learning

Contradiction in terms

It happens more often than it should, to the detriment of the student, that two conflicting pieces of information are presented by two different teachers. This presents the student with a dilemma: in the pursuit of the “right” or “best” way of doing things, which one to choose?

I would argue that these types of conflicts are really simple misunderstandings. Contradictions are often either 1) two different ways of approaching the same fundamental idea, or 2) complementary rather than contradictory, usually a difference between technique and style.

For example, consider the notion of two centers. Skippy Blair is a prominent instructor who has done more than anyone else to create effective teaching tools for important technique and mechanics. Personally, I think she’s fantastic, and I think she has a gift for being able to communicate complex topics into easy-to-apply exercises (though I should note that I don’t always agree with the technique or ideas she teaches).

Skippy teaches that there are two centers: the Center of Mass (CM), located somewhere around the hips, and the Center Point of Balance (CPB), the point from which we move, located higher near the diaphragm. Like any good teacher, she helps the student to understand these concepts through practical exercises.

On the other hand, Mario Robau, an amazing dancer and an incredible teacher with a real gift for breaking things down into information people can readily digest, argues that there’s only one center, since, after all, it’s the center, which logically means there’s only one.

So who’s right?

I would argue that they both are. Mario is technically right: there is only one center to a given object, human or otherwise. And it is from this center that we move. However, we move from our center with forward pitch, meaning that our upper body is set slightly in front of our lower body (this is true both forwards and backwards). Thus, the two center explanation has great value as a teaching tool for people to mentally understand proper posture and pitch and translate it into a physical response. One teacher gave the straight truth, the other gave advice to produce a specific desired outcome. Both are being effective teachers in their own way.

Another seeming contradiction: heel first or toe first when walking forward. From a strictly mechanical perspective, as far as I’m concerned, this is a no-brainer: heel first. Why? Because that is how your body naturally moves, was designed to move, and how your body facilitates forward movement by rolling through the foot.

So why would someone teach toe-first? Simple: styling. Some people think it makes a nicer line to have a straight leg, others may think the music calls for it. The truth is that as long as you’re moving from your center and your feet are underneath you when you transfer weight, it doesn’t really matter whether you go heel first or toe first. They aren’t contradicting – it’s just two different ways of moving, one being the basic mechanics of walking and the other a stylization.

What other contradictions have you come across while learning to dance? Where does there seem to be a contradiction that is really two ways of approaching the same thing? Where does there seem to be a contradiction that is really the difference between fundamental technique and advanced style? Teachers, how do you reconcile the difference when asked about contradictions?

Looks aren’t everything… right?

Ever notice how good looking people tend to become better dancers faster? Or maybe it’s that better dancers are just better looking?

Could be just me, but it seems like young, attractive people move up the ranks pretty quickly – more quickly than others, sometimes more quickly than perhaps they should. Sure, there happen to be a lot of young, attractive dancers with a lot of talent, but it still raises some questions about how someone gets better and at what rate.

One could argue that attractive people get better faster because more people ask them to dance. Or maybe they have more confidence and thus are willing to take risks and try new things and become more expressive. Maybe they gain more confidence as they improve, and their confidence is what makes them seem more attractive. Or maybe as they get better they adopt the fashion trends and dress themselves better. Or maybe they just look better or our eyes are drawn to watching them simply because they are more attractive.

The flip side is that people who are better dancers may just be more attractive. A study was done demonstrating just that, and how dancing can be used as a demonstration of genetic fitness, helping us to choose a mate. So maybe the better you are, the more attractive you seem. The pros all seem to be pretty good looking, but maybe we just think that because of their dancing. Would the pros be as attractive if it weren’t for the way they can move?

In competition, looks can certainly play a factor: how you dress, how you present yourself, your attitude, your level of confidence – all of which can also make you more or less attractive. Studies have shown that the part of the brain that ultimately makes decisions is the primitive brain, the part that makes decisions based on primal needs related to survival. We know that while judging is based on certain criteria, there is also a high degree of intuition and emotion that goes into deciding what’s good dancing and what’s not. So despite our rational thoughts about technique and artistry, are judges letting their primal interests sway their judgment? Are judges ultimately making decisions based on their primal desire to procreate? The pretty ones get chosen because we would like to mate with them? What about judges who are the same sex as those they are judging? Are they also judging based on primal instincts, but making decisions not out of a desire to procreate but based on a fear of competition? The pretty ones are competition for mates, so they should be punished/eliminated? And if both forces are at work, shouldn’t they balance out so that attractive people do no better or worse than less attractive people?

Thinking about the last competition I went to, it’s probably just an illusion. If physical attractiveness were objectively measured, there’s probably just as many unattractive people in any division as attractive ones. Still, in a world as social as that of the social dances, attractiveness is likely to play as strong a role as it does in the rest of society. The “halo effect” is a cognitive bias whereby the perception of some positive quality (like attractiveness) gives rise to the perception of similar positive qualities. In this case, people who are attractive may be perceived to be “better” or more qualified than they actually are. Is this same principle being applied to dance? To what extent? What can or should be done about it, or is this just part of the world we live and dance in?

