  Between privates with Laura Glaess, Mikey Pedroza, and a sit down chat with Ann Mony on dance topics that I would liken to a mini-private in itself, I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t know which parts I think I understand about dancing , both my own dancing and dancing in general, are true and which are absolute B.S. and I am going to be months in sorting some of that out.  (I also should probably remember that any new understanding I reach is still going to be flawed.)  But I didn’t want to scrap that long post entirely, so here is the compromise.  I am posting some Lindy Focus stories of the more personal variety (trusting on other blogs and facebook to cover the general ones) and then following it with a break and the draft of that long post with a short addendum on why I stopped.  Now on to the stories!

The private with Laura Glaess really cut me down a notch.  A lot of what she said was similar to the instruction I had gotten from Laura Keat last year.  Laura herself was wonderful, but being confronted with the fact that everything I had worked on for a couple months at the beginning of 2011 simply flew out the window over the months that followed, well it was a bitter pill to swallow.  But I relearned a lot about body leading, which hopefully will stick this time.

Inspired by the Yehoodi Beaver Lodge podcasts, I also peppered Laura with questions about how she approached following and how her ideal leader would lead.  I remember having a dance with her a few years back and not understanding what she wanted in her connection.  (There had been no follow up dances since because I am of the mindset of why burden a follower with a crummy dance when the problem is on my end)  I don’t trust myself to explain her answers with my words, but I do understand a bit better what sort of connection I should provide her, even if I am not skilled enough to do so yet.  About all I will say is she is a self professed “momentum junkie” and has some very specific ideas on how to milk everything out of that momentum and how leaders can facilitate that.  What fascinated me though, was that with that knowledge I could watch her dance for the rest of the camp and could see the little burrs and hiccups (no outright errors, just movement spent on connection readjustments vs. her creating awesomeness) in the dances between her and her partners based off what her leaders were doing, specifically when it did not align with her predilections.

With my self esteem cut down several notches after the private with Laura, I got a nice boost later that night.  As the dance ended my partner looked at my wristband, and not recognizing the coloring asked me if I was in the Master’s track.  Now each of the dance tracks had solid color wristbands, but I had signed up for a dance pass only, and the bracelet for that was this multicolored festive party pattern.  Honestly, if I wanted to give the Master’s track a special wristband saying, “hey you are awesome”, this is probably what I would have given them, so I can see how the conclusion was drawn.  At any rate I had to self deprecatingly laugh and tell her no, it was a dance pass only bracelet, and that I would probably be in the inter-adv+ track if I had actually done classes.  Still, that was a nice shot to the ego.

My private with Mikey went really well.  He is a heck of a teacher and we had good give and take chemistry.  We covered a whole lot of things, much of which built on body leading principles from the privates I had with both Laura’s but through Mikey’s filter of where connection points should be.  This went smoothly as much of Mikey’s thoughts matched well with my predilections.  I probably shouldn’t be surprised by that match up, considering that I specifically sought him out due to our sharing of similar body types and I wanted his take on form/function movement with said body type.  So being comfortable with his conclusions should follow.  But the other point was just some philosophy.  Watching me dance he said something to the effect that I did some of the most comfortable for the follower arm leading he had seen, but that it was still arm leading.  What we worked on then was replicating that comfortable leading with body leads.  With thought, I can now implement perhaps 75% of the material at 120-140 bpm.  So now the trick is to get that other 25%, getting the full 100% to work in the 160-180 bpm range (and beyond), and to be able to do so without having to think about it.  If this actually sticks, this is going to be a game changer for my dancing.

Speaking of chemistry, I had one of those wild encounters of instant “connection zen” both on and off the floor with a follower there.  As I know she sometimes reads this blog, this is my shout out and thank you to her for all the great dances and for sitting with me and chatting while I was under the weather on New Year’s Eve.  One of her stories about drawing college students in to a class with promises of learning the cool move “The Pretzel”, and then teaching a swing out under the name of “The Pretzel” sent me into stitches twice over as my laughter devolved into a horrible coughing fit.  Totally worth it.  Here’s to hoping that as I change my dancing, I don’t simultaneously break that “connection zen”

But one final story before I cut to the draft blog post I mentioned. It is a story that I think emphasizes much of all that is right with Lindy Hop.

Standing on the side one evening, I watched two pros, who will remain nameless since I don’t want to embarrass them, meet up and dance.  I was very interested because the leader has a very precise, controlled, and measured style, while the follower has a very raw, loose, and organic style.  So I figured seeing those two styles put together was going to be something.

