leading

The truth about leading and following

Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed something: people have the wrong idea about leading and following. I see students all the time who dance with an unspoken but implicit assumption about what it means to lead and to follow, and it  causes all sorts of problems for their technique and movement. These people think that “leading” means physically moving a follower and “following” means being physically moved by the leader.

This isn’t surprising. Think about how most dance classes are taught. We teach patterns that reinforce the idea that the leader moves the follower through a predetermined set of movements. The leader is in control and is responsible for moving the follower where she needs to be. Followers can style and embellish, but the leader is in charge of moving her. In fact, most new leaders think the ultimate aim of being a great dancer is to learn more – and more complicated – patterns, and new followers are overly concerned with where to go to execute the leaders’ patterns correctly. This is something we teach people, overriding what we instinctively know about how to lead and follow correctly.

As a result, leaders focus too much on moving the follower, followers focus too much on what the leader is trying to lead, and neither focus enough on moving themselves. This mindset produces things like tight arms and arm leads, imbalance and instability, over-leading, slow or heavy followers, poor execution of turns, and an over-reliance on the partner that detracts from individual expression and connecting with the music.

So what then, is the correct definition of lead and follow? I’ve come to realize that it is this: leading is moving your own body in a way that communicates something to the follower, and following is moving yourself in response to what you feel from the leader (and vice versa, responding as a leader and communicating as a follower). For both roles, the focus should be on the self – moving your own body to communicate and respond – rather than on moving or being moved by someone else.

My own dance journey has helped me to understand the appropriate role for each partner. I started out, like many, aspiring to have the coolest moves in town. As a matter of fact, a top champion saw me in my early days, complimented my dancing, and added, “Now you just need some big moves.” And as I advanced, I worried that my repertoire wasn’t big enough or complicated enough to be a great dancer. And as a result, I was often catering to my follower, rather than claiming my own place in the dance. But of course, the best dancers are the best because of their ability to lead and follow, and it stems from knowing how to move themselves so well that they can accomplish more with a partner to the music. In the past year, as I pushed myself further in this dance, I came to see that the path forward was about mastering my own movement and expression to create something better with my partner. The focus was not on what to do with my partner, but what to do with myself – to raise my quality of movement, to improve my own musical expression, and to better define my position as a leader in the dance. In the end, the more I focused on my own movement, the more I could communicate and the more I could achieve with a partner.

Focusing on your own movement means taking responsibility for yourself, and that results in greater balance, clearer weight transfers, and thus better connection. It also means we are less dependent on our partners, freeing us to be more expressive and communicative in the dance, and to create something more dynamic yet comfortable with our partner.

So take control of your own movement. Focus on raising your own quality of movement and worry less about your partner. If we all take care of ourselves, we will be better partners in the end.

Are you dependent on your partner? Are you a leader who focuses on moving your follower through patterns? Are you a follower who worries too much about what your leader wants? Are you in tune with your own movement and expression? Teachers, is the way you teach reinforcing an unhealthy dependency between the partners? Do you help your students stay focused on their own movement while dancing with a partner?

What happened to the slot?

So, from everything I’ve been taught, West Coast Swing is a slotted dance.

Yet I feel like these days I’m seeing more and more leaders not really leading the follower down the slot. They either don’t really lead much or they give rotational and lateral leads.

At the same time I’m seeing more and more followers not really going down to the end of the slot. They either don’t go to the end of the slot or they aren’t back-weighted when they get there.

And I’m seeing more and more dancers move the dance all around, and even when they’re just shifting, bending, or scrolling the slot, it happens with such frequency that the dance starts to look less linear and more circular.

In my classes I emphasize the importance of a clear, linear lead for the leaders and of going to the end of the slot and anchoring for the followers. And when I’ve studied with top champions, many have reinforced the importance of defining the slot. So what’s happening? And equally important, what does this mean for the dance?

This could just be a phase, like so many fads in our community that come and go (remember swango?). Or maybe it’s an evolution of the dance, influenced by dancers and music that push the limits and boundaries of what’s possible. (Dances like Carolina Shag and DC Hand Dancing were spot dances that became slotted under the influence of West Coast Swing.) Or maybe I’m just seeing a lot of poor technique and poor mechanics. (Ebonics: a new language or just poor grammar?)

Yes, I’m a technician and a stickler for good mechanics, but I’m not against an evolution of the dance. Heck, West Coast Swing itself is an evolution of Lindy Hop, and it has always been evolving – adapting to new music, new technical knowledge, and new influences. And the definition of West Coast Swing, let alone swing, has always been the subject of debate among purists and progressives alike.

In my view, though, I think it’s important to learn the rules before you bend or break them. And when they are broken, it should then be done with purpose and intent, not because you never learned them in the first place. Besides, I think it’s important to know our history and to understand where we came from so that we can better understand where we’re going (or might possibly go).

