jack and jills: not really social dancing at all

last thursday there was a trial run for the jack and jill format for the AJC, which i entered as a lead. these trials in the past were silly have fun things with low pressure. this time there were more entries and more pressure - some of the follows i danced with were so nervous they couldn't even look at me. i don't understand why you'd go in something that scared you so much. they couldn't possibly have enjoyed it. needless to say, it's not fun dancing with people who are really scared or not enjoying themselves at all.

the comp was okish, but i didn't really enjoy it all that much - i felt my cold coming on and was quite run-down. didn't stop me winning third place with noni out of a field of about 30 or 40 people. as a lead. noni and i had joked about getting each other and whupping it in and we did. silly girl quota lept exponentially when we took the floor.

things i have learnt about jack and jill comps:

1) sure, they're ostensibly about judging social dancing skills - leading and following, but really they judge a particular 'type' of leading and following.

2)the judging is highly subjective and possibly not consistent across judges:
-> it worries me that two of the major judges are rock n rollers who have started taking classes with swingpatrol and just started teaching: these guys have no clue about swinging music or lindy hop.
-> zot, head judge is perhaps closest to my notion of social dancing, but i think there're some major gaps between his approach to dance and other judges'. this might even out in the end, but still... you have to hope he's judging your part.

3) different people have different ideas about 'following': they may see 'following' as simply doing as the lead 'says', or they may value a more active follow role.

4) different people have different ideas about 'leading': they may see a good lead as leading steps that look good, or they may value a lead who compensates for their partner's ability and 'style'.

5) you can't do it if you're too nervous or worked up: relax and make it fun, and you'll do a better job and enjoy it far more.

6) you can't pre-plan this stuff.

7) you really have to balance 'social dancing' skills with performance/competition skills. despite the obvious suggestion that jack and jills are 'just like social dancing', it's more that jack and jills use some of the skills required in social dancing, but are still competitions and require some crowd-pleasing work and some attention to where the judges are standing, what criteria they're using and how you make your partner 'look' (again, another reason why entering the comp you plan is utterly fukked... unless you really want to win, that is).

8) leading in a jack and jill is far easier than following: you can set the terms of the dance (ie you know what's coming). sounds kind of silly, but i've found it far easier to lead than follow in these jack and jills, even though my following is perhaps 'better' than my leading. as a lead you work with what your follow has - is she a powerhouse superfollow who'll take every second you give her (like noni) or is she shyer, more of a 'safe follow' who likes to be led all the time?

crinkle and doris have been discussing the value of a lead's not planning steps too far in advance - of responding to their follow on a beat-by-beat level.
it surprised me when they pointed this out - that's simply how i lead. i can't imagine it working any other way. i mean, each follow has different needs, abilities, style and interest. plus you're dancing on a crowded floor full of other dancers, and you vary yourself in your dancing each night. plus there's the whole music thing.
how could you possibly make a dance work if you plan it all in advance? and why would you - that's far too much work!

but it was interesting to see how this worked in a jack and jill comp situation. it sounds terribly cynical and calculating, but... hell, it is. it's tactics. it's not social dancing.

how it worked for noni and i:
1) the stuff noni and i half planned didn't work, but the stuff we spontaneously threw in went well. the guy who won really followed his follow and he didn't plan ahead - he worked with the music.

2) someone needs to lead - i needed to take a more leaderly role with noni at some points - somebody needs to set the structure. even though it's fun to work both as follows, you need a bigger picture.

3) because you don't know who'll you'll get as a partner, what the music will be, or who else will be in the round with you, you really need to be flexible.

it was interesting to see that crinkle's partner had some issues with this stuff. i've found him increasingly difficult to dance with socially because he micromanages his follow (that and the fact that he's increasingly tense and rough in his upper body movements - ouch). he also plans steps in advance.
because of his relative inexperience, i noticed that he was rushing on to the next step without finishing the first one properly. and because follows are always a smidge behind the lead in the move (if they're actually following), this means he cuts them off before they're done.

there are a range of technical repercussions for this as well. he didn't allow her to fully commit her weight before he was yanking her in again. he also arm-led rather than moving his own arse. arm leads are a clear marker of a non-body-lead/dodgy-weight-transfer dancer, and they also tend to be an 'emergency' or 'panic' lead - leads tend to do them when they suddenly think they don't have time to execute the move they're planning.

the army lead also pops out in more experienced leads who do actually understand the principles at work - i know a few guys i dance with have a couple of army moves which are the result of:
a) learning them wrong in the first place;
b) getting lazy and not moving their arses (false economy: it's less work to move your arse a little bit than to yank with your army);
c) a tightness and lack of flexibility and looseness in the upper body which results in a compression of movmement, a failure to move their arse, and a yanky arm;
d) thinking through the step as they go, rather than moving their body to make the step work.
in the last case i feel the lead 'yank' me when they're thinking a step or two in advance and haven't actually taken the time to finish the first step properly.

this army lead stuff also results in a lack of 'boing' or 'zswoojsh' or 'rubber bandyness' or 'absorbyness' in the connection: it tends to be very jerky. it's also rough and hurts the follow's arm. mostly because the lead wants the follow to do the move NOW, or they're thinking ahead to the next step, rather than taking the time to figure out where her weight is and then to lead her with their own body movement and weight changes - a longer and more difficult process... though actually far more like our 'natural' movements!

on an aesthetic level, it's also kind of displeasing: we don't get to see the follow take time and really work her stuff - she's constantly rushing to complete moves he's not left her enough time to do. this totally sucks for crinkle, as she's an active follow who really contributes to a dance, and has some awesome shit to pull out. plus you just want to keep her out there in open as long as possible so you can see this sort of action.

all this was partly nerves on crinkle's partner's part, but it also exemplified his general dance issues. his not doing lindy hop classes lately is also a contributing factor, as is his focus on balboa and patent misunderstanding of the foundational principles of bal: it's the same as lindy hop, just in closer contact with your partner. i think he could do with a good dose of blues dancing to fix up his technique. i reckon i could help him figure out his issues... but i'm sure he'd never be interested in that. he's at the 2year stage and a bit full of himself.

ah,the follies of youth.
and the presumption of theory?

this whole issue of a 'difficult lead' in that situation, where you really have to make it work, is what do you do to get the most out of that dance?
how can you make it possible to win?

1) you could say something to your partner - but you don't have time to 'fix' it, and you don't want them any more nervous than they are.
2) you could adjust your dancing to suit. this sticks in the craw of any active follow with a brain, but still...

how then, would you adjust your own dancing to make it work?

3) you need to work within the limits of your partner's leading. which crinkle did really well.
4) you need to take a bit of time - i would try playing up to the idea that he's a bit uptight, and perhaps 'performing' an 'intransigent' follow role to his 'strict' lead. this could go pear-shaped very easily. it would involve stealing steps, breaking away, etc. all things which this particular lead's style make very very difficult (if not impossible), and his personality makes difficult to explore - he could quite easily get shitty and that would fukk it up for everyone. you need him to work with you (ie lead/follow) and respond to your playing about. but i guess if he did that, he'd already be doing that and we wouldn't have the problem in the first place...

sigh.
something to work on, i guess.

i will post some pictures the squeeze took as soon as i can get into them on the mac. a thousand curses on iphoto, the worst, absolute WORST photo database thingy in the world. we like picasa here.

Posted by Dogpossum on April 13, 2005 01:06 PM