The dance was a trainwreck.  It looked like every 8-16 beats there was a connection foible so bad that an out and out dance reset had to be made.  But the entire time there was nothing but smiles on both their faces, and mouthed versions of “darn that was cool” or “I’ll get that next time” from both of them.  Nothing but respect and joy for what the other person was doing even if things were not working.  And they both went wholeheartedly into every movement they made, really going for everything despite the outcomes.  When the song ended they stayed together and tried to make it work in a second dance.

The second dance was possibly even a bigger train wreck.  At one point the leader knocked the follower’s glasses off and they flew a good 10 feet.  Even with that dance stopping moment, nothing but smiles, respect, admiration and joy.  And when the song ended they stayed together for another song determined to make it work.

I wish I could tell you they finally gelled and that this third dance was magic, but this is no fairy tale.  There was a start to that gelling, and they occasionally made it through an entire phrase before fouling up.  But the entire time, still nothing but smiles, laughter, respect, and dancing all out.  Seeing how those two people turned “failure” into joy and start on the path to making it work was one of the most inspiring things I have seen in a while, and a humble reminder that there is always more to learn, even for the pros.

Now on to that post I never finished

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Earlier in December there were a pair of interesting blog posts talking about conformity and lack of innovation in Lindy.  The first was with regards to routines at Vernacular Jazz Dance.  The second was with regards to followers at Lindy Hop Variations For Followers.

And these posts got me thinking, and ranting, and wanting to write… so here’s a post that is going to be part rambling pseudo-analytical personal manifesto, part rant, and partly me touching on some potentially hot topics that I am in no way skilled to write about without offending someone.

So the big disclaimer before I start.

My thoughts and approaches to dance are not the only way to approach dance.  They only reflect how I view things and what works for me.  I do not claim that these views are definitive descriptions of how things are or how they ought to be.  There are other approaches that are (equally?  more?) valid that work for other people.  I will even list a few of them as I go along.  And if you think my views make me an asshole, that’s cool.  Sometimes I am and I am the one who has to live with that.

That said let me begin.

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My initial thoughts reading these posts were blunt, simplistic, and somewhat snarky.  Duh.  Sturgeon’s Law , which posits that 90% of everything is crap, applies just as well to Lindy Hop as it does to any other art production.  It may be uncharitable to call technically sound but unoriginal routines or followers “crap”.   But if they aren’t “good”, well Sturgeon’s Law doesn’t differentiate between degrees of “bad” or “OK” (Something that isn’t “good” is simply “crap”)  When approached from this angle, I find it pretty remarkable that there are so many “good” routines and follows in the Lindy world period.

Another blunt simplicity.  Innovation and creativity are hard.  And for that creativity and innovation to also be good?  Well that’s harder still.  While there are multiple paths to being able to reach the end goal of good creativity, Jazz great Clark Terry has a quote that sums up the path a lot of people take “Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate”.  Google that quote and take your pick of blog posts to read more about it, if the concept is new to you.

It really shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of people, be they choreographers, followers, or leaders, are hung up at the imitate and the assimilate phases of learning.  And contributing to that hang up is another blunt simplicity.  Group think and peer pressure to conform are real bitches.

In the discussion section at Variations for Followers, a blog post on a similar theme, the growing homogeneity of lindy hop, is referenced.  Part of that post laments what the poster sees as the apparent death of city or regional styles of dance and the growth of more national or even international homogeneity.  I’ve seen responses to that post and posts like it which boil down to the following.  Once upon a time, travel and video were limited so all people could imitate was local talent.  Group think and conformity was similarly locked down locally.  Then there came youtube and the explosion of dance weekends and events.  Imitation never went away, but the group think and conformity broke loose and went global too.  So instead of what once was 10 groups comprised of 10 similar dancers now we have 1 group of 100 similar dancers.

(Between starting to write this post weeks ago and actually finishing it, a post on imitation, inspired by the original 2 posts on innovation, popped up on dogpossum. I think it is worth a read)

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But are there factors that reinforce that group think conformity and are there ways to promote innovation?  In the discussion section, Variations for Followers posits that competition between followers for dances with top leaders in her scene forces follows to conform.  A little lower in the discussion, Sam from dogpossum mentions her experience with clear solid leading prompting innovation in followers she has danced with and wonders if poor leaders might be to blame for impeded follower creativity.

I’d like to discuss these two ideas and a few related concepts.  And it is here that I know I am going to be playing with fire and the disclaimer at the beginning of this post is going to make more sense.

To a degree I believe Variations for Followers is right.  I believe that leaders that subscribe to more traditional lead follow models of the dance where roles are fixed do cause pressure to conform.  (This may not be as true for leaders subscribing to 50-50 models of dancer responsibility).  They, or at the very least I, do not like unskilled innovation and react negatively to it.  However, no one magically leaps from unskilled innovation to skilled innovation without messing up and risking that negative response.  I’d like to address what brings about that negative reaction and while I don’t have magic solutions for getting around it, perhaps it might inspire others to think up solutions.

