Following on from:
How much lead and follow can be taught in a standard weekday class?
How much lead and follow can be taught in a standard weekday class?
What's the best way to teach Lead & Follow to Improvers & Intermediates?
What's the best way to teach Lead & Follow to Improvers & Intermediates?
The roles of lead and follow...
The roles of lead and follow...
Lead & Follow Workshop - Notes
Lead & Follow Workshop - Notes
lead and follow
lead and follow
I just found this:
Frequently Asked Questions about Lead and Follow
On The Way Dancing Is (mis)taught
http://www.eijkhout.net/lead_follow/...steaching.html
In particular:
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Most teachers teach dances rather than dancing, because it's easier. But the focus on steps in dance teaching may be the biggest single obstacle to the learning of dancing well. This is best summed up in the following quote: "Bad teachers taught me steps, great teachers taught me dancing." Learning the pattern of the week is not the key to success.
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Non-dancers tend to think that dancing is step-sequences. And the more step sequences they cram the more dancing they have learned. Teachers often succumb to this market pressure, and besides, anyone can teach step sequences but few can teach dancing.
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What some people like to marginalize as "styling" - posture, balance, weight change, appropriate force, basic timing and footwork, dancing with the music and with your partner ... these are the *essentials* of dancing. The rest is just so many patterns.
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Beginning men need a *lot* of help. And the best way their partners can help is to follow their lead, even if it's wrong, rather than "compensating" for a bad lead. This gives the leaders proper feedback.
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For the lady, being able to follow a weak leader is the mark of a good dancer.
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A good lead/follow is like a good conversation - you don't have to yell, you only need to talk. As you get better, all you really need to do is whisper. Leading is not to be misinterpreted as "pushing or pulling". Though poor followers often say, "If I have a strong leader I can follow", they would need the force of an "Arnold Schwartzenegger" (after he's properly warmed up) to move them across the floor. Equal sympathy goes to followers who encounter a leader who hasn't the foggiest of what he's trying to lead and can't move rhythmically to any music, doesn't know a slow from a quick and has no conception of what misery he is inflicting on his partner.
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Really Really good stuff in here ... I think.
Anyone care to agree???? Or disagree (Agreeably please!!!)
!an