The mystery of frame

(Hi all – Apologies for the silence these past few weeks. My day job was eating up a lot of my time and I had to put this aside. However, I am now back and will post new entries more frequently, at least once or twice a week. Thanks for reading and responding! – Eric)

How many times have you heard an instructor use the word “frame” in a dance class? No doubt, plenty of times.

And how many times have you been told to “maintain your frame” or “don’t break frame” by an instructor? We all have at some time or another.

Now how many times have you heard a dance instructor actually give a definition of the word “frame” in a dance class? Think carefully. My guess is, for most of you, the answer is: never.

Think about what “frame” means to you, then post your best definitions here on this blog. What is the definition you know? What is the definition you use to dance? What is the definition of frame you use to teach? Share your answers here!

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year: time to think about what we hope to achieve by this time next year.

I’ve had dance resolutions before, some I’ve met and others I haven’t. They are all personal goals and they are all personal goals related to competition: making finals in my division, placing in the top three, moving out of a division, etc.

When making New Year’s resolutions, it helps to have “SMART” goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. I mean, I can say I want to be a world champion in three months, but odds are that’s a foolish resolution that will not be achieved. So we strive to set some goals for ourselves that can be met, that can be measured, and that can be achieved within a year’s time.

Which is why, I suppose, I set my goals based on competition. It’s hard for me to say, “I’ll be better at whips” or “Add more level changes to my dancing.” I suppose I could find an objective way to measure that (tape my dancing and record the number of “good” whips or level changes) but in many ways these goals remain subjective and/or difficult to measure. Competition, however, provides concrete measurements of my progress. Or does it?

Competition itself is subjective, and there’s a danger in judging our own dancing based on such an arena. Competition is another animal altogether, separate from social dancing, with a particular required skill set and its own set of values, all based solely on how you look. Does it provide some benchmarks? Sure. Do we aspire to be better competitors? Perhaps. Should competition be our only goals? I hope not.

Some people set specific goals like, “Be able to do 3 finger spins in a row,” which is specific, measurable, and perhaps realistic. But do these skills alone capture what we hope to be as dancers? I mean, what about feeling good? What about making our partners feel good? What about being better leaders or followers or being better at covering mistakes and making the dance work? What about being nicer, on the floor and off? What about fostering a greater sense of community, helping newcomers and reaching out to people we don’t know?

I offer this challenge: make resolutions for 2010, but keep in mind what kind of dancer you want to be and what kind of dance you want to create.

For me, sure, I want to be more expressive, I want to dance more through my patterns, I want to play with level changes, I’d like to discover some new “wow” moves, and, for goodness’ sake, I want to make finals in California some day. But I also want to dance with someone new (or someone I haven’t danced with in the last month) every time I go out, I want to dance with more newcomers, I want to dance with more people from different cities when I’m at events, and I want to make my partner smile at least once during each and every dance.

What are your dance resolutions for 2010?

The Curse of Knowledge

I recently picked up “Made To Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. The book explores why and how certain ideas “stick” and others don’t. One of the obstacles they cite to creating simple, sticky messages is the Curse of Knowledge: “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it…. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”

I vaguely remember being a non-dancer (it was about a decade ago). I have this faint memory of watching people dancing in a swing class and thinking, “Wow, that’s awesome! I wish I could do that!” but I had no idea what exactly they were doing. I remember too the first time I watched top dancers and could actually identify what they were dancing: a whip variation, a tuck variation, etc. My perspective would never be the same again.

Oftentimes during my dance career I have taken pause – either out of frustration with my own dancing or the scene as a whole – and tried to recall why it is I started doing this crazy dance thing in the first place. I wanted to have fun, to express music with my body, and my objective with each dance was simply to make the follower smile. Ah, those were the days. Of course, with time, my knowledge changed, and with it, my perspective and my objectives. Nothing wrong with that – it’s part of the natural learning curve and evolution of any dancer – but now I have the Curse of Knowledge.

I’ve seen many teachers – usually fantastic dancers who don’t teach regularly but others too – who teach well beyond the level of comprehension of their students: a symptom of the Curse of Knowledge. They are so knowledgeable that they fail to see things from a beginner’s perspective, and they don’t speak in a manner appropriate for beginners. They assume their students have the same knowledge and understanding of the dance that they do and they miss the simple, basic points that the students need to hear and learn most.

We all have the Curse of Knowledge – and the curse cannot be undone: I cannot unlearn something I’ve already learned. Can you remember what it was like to be a beginner? What were your perceptions? What was difficult for you to understand? What do you think are the key ideas and messages teachers should be focusing on for beginners?

Teachers, are you really looking at your lessons from the perspective of your students? Do you get trapped by the Curse of Knowledge? (Don’t we all, sometimes?) How can you reshape your lessons to focus on just one or two simple, key messages in each class?