Part of what draws this leader response is simply leader well being.  Many things that a follower can do will hurt a leader if done wrong.  Take something like the kick away variation.  Here’s a random teaching clip I found demonstrating them so we are all on the same page.

Relatively simple, relatively common lexicon move, and when done right should be insertable into just about any swingout by a follower without the variation being lead.  However, doing this correctly takes timing.  It takes balance.  To do it and really look good often requires support from the leader so the follow can really stretch it and the follower needs to learn how to ask for that support when the leader hadn’t originally planned on giving it.  And if the leader is not paying attention or is simply unprepared or unable to offer that support, a follower needs to know how to abort or scale back.

That’s quite a bit to learn.  Much respect for every follower who eventually learns these things.  And the end results are gorgeous.  But anytime kick aways are taught during a workshop weekend though I cringe.  Because during that learning process my left arm and shoulder are going to be wrecked by every screw up a follower makes.

And that’s just a common variation.  A follower learning the kick away has a blue print to work from and knows it works.  A follower really innovating and making a new styling or making a kick away their own is everything above squared.  Including the potential leader hurt.

Back to the comments section of Variations for Followers, Sam expressed some surprise that Frida hasn’t had a larger effect on the American Lindy Hop scene.  My hypothesis as to why?  People channeling Frida without the skill to back it up hurt.  The thing that I think that makes Frida so interesting to watch is that she gives the impression that she tight rope walks the fine line between control and disaster and never missteps.  Learning to walk that line is going to involve missteps and hurt.

Unsurprisingly, leaders do not like to dance with followers who hurt them.  I would also like to believe that followers do not like to be responsible for bringing the pain either.  So yes there is some pressure by leaders on followers to not innovate.  This however isn’t maliciously caused pressure.  Perhaps followers wishing to push bounds might explore partnering for the same reason one partners to learn aeriels, moving the learning to a practice environment instead of doing it on the social floor.  I don’t really know though.  I am just hypothesizing here.

But safety is not the only part to the aversion for unskilled innovation.  Experimentation often adds uncertainty to a dance and can break dance flow entirely.  However, before I delve into that, let me first take a little detour and discuss Sam’s observation regarding solid leading prompting follower innovation.

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I have heard it said that there is leading, there is following, and there is dancing (which I am going to italicize to differentiate the term from normal uses of the word dancing).  The most obvious feature of partner dancing (unitalicized) is two people executing movement together.  Hopefully to the music.  Usually based on a lead follow dynamic.  But within that framework each person moves to create or express their own rhythms through their body and that’s where the dancing is.

Now good dancing often is pure innovation and innovation takes some thought.  Generally not detailed thought because that gets in the way, but thought nonetheless.  However there is a limit to what you can think about on the floor, and good partnered dancers have a lot to think about:  safety, the music, what are we doing as partners together, dancing.  Good solid leading takes much of the thought out of the “what are we doing” aspect of the dance, because the intent becomes clear and thought doesn’t have to be wasted figuring out what a leader meant.  Followers then can think about their dancing more and thus Sam’s observation that good solid leading prompts innovation plays out.

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Back to why leaders non-maliciously stifle follower innovation.  As followers learn to dance, the errors that result produce noise in the connection and the reverse of everything in the preceding paragraph applies.  Leaders have to think more about what their partner is doing to make “what we are doing” work.  This means that considerate leaders have a little less thought to devote to their dancing.  But more importantly, leading and managing the “what we are doing” aspect of the dance is a minor degree of innovation on its own.  At the risk of oversimplifying, when one swing out ends, the dance is going to sputter unless the leader thinks of something else, even if it is another swingout or just standing there and pulsing.  Something new is created, and while a lot of things like the music, setting yourself up, and partner input affect what new thing a leader leads, we also have established that innovation is hard, requires some thought, and wondering what the heck your follower is doing is a drain on thought that makes it harder.  Working under the assumption that noone particularly likes it when things are made harder, there should be no surprise that there is going to be some negative pressure on followers learning to dance, even if this pressure is unconscious.

I was going to write more, but post Lindy Focus thoughts have made me stop.  Especially after the private with Mikey, I am thinking about leading and dancing as a more unified piece instead of separate concepts and that puts a lie to most of the above paragraph.  I haven’t even begun to think about following and dancing as a unified piece and frankly am feeling less than qualified to even attempt to at this moment.  So take everything above with some healthy skepticism.  Maybe there are some kernels of truth in some of that B.S., but I am no longer sure about even that.