For my part, I’m going to keep teaching my students about the importance of the slot and linear mechanics, but I’m also going to pay attention to those who are playing with slot dynamics. And I’m going to keep hoping that people will better define the slot in their dancing before they venture to change it.

Is anyone else noticing this change in the mechanics or shape of the dance? Do you think this is just poor technique or pushing the limits of what West Coast Swing is? And does it matter at all?

The paradigm of leading and following

Lately I’ve been working with my students on dancing in closed position to work on improving their lead/follow, body movement, and musicality. Despite the fact that I had the partners dancing nearly body-to-body, center-to-center, nevertheless, without fail, many if not most of the leaders would try to use their arms to move the follower, and many of the followers would try to guess where the leader was going.

In my view, this behavior is symptomatic of the general paradigm by which we often dance: the leader moves the follower, and the follower goes where the leader wants her to go.

Think about that for a moment.

The leader moves the follower. He is responsible for moving her from one place to another. Not the follower herself, but the leader does the moving. And the follower goes where the leader wants her to go. Where he wants her to go. The priority is on what the leader wants. And so the leader spends his time focused on moving the follower, and the follower spends her time focused on what the leader wants. And this was playing out in class, where the students were dancing in closed position.

The challenge is to shift our thinking about the role of the partners and the dynamic between them. Leaders should be focused on moving not their partners but their own bodies, and letting the follower respond (aka “body lead”). And followers shouldn’t be trying to read his mind but rather focus on moving themselves in response to what they feel from the leader (aka “following”).

This is a subtle distinction, but watch how many people have a hard time doing it. Because after months or even years of living with the current paradigm, we so easily slip into what we already know and do. The new paradigm isn’t impossible or even too difficult. It just takes commitment, the right training, and lots of mindful effort. But man, think of how great partner dancing could be if we did change the paradigm…

Pay attention to the dynamic you set up in your own dancing, and watch others when you get the chance. Which paradigm are you dancing and seeing? What happens when you try dancing the new one? Teachers, how is your teaching – both the content and the manner – shaping your students’ understanding of the role of the partners and the dynamic between them?

The Joy of Blues Dancing

I’ve written before about how closed position creates more intimacy between the partners, and how it allows the partners to feel out one another together with the music.

Blues dancing is danced to slow blues – the kind that just begs for intimacy – and as such, it is danced primarily in closed position (depending on how much swing you mix into it). Learning blues dancing is a great way for all swing dancers to develop useful skills, such as leading and following, body movements, and musical interpretation.

Because the dance is in closed, blue dancing is a great way to understand leading and following. In closed position, the leader need only focus on the movement of his own body, and let the follower move with him. As a follower, she can learn to surrender to his lead and go with what she feels. With the centers close together, this dance is very much about dancing center to center.

Since the music is slower and in closed position, there is more time to explore body movement, rather than utilize patterns and footwork. With the partners’ bodies closer together, it is easier to communicate subtle movements, and it affords us the opportunity to really explore the music with different parts of our bodies.

Finally, because the music is slower, and because we’re in closed position, it allows us both the time and the freedom to focus on the music. Without the need to worry about leading and following patterns, we can get down to the fundamentals of movement to music.

Better body leads and follows, more body movements over patterns and footwork, and time to explore the music with your partner. Doesn’t that sound like a great recipe for amazing partner dancing?

Have you tried blues dancing? If so, how has it affected your understanding of swing dancing? Teachers, have you thought about using blues dancing to help your students focus on the fundamentals of swing dancing?

Where’s your head at?

As many of you know, I switched my teaching awhile ago from patterns to concepts around techniques, partnership, and musical interpretation. But as I work on these other things with students, I realized that outside of class and on the social dance floor, students are used to grounding their dance in patterns, and their mindset is very different under these circumstances. 

The way we teach the dance orients students to think of executing the minutiae of patterns, and in doing so, they lose the forest for the trees. We forget about the fundamentals of lead and follow, the mechanics of the dance, musical interpretation, and even body mechanics and partnership. The challenge then is to be able to execute movements while maintaining (if not elevating) your quality of movement, and that means not letting yourself get lost in the details. 
This month I taught whip variations of increasing complexity, with three goals in mind: (1) improve technique related to whips; (2) improve understanding of lead/follow and the mechanics of WCS; and (3) train students to maintain the first two while executing patterns through proper mindset. 
The challenge wasn’t easy, and I confess that not all of my experimentation worked, especially as we moved away from the basic whip to new variations. I noticed that how I taught – where I put emphasis and what words I used – affected the students, but also many of them have been trained as pattern dancers and are learning to form new mindsets and behaviors. Where they were most successful was when I was able to pull them up out of the details to the bigger and more universal concepts of the mechanics of the slot and lead/follow. But then, the trick is to keep them at that level over time…
How often do you get lost in the details of patterns? How do you see your dance as movements and not moves? Where does your mind gravitate while dancing and how does it affect your quality movement? Teachers, how do you instruct your students so they stay focused on concepts and techniques without succumbing to the details and repetition of patterns?