questions i was asked about dancing in tasmania that have caught my interest: some 'rules' »
March 30, 2005
questions i was asked about dancing in tasmania that have caught my interest #3: blues getting boring?
I really think blues is very important to lindy hop. It’s all the essential technique in one, slow, difficult (yet most excellent) package. To make it more interesting, I revise my technical basics.
Bounce. As a lead, am I bouncing? In this case the word ‘pulse’ might be more appropriate, but the principle’s the same. How am I keeping energy in the dance? Am I standing still a lot? If I am, I might be killing the momentum of the dance/connection. How do I move when I’m blues dancing? Do I bounce down to gather momentum for a step, or do I just pull us both across the floor with my arms? Get down. Get connected with the floor. Not hunched over, but feel each step initiating in your push up from the floor. If I’m following, am I ‘following’ their bounce?
Posture. How am I standing? If I’m hunching forward, does this interrupt my connection with my partner by either forcing them to bend backwards to fill the ‘space’ between us, or are they just moving away? Am I bending backwards and pulling my partner off-balance (ie, do they feel off-balance?)?
Do I have the thread running clean and straight from the top of my head to my foot? If it’s not, then I’ll make it harder for my partner to feel my weight changes – I’ll feel like 2 or more ‘center’s moving about. I want to unify my entire body, keeping my entire body ‘centered’ in my navel, but also keeping that center always over one foot or another in a straight line. Sometimes it’s over both feet, but if so, is this a default or a conscious choice? Does this make it hard for me to then move into another position? I try to ‘connect’ my center to my partner’s – as a lead, I’m leading their center with my center. As a follow, I’m following their center. I’m not using my arms to lead or follow, but my weight change/shifting my center.
Am I using my center to lead – my body – or my armies? Am I tensing my arms and ‘following’ with my arms, rather than moving my entire body? If my shoulders and arms are getting tired, I’m probably using my armies too much. Blues dancing lasts for ages and is very intense. I need to conserve energy. So I need to use my big muscles to do big jobs and my small muscles to do small jobs. So I use my body to move me, and to move my partner. This will help my balance, make it easier for my follow to follow, and help me conserve energy. Having said that,
Do my arms end at my wrists or my fingertips? Make sure your whole arm – to the fingertips – is energised. Not in a tense way, but in a tingly, energised, active muscle way. Use your hands and fingertips as an extension of your center, not as separate floppy or too-tense appendages. Blues dancing is still dancing, not sleeping. So don’t completely relax – stay energised.
Varying mood and rhythms.
Am I listening to the music or just repeating ‘patterns’? Am I ‘favouring’ one foot and always starting with my left or right foot? It’s harder to use both sides equally, but it makes you a more interesting dancer and prevents unnecessary fatigue. Think creatively and listen to the music: vary slow weight changes (ie side-to-side sorts of things) with faster ones. Double and half time. What does the music tell me to do? Am I dancing only on one instrument? Am I adding to the music or just reproducing what I hear? Am I responding to the changes in ‘mood’ in the music by increasing or decreasing the ‘energy’ of my movements/connection? Am I maintaining only one emotional ‘mood’? Am I being too sultry/sexy/sensual? Am I being silly enough? All this variation will make you a more interesting partner.
Do I know where my partner’s weight is all the time? In blues it’s harder to fake a weight change. Can you feel where your partner’s weight is all the time? Are you making clear weight changes or splitting your weight (ie can you lift one foot at any time?)? Do you know how to use your weight change to change your partner’s weight?
And most importantly: are you standing with the right type of posture and groundedness that will make it possible for you to take a fair amount of your partner’s weight? They shouldn’t be dead weights, but if they lose their balance, fall, pass out, whatever, could you take that weight without fainting from pain? This means keeping your posture nice all the time.
Look up. Don’t look down. Look down=fall down.
All that makes even an entire dance in closed position with one partner interesting.
But should you want more…
Experiment with the ‘embrace’. In closed position, you can do a very close embrace where you touch from forehead to toe. Or you can create space between you. If you’re creating space, make sure you both do so evenly. Follows can initiate a closer/more open embrace. Leads should always, always respond to this – is your partner telling you to back off? To get closer? To vary your ‘moves’? To get more interesting? To get less interesting?
You can also do blues from a more open position, where the lead has their hands under the follow’s armpits, with their hands splayed across their shoulder blades. The follow may put their hands wherever they like. I like to increase the level of connection by laying my arms on theirs. You can also open this out, so one side is completely open with no contact, then switch to the other side.
You can use your ‘open’ lindy position. You can do all your lindy moves in blues, just adjusting for speed. Turns are nice. Sugar pushes can be shweeet. Doing all these things slowly makes you really make sure you have decent balance and weight transfer happening: you can’t fake it when it’s slow.
At the end of the day, there really aren’t any ‘rules’ for blues. There aren’t as many codified ‘moves’. To keep it interesting, think about technical changes, and experiment with these technical things to ‘create’ moves. There’s no reason why you couldn’t use your lindy moves in blues. Tango has been pillaged by blues dancers – Steven Mitchell and Virgine shamelessly steal from tango for their blues dancing. You might borrow from latin dances, etc etc.